Guarding Temptation by Talia Hibbert

Author:Talia Hibbert [Hibbert, Talia]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nixon House

Chapter Seven

They went home, stuffed their faces with pizza, and watched old Syfy reruns where the bad guys got stabbed or thrown into the centre of the sun or brainwashed with green goo every time. James watched Nina closely, noticed her sending furtive texts and staring into space with what he called her “thinking face” firmly in place. He worried and hoped in equal measures. Worried because earlier tonight, Nina had been scared, and he hated the rare sight of Nina scared.

Hoped because Nina was also brilliant. Her mind and her mean streak were both wicked-sharp—especially when provoked.

When bedtime rolled around, they slipped easily into a routine: cleaning the kitchen, sharing the bathroom, Nina humming as she brushed her teeth, James trying not to get attached to the domestic feel of it all.

He bid her goodnight, turned all the lights off, and checked his phone. There was an email from Markus. James winced, imagining how a conversation between them would go right now, if he had the balls to be honest.

Hey, man. You know how you asked me, last Christmas, if I was into your sister, and I laughed my arse off and asked you how the hell that would’ve happened? I lied. Sorry. Stay safe, by the way.

He left the email unopened.

Sleep was fitful, when it came, but he’d expected that. He wasn’t surprised when thoughts of Nina—protecting her, holding her, having her—kept him awake and restless on the squashed-up little sofa.

And he wasn’t shocked to find his hand sliding down to his hard cock again in the very early hours of the morning.

But somehow when Nina appeared in the doorway like a dream, like a wish, like a fantasy he didn’t deserve to taste—that was what knocked him on his arse.

He stared at her for a moment in the near darkness, like she might disappear if he waited long enough. But maybe this made sense. She’d been scared. She’d needed him. And she needed him still.

Send her away. Three times is a pattern. We can’t be a pattern.

But fuck, she looked so small and so alone, standing by the window. James sat up, swallowing hard as he took in the curls piled on top of her head, the eyes free of makeup and more vulnerable for it, the nervous slide of her hands over her bare thighs.

Although he must have that part wrong, somehow. Nina couldn’t actually be nervous. Nina was never nervous, and she had no reason to be that way with him. Did she?

The question nagged at him, set him on edge. Maybe that was why, when he meant to tell her to leave, he accidentally said, “Come here.”

She was standing in front of him in seconds, her body slotting into the space between his open knees like she belonged there. For a moment he couldn’t even see her scantily clad body—the shadow of her mound or the curve of her belly or the stiff tips of her nipples through her top—because he was way too focused on her face.

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