Obsession (Steel Brothers Saga 2)

Subtle, Marj.

I looked at Talon. His lips were still quirked up.

“Some kind of setup, huh?” I said.

“You don’t have to stay.”

“Are you kidding? She dragged me away from an appointment, and I’m starving. I can’t resist a plateful of Felicia’s tamales. But honestly, you don’t have to sit with me and eat. I’m perfectly happy eating alone. I was going to be alone tonight anyway.”

“This is stupid. I’ll go get Marj to hang with you.”

My heart sank a little, but I hid it from Talon. “That’s fine. Tell her I’ll be out on the deck.”

I went to the kitchen, where Felicia presented me with a plateful of yummy tamales drenched in green chile “Here you go, Miss Jade. I’ve missed you around here.”

“I haven’t been gone very long yet.”

“I know. But I miss you anyway. It was nice to have another body around.”

I smiled. “Thanks. And thanks for dinner.” I took my plate out to the deck and sat down at one of the patio tables.

I dug into the tamales. Felicia made them in a Venezuelan style, with black and green olives, pork, and some carrots and peppers. They were then smothered with her green chile sauce. When I first came to the ranch, I had assumed Felicia was M

exican, because her Mexican food was so delicious and she had the darker Hispanic coloring. Turned out she was Puerto Rican, but she knew how to cook so many wonderful things. Her Italian cuisine was as good as anyone’s.

I didn’t look up when the French doors opened, assuming it was Marj.

Turned out it was Talon. He set a glass of wine in front of me and then took the seat across from me at the table.

I swallowed my mouthful of tamale, my pulse quickening. “Where’s Marj?”

“She wouldn’t come. Insisted I come out here and keep you company.”

I nodded. “That doesn’t surprise me. I…told Marj about us.”

He bit his lip. God, sexy.

“I know.”

“She hasn’t…talked to you about it, has she?”

“No. She’s my baby sister. It’s not really something brothers and sisters talk about. But she made it pretty clear when Julie showed up today that I wasn’t available.”

“Really? And how did you feel about that?”

“I have no interest in Julie, blue eyes. I never did.”

My skin tingled all over and I suppressed a smile. “But you fucked her.”

Talon let out a chuckle. “I’ve fucked a lot of women, Jade. You know that.”

“Have you fucked any since you and I…” I wasn’t sure how to finish that sentence. Since he and I what? I could’ve said fucked, but what we did was so much more than fucking. Was it making love? It was on my end, but I had no idea how he felt.

He cleared his throat. “No, I haven’t.”

I widened my eyes. Warm happiness blanketed me, along with some surprise. “All those nights you went off to Grand Junction? None of them ever ended in…”

He shook his head. “Honestly? I went to see Julie one of those nights. To try to take the edge off of my desire for you. It didn’t work out that way.”