How to Live with Temptation by Fiona Brand

Author:Fiona Brand
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2020-11-25T19:49:09+00:00

Nine

Heat flooded Allegra, almost welding her to the spot. She met Tobias’s gaze boldly. “I thought you didn’t want a relationship.”

“It’s more that I don’t want to want one,” he ground out.

“That makes it worse!”

His head dipped, and she felt the edge of his teeth on one lobe. Sensation arced through her. The passionate moments on her bedroom balcony replayed through her mind. She needed to move, now. The conversation had gotten too personal and, when it came to Tobias, her willpower wasn’t good. This close, she was reminded of the night they’d spent together, of how good it had felt before everything had gone so horribly wrong.

She drew back. “What makes you think I still want you?”

“This.” He brushed his mouth across hers.

She drew an impeded breath. “That’s not fair.”

Tobias picked up a strand of hair and wound it around his finger, tugging lightly. “Believe me, if I could control whatever it is that happens to me when you’re around, I would.”

That wasn’t what she wanted to hear, that she was someone he was unwillingly attracted to, rather than someone he could have a genuine relationship with. But, along with the hurt, there was a glimmer of light at the end of a long, dark corridor. “But you do want me.”

And, ever since they’d first slept together, he hadn’t been able to stop wanting her. It wasn’t much, it wasn’t enough, but it was something.

“Six years now, and counting.”

Her breath came in. She had expected him to say two years, not six.

Six years ago, she’d had her first holiday in Miami. It had been a gift from Esmae to celebrate the successful completion of her first year at Stanford. It had also been the start of her crush on Tobias, who, at that point, had used to keep his yacht moored off the end of Esmae’s pier. Allegra had used to sit on the beach with her sunglasses and a magazine and try to pretend that she wasn’t fascinated and a little heartsick that Tobias always had his beautiful blond girlfriend in tow.

Her aunt had been kind enough to invite her back during subsequent summer breaks. In all of that time, Tobias, who had always been cool and distant, had barely seemed to notice her. Until they had ended up sitting on the same log at a beach party that had followed the more formal birthday party Esmae had thrown.

She planted her palms on the warm, hard muscle of his chest. “Then why did you walk away after our night together? Don’t tell me it was because of the Jebediah and Alexandra thing.”

“To be honest, that never entered my mind—”

“Because it doesn’t apply to us,” she said fiercely “It never has.”

He pulled her close, and she let him, suddenly needing to feel that the wanting was real.

“I’d broken up with Lindsay a couple of weeks earlier—”

“The tall, blond girl you were engaged to?”

And, suddenly, she got it. He had said six years, which meant he had wanted her while he had been in a relationship with Lindsay.

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