“Now, that’s just a flat-out lie, and as a policy, I don’t accept lies. Give me one reason why we shouldn’t continue sleeping together. Make it good.” He ambled to the oven to check on the chicken nuggets.
“I’ll give you a handful, just because I’m generous like that. One—you’re best friends with my ex, with whom I might get into a legal dispute with over our son.”
Cruz pulled the tray with the steaming chicken nuggets from the oven, waving me off. “Calling Rob more than an acquaintance at this point is a stretch. I met him for dinner because my mother invited him. We’re not going to shoot the shit anytime soon, and anyway, it will never go as far as a legal dispute, because Rob knows everyone in town would kill him if he pulled anything shitty.”
I snorted. “Yeah, because I’m Fairhope’s favorite darling.”
“No, but you’re the one who stayed and sucked it up. People’s loyalty lies with you, even if you’re not their choice for citizen of the year. Next reason, please.”
I let out a quick breath. Could it be that simple? “Gabriella. You’re still in contact with her.”
“She calls every now and then. What am I supposed to do, hang up the phone in her ear? So what?”
“She thinks you’re getting back together.”
“I think nudist beaches should be opened for hot people only. So what if she thinks something? It hardly makes it true. Neeeext.”
“Your mother is starting to suspect we’re sleeping together,” I hurried to point out, watching as he set three plates at the round, chipped dining table in my kitchen, inviting himself to stay. “She insinuated as much when we were on the cruise.”
“While you wouldn’t be my mother’s first choice of daughter-in-law, it is not her business who I sleep with or who I choose to live the rest of my life with. Don’t worry your pretty head with things that have nothing to do with you. Now that that’s settled…”
“Wait, I have more!”
He grabbed me by the waist, picked me up, and removed me from blocking the fridge with ease, placing me by the counter and opening the fridge to pull out a bottle of Diet Coke. He set three glasses on the table, too.
“I’m listening.”
“Trinity specifically asked me not to start anything with you. She doesn’t want any wedding complications.”
That made him freeze mid-stride. He turned around slowly, his jaw ticking again as he watched me through narrowed, hawk-like eyes.
“You mean our lives are now being managed by a ditzy twenty-five-year-old who cannot even recognize a class-A douchebag when one asks her to marry him?”
He had a point, but it wasn’t that simple. Trinity was my sister. I couldn’t go against my entire family for a fling.
I swallowed hard.
Cruz set the Coke on the table, making his way toward me with purpose and confidence. I knew Bear could come in any second now, and the thrill of getting caught made my pulse quicken. But it was more than that—I’d missed Cruz.
Every nerve in my body tingled when I thought about Cruz’s hands on me. Again. His big, strong body against mine. He parked his arms on either side of me on the countertop, his lips an inch from mine.
“I’m sick and tired of people telling me what I should and shouldn’t do. How I should and shouldn’t act. I want you, and you want me, and that should be enough. Am I understood?”
I never thought I’d be one of those women who’d take a liking to the possessive, Me-Tarzan-You-Jane alpha male. But in that moment, when I could feel his erection pressing against my middle, when his eyes were liquid velvet, so blue you could drown in them, I knew there was a fairly good chance I was going to hump his leg.
Tilting my chin up, my lips moved over his.
“As long as you keep your mouth shut and don’t tell anyone, I might keep you as temporary entertainment,” I murmured.
Ah, why not? Let’s admit it. I was never going to remember to charge that vibrator.
“Define temporary.” His lips were on mine when he spoke, and it felt divine.
“A few weeks.”
“No. Details to be discussed.”
“You’re missing the point of temporary entertainment.”