Clear.

Attention returned to each other, I whisper, “I’m glad you’re here with me.” I’ve said so a few times already. “I like you—I mean, I more than like you, which you know…” Nervous flush bathes me, and I stare at him, panic-eyed.

He seems so put-together in this moment, and I’m still frazzled like an awkward mess. Yet, I love how he makes me feel utterly unraveled. As though he’s the only man who can reach a rare piece of me and pull and undo me at the seams.

“You know,” I add unhelpfully.

“I know,” he confirms.

“Good.” God, he’s hot. His whole unfaltering demeanor. His whole being.

He nods back, tension brewing. Thatcher studies me a beat longer. He has that look again. Like he’s staring directly into the brightest, hottest sun. “I want to ask you something that might be hard for you to answer.” He eyes the entryway, then me. “Later tonight?”

Curiosity has latched its sharp claws into me. “You can ask me now.” I whisper even more quietly. “If you think it’s safe to talk.” We hear footsteps above us and chatter in the distance, but the kitchen is ours in this second.

He sweeps our surroundings one more time, then nods. “We can now, if you really want.”

“I want to know.” I cage a breath in preparation. “Go ahead.”

His mouth dips towards my ear, his voice low and gentle. “Why are you afraid to love me?”

I shake my head on impulse, and a cold pain stabs my lungs. “I don’t…I’m…” I lean to the right.

“Watch out—Jane.” Thatcher lifts my hand higher. I nearly pressed my palm to the iron stovetop.

Hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I can’t blink or close my agape mouth, and I realize I’m pressed up against his chest.

I ran into his body for safety.

It overwhelms me, my throat swelling.

My wrist is still in his grasp, and he keeps my hand raised in the air. We both breathe heavily, and I manage to say, “Usually…I can articulate what I’m thinking, but what I’m feeling—what I feel for you is so inexplicably complex and I feel like nothing is coming out quite right. Just that alone…scares me in the best and worst way.” I wince at myself. “And that was a terrible non-answer.”

“No,” he refutes, his chest tightened like he’s controlling himself not to hold me. To touch me further and greater. He looks to the right, then back to me. “I understand.” He softens his gaze on me. “Look, I’m crawling through this with you—” He cuts himself off and his features lose all emotion, completely professional. “Be careful, Jane.” He’s still clutching my wrist.

I frown, about to respond, but another voice slices into the kitchen.

“Whoa, Banks.” O’Malley rolls to a halt with an armful of firewood, and Quinn bypasses him with another bundle. The Epsilon bodyguard eagle-eyes Thatcher like he’s lost his mind.

Thatcher is surprisingly calm and casual. Like Banks would be. He lowers my arm to my side and steps back from my body. “What do you want?”

O’Malley lets out a soft laugh. “You’re three inches from your brother’s girl and that’s not bizarre to you?”

“I had to grab her before she touched the burner. She didn’t realize I turned it on.” He lifts a shoulder. “That’s it.”

I shoot O’Malley a look. “Why? What’d you think Banks was doing?” I’m still a client, and he treats me with more respect than he does Thatcher.

Apologies fill his eyes. “Sorry. My mistake, Jane. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He disappears towards the living room.

Alone again, worry bunches my brows. “Did he buy it?” I whisper. “Or was he just placating me?”

“He thinks I’m Banks.” Thatcher sounds assured. “Whether he thinks Banks could be into you—I don’t know.”

I cringe. We knew it’d be a risk, but I don’t like the idea that Tony and O’Malley could believe I’m sleeping with both Moretti brothers. “Do you think we should be more careful?”

He shakes his head. “They’ll think what they want no matter what they see.”

I appraise our distance apart. “We aren’t that close,” I rationalize under my breath.

His lip nearly lifts, his arms woven over his chest.

I realize something horrific and my mouth falls.

His muscles contract. “Jane?”

“How are we going to have sex?” I whisper. “We can’t sleep in the same bedroom.”

He opens his mouth to reply, but Maximoff hikes into the kitchen, cell clutched in a gloved hand. “I just got off the phone with the owners.”

“And?” I turn more towards him.

“The heaters are broken, and no one can come out here for another couple days. So we’ll have to work with whatever’s here until then.”

“We’ll survive,” I say confidently. “There are enough brains and brawn here to make it two days in a cold house.”

He nods, slipping his phone in his back pocket, and his forest-green eyes ping from Thatcher to me, back to Thatcher, then me. Under his breath, he says, “You two should…” He makes a motion with his hands for us to separate.

Thatcher backs up and adds more cold space between our bodies.

I try not to shiver. “We’re not that close,” I tell Moffy.

He makes a face like I’m no longer residing on Earth.

Possibly Thatcher is a magnet and I’m pulled in no matter the occasion, and I’ve really lost all sense of reality. And measurements. Spatial measurements.

Because three inches from him to me doesn’t feel close enough. God, even zero inches is far too little. I desire him closer, deep in the epicenter of my soul, and it’s absolutely…

Petrifying.

“Janie,” Maximoff says. “You look flushed.”

Oh no.

I’m wide-eyed on my boyfriend.

“She’s okay,” Thatcher assures my best friend. “We have this handled.”

I perch my hands on my hips and take a more confident breath. “Yes, we do.”

“Alright.” Maximoff trusts us, and he smiles at me and leans in close to whisper, “Have fun with your boyfriend.”

I smile brighter. “I will. You have fun with your fiancé.”

He grimaces, crinkling his nose. “I won’t.”

I laugh. Maximoff looks lovesick and Farrow isn’t even in the kitchen.

He stops at the doorway before he leaves. “How are we on groceries?” He gestures to the fridge, tapping into his survival-mode.

“Stocked up for about two days. We’ll have to go to the store again.” The nearest market is about an hour drive from Mackintosh House, so it’ll be a trek.

“Moffy! Where’s my duffel bag?!” Luna calls from upstairs. Maximoff excuses himself to go help his sister.

Thatcher faces me. “What you were asking before.” He speaks vaguely, but I remember. Sex. “We’ll work it ou

t.”

My brows jump. “So it’s going to happen?” I raise my hands. “Just for clarification. Because it’s important that it does happen—I want it to happen, I mean.” I’m word vomiting, and I stop as Donnelly strolls into the kitchen.

He carries two woolen tartan blankets, plaid with a red base and deep green lines. “Want what to happen?” he asks us.

“Nothing,” I say. “Absolutely nothing to happen. It was a figure of speech.”

Donnelly frowns. “Really? ‘Cause I thought you were talking about sex.” He walks off ever so casually like he didn’t just explode a miniature bomb at my feet.

Thatcher shakes his head, watching him leave. He mumbles an Italian word under his breath and glances back to me. “For clarification,” he tells me. “It’s going to happen.” He reaches an arm closer to me, and I breathe in sharp.

Our eyes lock as he switches off the burner, his fingers brushing against my elbow. I’m still warm, and his body emits rolling waves of heat. I think he might lean closer.

I think he might whisper something dirtier like, my cock in your pussy.

His gaze consumes mine and holds me and hoists me and pushes up against me—but we aren’t touching. We aren’t speaking.

I ache and ache, soaked and ready for him. I swallow, cross my ankles, and I lean further away from my boyfriend.

He notices and nods like I’m doing well. This is the plan. But as he departs for the pantry, his body heat is replaced with a sudden biting cold.

18

THATCHER MORETTI

Being iced out by Akara Kitsuwon feels like subzero winds barreling down on exposed flesh. It’s different than the silent treatment that Jane delivered last summer. This one is layered with baggage and un-mendable things.

And pretending to be Banks—it has major downsides. Namely, I can’t sleep in Jane’s bedroom, and since my brother has no bad blood with Akara, room assignments played out like the invention of a new circle of hell.

My flaming hellscape consists of ugly burgundy wallpaper and two brass twin beds assigned to me and Akara.

I close the door, shutting out voices downstairs.

Tags: Krista Ritchie Like Us Romance
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