Page 62 of Summer Holiday Lifeline

Myles didn’t try to move, or even protest his fussing. He did spend those long minutes searching Steven’s face, though.

“Looking for something in particular?” Steven asked finally.

Instead of saying anything, Myles kissed him. Less forcefully than the last time, until Steven eventually took his head in both hands and made the kiss real. The reward of Myles’s sigh and the flutter of his fingers along Steven’s collarbone were enough to make him sure he was going to need a third date, and soon.

“Ready?” he asked once Myles had pulled back and regrouped.

“As I’ll ever be.” He waggled his hips and adjusted his jeans slightly, eyes narrowed when Steven snickered. “See how you like it.”

He gripped the back of Steven’s neck and yanked him into a searing kiss.

Steven let it happen, because why wouldn’t he?

They were both breathless when they broke apart.

“Feel better?” Steven asked.

“I feel like that didn’t send the message I was hoping,” Myles grumped with a half-smile.

“I’ll tell you what,” Steven said as he headed for the stairs. “We get enough inventory done before lunch, and we can come back up for a snack.” He absolutely wiggled his hips as he started down, because keeping Myles off balance was proving more of a challenge than he’d anticipated, but also, infinitely more rewarding every time Myles grunted at him in annoyance but still followed his lead.

CHAPTER TWELVE

As the days passed and Myles spent more and more time with Steven, it got harder and harder to figure out how he felt about how easily the man flipped the script on him. He’d never let anyone else get away with it before. In fact, he’d fought Ozzy, often and bitterly, over just that. But he couldn’t seem to stop Steven doing it. He didn’t want to fight him on it, either, and that was weird.

Maybe it was because Shelly adored him, and Steven had a way of getting through to her that Myles had yet to figure out. It was hard not to admire the way he so easily dealt with the precocious six-year-old.

“You going over there again today?” Jet asked him as Myles was searching through his wardrobe for a shirt, smiling to himself over the way he knew Steven would smirk at him—again—for layering.

“Is that a problem?”

Jet tossed a leg over the arm of the sofa at the other end of the room. “We have a cooking class today.”

“I’ll be here.”

“What about Shelly?”

“She can come to the shop with me.”

“You think she likes hanging out in a bookstore all day?”

“It’s not all day. I’m just helping Steven with more of his inventory. It goes faster with two people.”

“Doesn’t he have a sister?”

“Jet.” Myles stopped rooting around for something to wear over his T-shirt and turned to his nephew. “Is there a problem?”

“Just that you’re spending a lot of time there.”

“This is a change of tune, suddenly. You practically pushed me out the door the first time.”

Jet made a sound in his throat that didn’t, in any way, explain his change of attitude. It could be because he hadn’t slept well last night, or because he’d had a fight with a so-called friend back home, or because he was genuinely upset about Myles seeing so much of Steven. And if it was that, was it because he was worried for Myles, or resentful he wasn’t spending the time with them?

“If I want to see him, I have to go there,” Myles said, fishing. “You know this about him.”

“And how is that going to work when we get back to Calgary?” The edge to Jet’s voice was not lost on Myles. The question was a fair one that he didn’t have an answer for.

So he said nothing.