Page 35 of Burning For You

Nor did she want to come off like a bitch and elbow him out of the way like she’d done for years.

“Just being polite,” she said, picking her sandwich up and taking a bite.

“Guess,” he said, going in for his ribs.

She shouldn’t be watching his mouth open over the sticky sweet sauce, his lips closing over them, then his tongue coming out to capture a missing drop.

Oh Lord, she might be in trouble. Or maybe she was just horny.

Yeah, could be that.

It’d been soooooo long since she’d been with a man. Since she even wanted one.

She didn’t know what she wanted right now other than her body had its own ideas.

“Roast beef,” she said.

“Nope. Ham. With mashed potatoes and broccoli smothered in cheese sauce.”

“Not what I expected at all.”

He smirked at her, continued chewing, then said, “Maybe I’m not what you thought.”

“Maybe,” she muttered and bit into her sandwich.

“So, can I ask what brought you back here?”

She had to decide what she was going to share. What was the truth, what was her hope, and where she might overstep with knowledge.

She’d start with the truth.

“The company I work for decided they didn’t want to keep paying so much for office space and said we could all be remote. With no reason to go into the office, it didn’t make sense to keep paying more than triple for a place half the size.”

“You could have gone anywhere other than here. Maybe somewhere warm?”

“I had to stay in New York State. Not sure why when we’ve got contracts all over the US.”

“So you came home.”

“Sort of home. Not really home,” she whispered.

Because home was Warrensburg. Before and after the fire.

Glens Falls was just close enough.

“I feel the same. I run home easily enough all the time, but like having a bit more options in Glens Falls.”

“Which isn’t a ton compared to even Saratoga.”

“Let alone New York City,” he said.

“Tell me about it. I don’t miss it in the least.”

“Then why go there?” he asked. He put the second rib bone down and picked up his fork to dive into his mac and cheese.

“I thought it was the most opposite of where I came from. There were a lot of opportunities. I don’t know, I just needed to get away.”

But there was a part of her that couldn’t go too far either.