A Little Harmless Addiction(32)

The smile Evan gave his father-in-law was filled with affection. Evan had never really known his real father and his mother had been a drug addict. Each time Jocelyn saw him with the Aionas, she could sense the connection between May’s family and Evan.

“Do I have a choice?” Evan asked.

Danny shook his head. “Not really.”

Feeling like an interloper, she started to move out of the booth. “Why don’t I let y’all have a family dinner? I was supposed to eat with Chris and Cynthia, but she was kind of queasy so they went home.”

Danny patted her hand. “No, you join us. We need a lovely lady to make dinner enjoyable.”

She glanced at Kai but his face still held no expression.

“Sure, darlin’. May says we always need a woman around to keep us in line,” Evan said.

“Okay.” She didn’t dare look at Kai while they were hustled out to a bigger table. Of course, Danny worked it so that Kai and she were sitting together.

“I’m sorry,” he said, leaning so close she could feel his heat. It took all her control not to lean closer and rub up against him.

She looked up. “What for?”

He grimaced. “I know this wasn’t in the plans for your evening.”

“What, dinner with five very attractive men.” She smiled at the table, then looked at Kai again. “I wasn’t raised to be a fool. And only a fool would turn down this kind of invitation.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but May walked up to the table and started taking their orders. Jocelyn settled back and decided she would make it through the night without jumping his bones.



“Kai, why don’t you walk Jocelyn to her car,” his father said.

Heat filled Kai’s face. God, his family never had any kind of subtlety.

He noticed that Jocelyn paused in pulling on her sweater. But other than that, she said nothing.

“If Jocelyn doesn’t mind.”

She gave him an innocent smile. “Why would I mind?”

She stood and then went to the end of the table where his father sat. He stood and she gave him a hug. “Thank you for the wonderful evening, Danny.”

“I paid.”

She sent Evan a snarky smile. “Yeah, well, who would have paid if we had been alone?”

“You’re as bad as your brother so I know I would have.”

She laughed and walked to him. She leaned down, hugged him from behind and kissed his cheek. Kai knew it was a brotherly affection, but he felt a jab of irritation when Evan whispered something in her ear. Nodding, she stood up and looked at him.

“Ready?”

He nodded and followed her through the door. It was hard to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other. It had taken every brain cell he had to concentrate since he’d walked into Dupree’s and seen her sitting across the table from his brother-in-law. What she was wearing didn’t help. As usual, it was bright. Neon pink sleeveless shirt, tucked into very worn blue jean shorts. And those legs…they went on for fucking forever. He had been dreaming of them wrapped around his waist.

“I hope you don’t think I planned what happened tonight.”

His brain wasn’t really working so it took him a minute to figure out just what she was saying. It was kind of hard to form words when there was no blood in your brain.

“Uh, I didn’t think that.”

She relaxed as she walked beside him. “Good. While I’ve gotten to be very fond of your father, I would never work with him to trap you into spending time with me.”

He looked at her profile, trying to figure out if she was joking. When he saw nothing on her face to tell she was, he shook his head.

“You don’t have to trap me to spend time with me.”

They reached the rental he recognized. She rummaged through her purse.

“You could have fooled me.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

She pulled her keys out of her purse and frowned at him. “You haven’t called me in over a week. I kissed you and you gave me the crap about me being ready.”

He almost reacted to the anger but he could see the pain beneath it. He had never expected to hurt her.

“I told you to let me know when you were ready for more.”

She narrowed her eyes and even in the dim parking lot light, he could see her irritation. “Really? So you’re not avoiding me?”

Of course he was. If he had spent any time with her, he wouldn’t have been able to keep his hands off her. But he knew better than to tell her the truth.

“No.”

“So you just avoid the days I’m working at the bakery?”

He couldn’t think of anything to say.

She brushed past him to the driver side of the car. “Never mind. Listen, I am not some kind of charity case. I won’t bother you anymore.”