He didn’t do connections with other people. It was something of a personal rule, and he wasn’t some naive idiot who needed to lie down on a therapist’s couch to figure out why—he avoided relationships of all kinds because when you cared about people, they could hurt you. This had been his truth since before he could remember, and hitting the streets at age thirteen had locked it in.
Theo and his friendship had sneaked past John’s barriers, but after careful examination, John had decided that he could handle any potential fallout. Same with Jo.
What he felt for Meg, though? That was something best left unexplored, which was why he’d spent the past few months trying to ignore it.
Right now, watching the sway of her hips as she danced? As the primal urge to fight his competition for her thickened in his blood? Combined with the fact that he admired her, liked her?
He’d honed his self-control in iron for his whole life, but he was still only a man, and he wanted her with every fiber in his being.
Before he’d decided on a plan, he started toward them. He ignored the alarm that started shrieking in his head, warning him of the impending danger.
He’d built a very successful company that had made him very wealthy by going after what he wanted with laser focus.
And right now? Maybe he had an undiscovered masochistic streak that had him craving her company, even if he wasn’t ever going to do anything about it. Yeah, he must, because he found himself walking straight toward her.
He couldn’t have her, but the only thing he wanted was Meg.
IF THE MAN rocking his pelvis against her ass knew that Meg was going over her list of orders for the next day in her head while he got handsy, he probably wouldn’t have been too thrilled. And it wasn’t that he bored her or anything—she’d quite enjoyed their flirtation, which had started after he’d watched her down two shots in quick succession. He was hot, and she wasn’t immune to the sensation of his hardening erection pressing against her from behind.
It was just that she had a lot going on these days. Her brain was full, and she was tired. Or wired. She couldn’t tell anymore. Before she’d opened her small catering company, others had told her how proud she’d be, how nice it would feel to be her own boss and set her own hours. These things were true, but why hadn’t anyone told her how freaking hard it was? In the past, at the catering company she’d worked for since she was a teenager, there had always been someone high ranking to pass problems to.
Now? She was that high-ranking person. She was the end of the line. And while she was happy, it also meant that most of the time, there just weren’t enough hours in the day. Which sometimes led to multitasking...like working in her head while a hot guy tried to get into her pants.
Jo had all but dragged her out by the hair tonight, reminding her that after fighting so hard for her success, she should be enjoying it a bit, too. Meg knew her sister was right, but even two shots hadn’t been enough to clear her head.
Behind her, she felt Aaron—that was his name, right?—slide one of the hands resting on her hips down lower to toy with the hem of her short dress. The pads of his fingers were hard, the calloused skin of a man who worked with them for a living, and she liked the sensation of them scratching her skin. A thin ribbon of arousal spooled out in her belly, and she pressed back against him, making him groan.
“Want to get out of here?” he whispered against her ear. “My place is only a block away.”
She considered. Maybe some sweaty sex was just what she needed to clear her head. Aaron was hot, in a rough kind of way—his nose had the crooked lines of a brawler, and the body beneath his no-nonsense jeans and T-shirt promised that she wouldn’t be disappointed. She suspected that sex with him would be the same—straightforward, simple, a transaction that got them both off.
She could get down with that. She shifted in his arms so that she could reply in the affirmative, but as she did she found her gaze drawn toward the long, sticky surface of the bar. Gaze awareness, she thought it was called—that weird thing that happened when you sensed someone looking at you.
She wasn’t wrong. Someone was indeed looking at her, and when she saw him, she knew she wouldn’t be going home with Aaron tonight, or any other night.
Keeping one eye on her new admirer, she turned in Aaron’s arms, smiling up at him ruefully. “Not tonight, but thanks for the dance.”
He furrowed his brow momentarily, and Meg felt herself tense. Some men—not all men, but some—didn’t understand that a dance wasn’t a promise, that accepting the offer of a drink, or a flirtatious conversation, or the choice of a short skirt and high boots wasn’t a contract promising that they’d get their rocks off.
Aaron, however, shrugged good-naturedly after a moment of disappointment and took off into the crowd, in search of a woman who would take him up on that offer of simple sex. Meg exhaled a sigh of relief before turning back to where the other man still watched her, a slight smirk turning up the corners of his mouth.
“See something you like?” she asked with more than a hint of sarcasm as she approached him, signaling for the bartender. She didn’t expect him to answer, because they both knew the truth—they’d been hot for each other since the moment they’d met, but their moment had passed. She’d been sprinting forward with the opening of A Moveable Feast, managing a million details, but she still would have made the time for what she just knew would be toe-curling sex. He’d pulled back, though, just a bit, immersing himself in his role at Theo’s dating-app company, and the heat between them had turned itself down to a manageable simmer. Especially when Theo had made sure to take her aside and explain, in no uncertain terms, that while John was a great option for casual sex, he didn’t ever—ever—do more than that. And also that if John went anywhere near her, Theo would go after his testicles with Jo’s manicure scissors.
Meg had rolled her eyes, informed him that her tomboy sister didn’t own any of those and then punched him in the gut. He’d doubled over, wheezing, but she’d made her point—she made decisions about her own life. No one else.
However, when it came to sex, both parties had to agree, and since she suspected that Theo had given John that same “don’t touch my sister” chat, she was pretty sure that he no longer viewed her as a potential partner for sexual escapades.
It was just her luck that she’d run into him when she was keyed up from dancing with Aaron and had sex on the brain. It made it harder to ignore that knee-jerk punch of attraction.
Accepting the icy bottle of beer from the bartender, she took a long swallow, letting the crisp liquid cool her off. Thus fortified, she turned to face him, let herself take him in.
She was attracted to him, but she wasn’t so naive as to think that she was the only one. She’d have had to be blind not to appreciate the sheer perfection of his face. She’d grown up next door to Theo, who, while she’d sure never seen him that way, turned plenty of heads with that whole Latin lover thing he had going on. She’d dated men who were nice to look at, but John was just ridiculously good-looking. His skin was a smooth medium brown, and next to it his pale eyes—which were, of course, fringed with lashes long enough to make a woman weep—were impossible not to focus on. He kept his ebony hair buzzed down close to his head, letting the lean planes of his face take center stage, and his body was a continuation on the theme—the man obviously logged some serious gym time, because, well, damn.
It didn’t surprise her that half the women in Boston had reportedly dropped their panties the second he’d arrived in town.
Dammit. He caught her looking, and that smug little half smile deepened, making her stomach do a little flip.
Down,