many laughs. Pretty sure I’m getting the better end of the deal.”
The skinny wooden poster wasn’t cutting it any longer to hide his reaction to her slow strokes. Alex fig-leafed his hands. “Any help—no matter how big or small—is much appreciated.”
She patted his chest before finally dropping her hand. “I’m paying back my new friends.”
For God’s sake, he just wanted to help distract her grandmother from chemo. Any man with a shred of decency would do the same. There was no quid pro quo.
“Sydney, you don’t have to pay me back for posing as your fiancé.”
A single eyebrow arched up. “Good, because I was talking about your sister and Everleigh. Or are you one of those men who think the world revolves around them?”
Hell. He’d really stepped in it without even realizing. “No. Nope. Definitely not. Just setting the record straight.”
“Okay.” Her response was more dismissive than wholly believable.
Alex needed to be sure she didn’t lump him in with egocentric jerks. It shouldn’t matter. If their ‘relationship’ wasn’t actually going anywhere.
But it did.
“I, ah, didn’t realize you’d gotten so friendly with them. That’s all.”
“Me, either. And then, suddenly, we were. It’s…nice,” she said, with a laugh.
“Good. I’m glad. They left behind a big circle of friends. It was hard for them, even if they were too excited about the move to admit it.” Every time he watched them work through challenges, small or big, it hurt. Hurt that he couldn’t help. Couldn’t protect them. Alex had already been worrying about how few people they knew here—and how few chances they had to interact, spending all their time inside the inn. “Any day now, the novelty of what we’re doing will wear off. We’ll enter the grind portion of our schedule. And they’d be lonely.”
Sydney’s other hand drifted slowly up until it landed on his bicep. “You really care. Deeply.”
“When it comes down to it, they’re both my sisters, in my heart. There’s no differentiation just because Everleigh doesn’t share our genes.”
She’d drifted closer. Now her warm breath puffed onto his shoulder when she spoke. “A lot of men wouldn’t muster up anything more than mild annoyance at their baby sister’s BFF.”
True. “Didn’t we just establish that I’m not other men?” Yeah, Alex let more than a little dark and devilish swagger drop into his voice. He was no saint, after all.
And Sydney was pushing him dangerously close to his limit.
“Yes. That’s becoming more and more clear.” Sydney lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “Which is why I plan on coming back to help with the actual painting. Because you deserve it for helping me—even if you don’t expect it.”
So there’d be the chance of more private encounters like this one? Sharing moments and jokes and intimate details in that way that always happened when a man and a woman who were attracted to each other were thrust together?
Oh, hell.
Alex shoved his hand through his still-wet hair. If he was lucky, that spiked it up. Made him look silly instead of sexy. “That’s really not necessary. Especially with the high school kids on tap. We’re all set.”
“Hardly.” Sydney waved her other arm languidly to indicate the entirety of the rest of the building. “I’ve seen this place, remember? Amelia and Everleigh gave me the full tour while we contemplated color palettes. It’ll be a good stress-break from the constant stream of customers at the Mercantile. Painting will be…meditative. Soothing.” As she spoke, her fingers mimicked a brush stroke up and down the outside of his arm.
It was the last straw.
The match to the enormous pile of tinder on the bonfire about to rage in his veins.
Alex could hear the snick of the lock opening on the gate he’d been trying so damn hard to hold shut on his desire.
His hand shot out to bracelet around her wrist, stopping the stroking. “Maybe I don’t want you soothed. Maybe I want you riled up. Every bit as much as I am.”
“Is that what you want, Alex?”
“Right now? It’s what I need.”
“Me, too,” Sydney whispered, going up on tiptoe to breathe the words against his lips.
Lips that were right there, for the taking.
So he did.
Alex kept one hand anchored on the poster. And one side of his body canted behind it. With his other hand, he pressed against the hollow between her shoulder blades. Momentum had her body flush against his before he blinked again.
It was in that blink, the moment where he saw nothing and felt everything, that Alex took her mouth.
He