Brother to the Boss (Managing the Bosses 8)

From the kitchen behind them, the oven timer dinged, and Jamie clapped her hands to get the attention of the various people gathered in the room. “That’s dinner,” she said, smiling when they all looked up at her, and Alex stepped back to let them make their way into the kitchen while Jamie pulled the roast out of the oven and set it in the center of the table where there were already steaming dishes of mashed potatoes and corn. When she turned, Mark had Benton in his arms, and Benton was giggling while his uncle tickled him under his chin. Christine was holding Lilli, murmuring to her in a voice too low for Jamie to hear.

Her dad had already sat down at the table, and Jamie dropped a hand on his shoulder as she passed by. He looked up and smiled. This, Jamie thought as Alex set the last of the water glasses in front of people and Mark and Christine got Lilli and Benton situated in their high chairs, is exactly what family should be. All of them together, laughing and smiling, and Alex home. It didn’t get more perfect than this.

She took a seat at the table and looked over the little gathering with a warm glow in her chest. “Thank you, guys, for coming tonight,” she said when the noise had settled enough that she could speak over it. “I know that I talked about a tradition of Sunday dinners before and that kind of fell apart, but I’d really like to start doing it again.”

“You all are welcome to come out to the country club some Sundays, too,” Mark said. “If you don’t feel like cooking.” His grin was shameless. He knew that Jamie hadn’t cooked.

She glared at him. “That’s so sweet, Mark.”

“Just doing my brotherly duty.”

“You going to cook when it’s your week?”

He stuck his tongue out at her.

“We could rotate,” Jamie’s father suggested. “Have one at my house sometimes, too.”

“That’d be great, Dad.”

“Now that that’s decided,” Alex said, “I’d like to actually eat.”

Jamie laughed at Mark’s eager nod of agreement, shaking her head. “All right. I won’t take up any more of your precious eating time. Dig in.”

They did, passing dishes back and forth and filling their plates. Before too long the sound of laughter was drifting up toward the ceiling, Mark apparently doing his best to make Christine smile, and looking smug every time he amused her with something ridiculous. He really was going to have to talk to Erica, Jamie thought, watching the other woman’s face every time Mark’s attention moved away from her, but she was glad to see her sister and her brother-in-law getting along. Before the twins were born, she hadn’t thought that she’d even be able to introduce Christine to Mark, let alone have them sitting together at the same table eating dinner without any fights erupting.

But here they were. All of them. Well, not quite. Jamie spared a moment’s thought for her mother, hoping that wherever she’d gone off to this time she was at least safe, but glad that they didn’t have to share the dinner with her. She’d done her best, and there just wasn’t any getting through to the older woman.

Alex’s hand bumped against hers, and Jamie looked up to find him watching her with concern, realizing that she’d gotten a little lost in her thoughts. She shook herself out of them.

“I’m just fine, baby. I was just thinking.”

He fed a bite of mashed potato to Benton and looked back at her. “What about?”

Down the table, Mark had gotten Erica to tell a story about some guy she’d apparently been instructing who had hit on her, and Christine was shaking her head, Jamie’s dad laughing. Jamie looked back at her husband and smiled a slow, wicked smile.

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Mr. Reid.”

His eyes darkened, and she felt a little shiver of pleasant heat. Suddenly, she hoped the dinner would go just a teeny bit faster.

***

By the time everyone left, Jamie was more than ready for it to be just the two of them. She waved as the door shut behind Mark and Erica, and then turned to lean against Alex’s chest. The twins had been put to bed an hour before with Christine’s help, and the house was quiet. Alex reached out, his fingertips brushing a stray lock of hair away from Jamie’s cheek and then trailing a soft line down her face.

“What do you think about heading upstairs?” he asked, like he didn’t already know the answer.

“Mmm.” Jamie closed her eyes, leaning her cheek into his warm palm. “That’s good by me.”

It amazed Jamie how little Alex needed to do to make her whole body just come alive. He had only touched her cheek, and already little shivers ran down her spine, already she imagined his hands on her neck and her back and her shoulders. Warmth was pooling under her skin. She wanted him already. But that was nothing new; she always wanted him.

“Jamie,” he said, voice low and a little rough, trailing his thumb across her mouth.

She flicked her tongue out to brush against it, then kissed the pad of it, feeling Alex shudder under the touch and smiling a little smugly at how easily she could affect him in return.

He stroked her face, moved in close enough that their noses were touching. With just a

bit of effort, their lips could be touching at any moment. Jamie almost leaned up to make it happen. Alex’s fingers trailed through her hair and then over the back of her neck, and Jamie sighed, shivering a little herself with the pleasure of it.

It was kind of ridiculous how much she wanted him. How easily and naturally her body responded to him, even to such little, simple things like the touch of his fingertips against her face and her neck. Weren’t married couples supposed to want less sex as time went on? It seemed like she was always wanting more, and Alex definitely hadn’t been complaining. He slid his palm along her spine.