Jill Shalvis - The Sweetest Thing

“Yes,” she said primly. “You?”

“I’m a work in progress, babe.” He slid her a bad boy smile. “Still hungry?”

Oh boy. “Yes,” she whispered.

He crooked a finger at her. “Come here, Goldilocks.”

“That would be… a really bad idea.”

“I can make it so bad it’s good.”

Gah. “You’ve got to stop that.”

“Stop what?” he asked.

Looking hot, she thought. Talking naughty.

Breathing.

As she turned to face the counter and set down the bag of chips, she grabbed a bottle of water and washed down the crumbs. She knew by the tingling at the base of her neck that Ford was right behind her now. Then he was so close that she could feel his body heat seeping through the shirt to her skin. She could have moved away, but the truth was, she was exactly where she wanted to be.

“Okay,” she said shakily. “Here’s the thing. I’m… still attracted to you.” Her breath shuddered out when he nudged her hair aside and brushed his lips along the nape of her neck. She locked her knees. Had to, in order to keep standing. “But I don’t want to sleep with you again.”

“And yet here you are,” he murmured against her skin. “On my boat. In the middle of the night.”

“Yeah. That looks bad,” Tara admitted. “But really, it was all about the chips.”

“And my shirt.” He ran a finger down her spine, stopping far below the line of decency, making her breath catch in the sudden silence. “How is it that you have it?” he asked, his hand on her ass.

She fought against the urge to thrust her bottom into his palm.

Or better yet, his crotch.

“Tara.”

She squeezed her eyes shut. “I stole it. The day I returned your crepe pan.”

“Look at me.”

No. No, thank you very much.

His hands settled on her hips and he turned her to face him. “Not that I don’t like the sight of you in the shirt,” he said. “Because I do. Very much. But you’ve been keeping your distance, and I’ve been trying to respect that. But you came to me tonight, so all bets are off. Tell me why you’re in my shirt.”

She nibbled on her lower lip. She didn’t have an answer. At least, not one she wanted to give him. “You gave me one just like it when you first got them.”

“I remember. I just didn’t realize you did as well.”

“Yes, well, I do. And I loved it,” she told him. “And I lost it in the fire. I really missed it. So when I saw yours…” She closed her eyes. “Hell, Ford. I can’t explain it. I lost my head and stole your damn shirt. There. You happy?”

“Hmm,” he said noncommittally. “The fire was six months ago.” He was still gripping her hips, his hands beneath the hem of the shirt now and his thumbs scraping lightly up and down on her bared belly, making her muscles quiver. “You had it all that time?”

“It was comfortable.”

He smiled at that. “Comfortable. You kept a shirt for seventeen years because it was comfortable.”

“Yes.”

“Liar. Such a beautiful liar.” Leaning in, he kissed her.

Soft.

A warm-up round.

She knew just how potent the next round would be, so she put her hand to his chest, not quite sure if she was stopping him or making sure he couldn’t stop.

In the silence, her stomach growled, and he grinned. “I stand corrected. You really are hungry.” Turning to the small refrigerator, he pulled out tortillas, grated cheese, and salsa.

“What are you doing?”

“Making you a quesadilla. I’d grill it, but I can’t do that in here.”

She watched as he stroked a spoonful of salsa onto the tortilla, then layered grated cheese over it. There was something about the way his hands moved, his concentration, the obvious ease that he felt in his kitchen, that got to her.

And he did get to her, in a big way.

He waited until she’d eaten the entire quesadilla to take the plate from her and then lifted her up to the counter. Eyes on hers, he stepped in between her thighs.

“I didn’t come here for this,” she whispered as he slowly lifted his shirt from her and peeled it off over her head.

“Your nose is going to start growing, Pinocchio,” he said, resting his hands on her waist.

“You didn’t eat anything,” she said inanely.

“Wasn’t hungry for a quesadilla.”

“What are you hungry for?”

His eyes were so heated that she felt her bones melt away. “Guess,” he said, and slid his hands up her thighs. He hooked his thumb in her panties and inched them down. Then he dropped to his knees and proceeded to show her.

Over and over again.

Tara stood alone in the inn’s kitchen in rare blessed silence. She was trying not to think about how many times Ford had taken her-and she him-last night before he’d walked her back to her bed at dawn.

Or how much he was coming to mean to her. Along with Mia. And her sisters. And Lucky Harbor…

It was all those strings that Ford had pointed out, tangling around her heart.

Damn strings. She didn’t want them. She wanted to be able to protect her heart as needed, and that was getting damn hard to do. At least with Ford, she knew what she was getting. A good time. Okay, a really good time. She’d meant for it to be nothing more but it was…

Chloe came into the room just as Tara was staring blindly into the refrigerator. “Hungry?”

“No,” Tara said. “Trying to decide between juice or the vodka.”

Chloe laughed. “Always the vodka. It’s fewer calories. But I’ve never actually considered vodka and OJ to be mutually exclusive. Go ahead, splurge, have both.”

“Hmm,” Tara said and pulled out the eggs.

“You’re probably starving from burning all those calories having wild animal sex last night, right?”

Tara nearly dropped the eggs before turning to stare at Chloe. “What?”

“Well, you came in at dawn with crazy hair and a ridiculously wide smile for someone who hates early mornings.” Chloe shrugged. “I figured it had to be sex. And given that it was Ford, I also figured it had to be a pretty fantastic night. It was Ford, right?”

“Oh my God,” Tara said. “Yes.”

Chloe grinned at the confession.

“Stop that,” Tara said. “We’re not talking about this.”

“Pretty please? It’s so much better than what I have to talk to you about.”

Tara opened her mouth to respond to that but Sawyer came in the back door with his usual long-legged stride. It faltered only slightly when he locked gazes with Chloe, whom he wasn’t used to seeing in the kitchen when he made his early morning coffee run.

Tara pulled out a to-go mug from a stack that she kept just for him and filled it up.

Chloe watched the process, including Sawyer’s quiet but grateful thank you, although she didn’t say a word until he was gone. “Why do you let him steal your coffee?”

“Because he’s a good man with a crappy job, that you make all the more difficult for him, by the way. I feel like I owe him.”

Chloe rolled her eyes. “Back to you, missy, and you’re just-got-laid expression. You should try to lose that. You know, for the children.”

Tara attempted to catch sight of herself in the steel door of the refrigerator. Damn, Chloe was right. She was glowing.

“Oh, and I borrowed your laptop this morning,” Chloe said casually, gathering strawberries, yogurt, and the blender.

“Don’t tell me you were looking at porn again,” Tara said. “You froze my computer last time you opened that See Channing Tatum Naked attachment.”

“Hey, anyone would have clicked on that, and it was a total hoax. I never even got to see him naked. And no, I didn’t do any of that today. I was just getting my mail. Oh, and I accidentally clicked on your Firefox history.”

“So?”

“So I happen to know you went to Facebook, created an account, and voted for Ford.”

Tara went still. “Did not.”

“Okay. But you did.”

Tara crossed her arms. “I’ll have you know that there’s not a single Tara Daniels on Facebook,” she said with confidence.

Chloe looked amused. “And you know this how, Tallulah Danielson? Tallulah? Danielson? Seriously? Because Jesus, if you ever find yourself with the need to go deep undercover again, I’m begging you, ask for help. And never consider a job with the FBI.”

Well, hell. This was embarrassing. Worse, she couldn’t come up with an excuse. Not a single one.

Oh! Temporary insanity. That would work. Or avoidance, Tara decided, and turned away from a grinning Chloe, only to come face to face with the man himself.

Ford. Who was also grinning. “Bless your heart, Tallulah,” he said.

Chloe laughed and walked across the room to hug him. “If you weren’t so totally hung up on her,” she told him, “I’d claim you for myself.”

Ford hugged her back. “It’s true. I’m totally hung up on her.”

Aw. And dammit, he really had to stop doing that, Tara thought, watching them, her heart going all mushy. It was all those little things that added up, like making her a quesadilla in the middle of the night, or the way he looked at her, like maybe she was a better sight than say his first cup of coffee in the morning. Or, in the case of how he was looking at her right now, like she was greatly amusing him. “You might have told me he was standing there,” Tara said to Chloe.

“I might have.”

Tara shook her head and looked at Ford. “I meant to vote for Logan. I hit the wrong button.”

Ford burst out laughing. He wore a T-shirt and Levi’s that were faded into a buttery softness and doing some nice things for his bod. He had a day of scruff on him and looked so utterly delectable that she found herself just staring.