Guarding Temptation - Talia Hibbert Page 0,27

continued to insist in Eeyore-like tones that she was about to be rejected once and for all.

Because at the end of the day, this was real life. And in real life, happy endings weren’t guaranteed. Friendship plus sexual chemistry plus the indescribable energy that whirled between them did not necessarily equal romance. People, she reminded herself, could be platonic soulmates.

But platonic soulmates didn’t accidentally make each other come. Did they? Maybe they did. She didn’t know much about the whole thing. She’d Google it.

Or you could ask him, Chapman.

Well, yes. There was that.

Nina cleared her throat. But when she spoke, her voice still sounded hoarse, cracked, on edge. “James?”

He gave her a questioning look that… changed, after a moment. As if he’d seen something in her face. That something made him wordlessly pause the TV, made him turn toward her on the sofa, their knees brushing. Which was inconvenient, since even the slightest physical contact with him made her stomach flutter and her train of thought list slightly to the left.

“Nina?” he asked softly, his gaze burning. His hand found hers on the sofa cushion, and slowly, cautiously, he tangled their fingers together. The action, and the feel of his warm, calloused palm, loosened the last of the nerves in her chest. James made it easy to be brave. He made her drunk on the urge to match him, to give him what he deserved. Because this man’s natural restraint didn’t stop him from reaching out to her again and again when she truly needed it.

And now she knew she was strong enough to offer him that same vulnerability.

“Do you know,” she asked slowly, “what you mean to me?”

Something flared in his gaze. He shifted forward almost infinitesimally, then back again, as if barely containing himself. His throat moved as he swallowed, hard.

“I think,” he rasped after a moment, “that you could tell me.”

“I adore you,” she croaked, the words foreign and stiff, squeezed awkwardly from her throat as if she’d forced squares through circular holes.

He smiled, slow and—though he probably didn’t realise it—sexy as hell. “Do you, now?”

“Oh, fuck off.” She rolled her eyes and turned away.

“No, no, keep going.”

“I have nothing else to say,” she sniffed—but that wasn’t true. She had so much to say that she was overflowing with it, but the heat and the happiness in his eyes were making her think that James might actually want what she was about to offer. And that possibility, which had seemed so impossible for all this time, was somehow making her even more nervous than she had been before.

No; Nina didn’t understand it either. Apparently, caring about people—in the personal way, not the principles of basic human goodness way—turned her into a scared little baby. Ick.

“Liar,” James murmured, as if he’d read her mind. As if he saw the secrets she was tempted to swallow. The tenderness in his voice said he didn’t mind her hesitation, that he’d guide her through it.

Then he caught her by the waist and pulled her into his arms. She squeaked in surprise and grabbed his shoulders automatically—but it only took a second for Nina to settle in like she belonged there, her thighs straddling his effortlessly. Just the act of spreading her legs around him made something low in her belly tighten. She pressed her fingers into hard muscle and bit her lip. Met his gaze and fought not to shiver at how close they were, his breaths ghosting over her skin, the slight edge of hunger in his expression impossible to miss.

That hunger grew easier and easier to see every time they touched. And Nina was starting to think about those times as something other than a mistake, something other than James’s biggest regret or the sin he couldn’t resist. She’d been so caught up in her own worries that she’d forgotten how steady, how solid, how consistent James Foster really was. But now she remembered: no matter what else changed, this man was always utterly, resolutely himself. And the simple fact was that James didn’t do casual sex.

Yet he’d fallen to his knees before her and dragged off her clothes and buried his face in her cunt. He’d stroked himself to orgasm while holding her gaze. He’d thrust into her mouth like he couldn’t do anything but.

So what, exactly, did that mean?

Her mind racing, she wrapped her arms around him and buried her face against his throat. “You know,” she murmured into the vibrating silence, “you’re incredibly huggable.”

His hands settled