Controlled Burn (Blackbridge Security 8)

“What are you doing?” Kendall snaps, and I look over at Kason, expecting him to get into trouble. “You’re just letting him climb the cabinets?”

Kason grins as if he’s a little proud that I’m the one in trouble instead of him.

Kendall walks across the room, grabbing her son by the waist and lowering him back to the floor.

“What if he fell?” she grits out.

I shrug. “He’d get hurt, and then he’d learn his lesson. After that, he’d probably never do it again.”

Kayleigh grins at me, nodding her head as if my reasoning makes perfect sense.

“Seriously?” Kendall snaps.

I don’t answer her because I get the vibe it’s a rhetorical question.

The kitchen is utter chaos of feeding the little people and cleaning up. Well, Kendall’s version of cleaning up I suppose. Then she leaves to take them to school.

My once pristine condo looks like a tornado ran through it.

There’s some green stuffed toy on the couch along with a bed pillow. The plastic dinosaur is still right where it was dropped on the floor. A glob of peanut butter is on the floor beside where Knox was sitting, and now, removing the shirt makes a lot more sense. Breakfast dishes are in the sink, and when I hazard a look, I see globs of blue, sparkly toothpaste in the hall bathroom sink.

I’m thinking the damn bird is less of an animal than those three kids. I had no clue what I was getting myself into. Since I’d never tell them to leave, I set about cleaning everything up. I close my eyes and walk out when I return the toys to the boys’ room and notice streaks of what appears to be blue crayon on the closet door.

I’m washing dishes and taking deep breaths when Kendall returns.

“You’re cleaning? You don’t have to do that.” She tries to hip bump me out from in front of the sink, but I don’t budge. I like the nearness of her body. “Seriously, move over. I was going to do that.”

“You left it,” I remind her.

“Have you ever tried to pick up after kids while they’re still around? It’s impossible. You have to wait for the tornado to move through and pick up after it’s done. Anything else is wasted energy.”

“I have absolutely no experience with children, Kendall.”

I conceded, handing over the sponge in my hand before taking a few steps away.

“Want to hit the gym?” she asks after scrubbing the remaining dishes as good as I would have. Maybe she isn’t a complete slob. The room she was in across the hall was as clean as a crammed room could be.

“Together?” I ask.

“Sure.”

I smile, backing away before suggesting the gray leggings. Maybe flirting will be allowed downstairs since she said I can’t do it up here. Maybe in the gym, we can go back to the single guy and sexy-as-hell woman instead of the single mom and the jerk who got her kicked out of her brother’s condo.

I leave the room with a smile and a head full of hope.

Chapter 13

Kendall

He has to be a mind reader. There’s no other reason for him to be wearing those same sweats he was wearing last night to our visit to the gym this morning.

He’s a distraction of the worst kind… or best, depending on my mood.

Right now, when my kids are at school and I don’t have any immediate issues to resolve, he’s the best kind of distraction.

The man isn’t even facing me, and I can’t keep my eyes off him as I walk on the treadmill. Doing any more would leave me flat on my face.

Seeing the front half of him when I got back with the kids and the ensuing conversation carried over into my mind last night before bed, but the back side of him, the one I have now with his muscular legs and high, tight ass is just as great a view.

I need to remember that I live with this man, and it’s out of duress on his part. I shouldn’t be focusing on him in any other way than to figure out how to keep him at arm’s length until I can move out, not that I want him closer to me after I’m able to accomplish that task.

Maybe it’s just me, but I can feel the sexual energy between the two of us all the way across the room from him. It’s like waves of energy, begging me to give in. I have no doubt that the man would be down for hooking up, and that might have been possible before, but now it just makes things messy. My life is complicated enough without opening the door my libido is begging to be thrown open.

I’m a grown woman capable of shelving those needs.

Or at least I thought I was because Finnegan catches me watching him do bicep curls in the mirror, and my arousal spikes when he widens his stance much the same way he did yesterday. My eyes drop to the reflection of his lower half, and I have to force myself to pull my gaze away. It doesn’t go far, just sliding up his torso and over the ripples of muscle displayed under his sweaty t-shirt until I’m meeting his knowing eyes once again.