His confession was the same as Tiffany had said that very morning. Although she knew it probably wasn’t good manners, Kylie couldn’t help asking, “Why?”
He shrugged. “For a number of reasons but I can probably sum it up in one rationale.”
“Which is?”
“Lack of interest.”
Kylie knew all about lack of interest. She’d been dealing with it for over fifteen years. She hadn’t wanted the drama of getting into a hot and heavy relationship with someone, nor had she wanted to expose Tiffany to the drama, either. “Oh, I see.”
“Do you?”
Nervously, Kylie stared down at her hands, confused by a lot of questions, the main one being why she was more attracted to Chance than any other man. She lifted her head. “Then maybe I don’t see after all.”
Her heart began racing when he started crossing the room. When he came to a stop directly in front of her, he placed his finger under her chin, lifting her gaze to meet his. “In that case, for us to go to lunch together is a rather good idea.”
She was warmed by his touch. “Why would you think that?”
“Because it would make things easier for us on Sunday if we were honest with ourselves about a few things now.”
Kylie’s eyes clung to his, knowing he was right. There was no need to play dumb. There was something happening between them that she didn’t need or want, but it was happening anyway. And they needed to get it out in the open, talk about it and put a stop to it before it went any further. How could they help their kids battle lust when they’d found themselves in the same boat?
She drew in a deep breath. “All right, if you’ll give me a second, I need to close up and put the Out to Lunch sign on the door.”
He nodded. “Take your time. I’m not going anywhere.”
Chance stood to the side while Kylie went about closing her shop. His eyes roamed over her with more than mild intensity. For some reason, today she looked even younger than she had the other days. She was wearing shorts and a top again, and he thought her legs were just as shapely as he remembered and her body just as curvy.
He couldn’t help the desire that quickly escalated to extreme hunger and hit him in the gut. For one intense moment, he felt a burning desire to walk across the room and take her mouth with his. The need to taste her was driving him insane.
“I’m ready.”
He blinked, realizing she had spoken. He inhaled a calming breath and fought for composure. He was ready, too, but doubted they were ready for the same thing.
“One of these days I’ll take you to a place that serves something other than hamburgers and fries.”
Kylie smiled as he led the way to their table. To save time they had decided to grab a quick lunch at Burger King. “I don’t mind,” she said, as butterflies began floating around in her stomach. Did he realize he’d just insinuated that he would be taking her out again?
“It’s not too crowded,” he said, pulling the chair out for her.
“No, I guess the lunch crowd has come and gone.”
“Which is fine with me. Before I go order, I think I need to do this.” He pulled off his tie and stuffed it into the pocket of his jacket. Then he reached for the top of his shirt and worked a couple of buttons through the holes. “I’m a little too overdressed for this place.”
Kylie watched as he walked off toward the counter, thinking that an overdressed Chance was the last thing on her mind. Thoughts of an undressed Chance seemed to be cemented into her brain. In a suit it he looked handsome, professional and suave. And she would bet that even in a pair of jeans and a shirt he would look rugged and sexy. She didn’t want to think about how he would look without any clothes on at all. But she had, several times, day and night, and that wasn’t good.
It didn’t take long for him to return and they began digging into their food. It was only when they were halfway through their meal that Chance spoke. He leaned in close, smiled and said, “I was wondering about something.”
“What?”
“Since we’ve assigned ourselves the task of monitoring our kids’ behavior, to make sure they stay out of trouble, whom should we assign to do the same thing for us?”
Chapter 4
That was a good question, Kylie thought as she held Chance’s gaze from across the table. Who would make sure the two of them stayed out of trouble?
The smile on Chance’s lips matched the one in his eyes. Still, she knew that, like her, Chance realized this was a serious discussion. A part of her wished she could forget that he was Marcus’s father and that they’d met because of their children. But she couldn’t forget, even while her attention focused on nothing but the shape of his mouth. It taunted her to lean in and cop a taste.
She drew in a deep breath, trying to regain control, and got a sniff of his cologne. The manly scent of him was unnerving, totally sexy.
“Don’t look at me like that, Kylie.”
She blinked and saw more than a bare hint of challenge in his eyes. She didn’t have to wonder just how she’d been looking at him. The throb between her legs told the whole story and then some. It was a deep ache and it was all she could do from asking him to relieve her of her pain.
She was astounded with her lack of strength where Chance was concerned and wished she could ignore how he made her feel, dismiss the longings he stirred inside of her. But at the moment she couldn’t. At least not while her heart was beating a mile a minute and the heat was taking her body to an intolerable degree.
Regardless, she knew she had to fight temptation and take control. She wasn’t a lustful teenager. She was a grown woman of thirty-one. A woman with a teenage daughter she should be concerned about. Tiffany was important. Tiffany was the only thing that mattered.
With all the strength she could muster, she broke eye contact and busied herself with pulling napkins out of the holder. “I don’t want this, Chance,” she said, knowing he knew full well what she meant.
He nodded. “To be honest with you, I don’t want it, either, Kylie. So tell me how we can stop it.”
She shrugged. It wasn’t as if she had any answers. She was definitely lurking in uncharted territory. The only thing she knew was that around him she had the tendency to feel things she’d never felt before. No man had ever made her breathless, excited and hot. When it came to the opposite sex, she felt just as inexperienced as her daughter. Oh, sure, she’d engaged in sex before, and at the time she’d thought it was pretty good, once she’d gotten beyond the pain. But Sam had been just as young and inexperienced as she had been, and she figured what she’d always thought of as satisfaction was nothing more than an appeasement of her curiosity and the elation of finally reaching womanhood at the hands of someone she thought she loved.
But she wanted more than that for Tiffany. More than teenage lust eroding what could be a wonderful experience with the man she married. That was the reason she was sitting here, a little past one, with the sexiest man alive. It wasn’t about them. It was about their children. They needed to realize that and get back on track.
“I think the first thing we should do is to remember the reason we’re here in the first place. You have a business to run and so do I, but our kids take top priority. Nothing else. My wants and needs have always come second to my daughter’s and things will continue to be that way, Chance.”
She paused briefly before she continued. “It’s going to take the two of us working together to keep things from going crazy between Tiffany and Marcus. Shifting our concentration from them to us will