Page 4 of Falling for the Enemy

No matter how much he knew what was better for him, he couldn’t pull himself off this course. What the hell was wrong with him?

One was messy peanut butter and jelly. The other caviar. He knew the right choice, yet still wanted the taste of sloppy indulgence. Eventually, he’d satisfy the craving and move on. He had to get it out of his system because, inevitably, he’d settle down, and marriage was not a casual agreement to him. He wanted class and sophistication, and he required fidelity.

Something that started as a sinful secret affair would not suit his future situation, and he planned to end it as soon as he found the right woman to marry.

Olivia had an agenda as detailed as his own. Neither of them was pushed by fleeting emotions or carnal cravings, nor did they expect an impassioned kind of love. They moved like nobility, strategic and always focused on the outcome.

Maybe his erratic addiction to a woman so unsuited for his goals came from the sense that he was running out of time. His brother Greyson was now married to Wren and expecting his first child.

Soren wanted his own children close in age to his brothers’ kids, which was why he had to buckle down on a plan. Tonight could have moved the needle forward. Instead, he found himself on another self-sabotaging detour.

He considered turning around.

No, his body instantly objected.

Just one more night, one more taste, then he’d get serious about settling down.

Turning onto a quiet back road, Soren slowed his speed. The streets were dark. Gravel popped under his tires like a warning system as he parked behind the two-story saltbox house. The SUV softly settled into darkness as he killed the engine.

He could still go home.

He could make a drink, relax by the fire, and call it an early night. That was the wise move.

He glanced at the back porch. That wine glass with lipstick on the rim still sat forgotten on the top step. It had been there since early August, collecting rainwater that evaporated every afternoon in the summer heat, and dead gnats at the base throughout the day.

He shouldn’t know any of that. But he did. He walked past the damn glass more times than he could count. He even knew what kind of wine filled it. He could still taste the blend on her tongue.

“Fuck,” he hissed through clenched teeth.

His cock twitched, and the car door popped open.

Gravel crunched under Soren’s feet as he unlocked the gate. The motion-sensor lights behind the saltbox home kicked on, and the back door opened the second he climbed the first step.

“If it isn’t his royal high maintenance.” Jocelyn braced one bare foot across the threshold and lifted her chin.

Her yippity demon chihuahua erupted into a barking fit at her ankles.

“Cordelia, hush,” she ordered, and the gremlin dressed in a plush unicorn hoodie bared its teeth at Soren.

Used to the erratic seven-pound security system, he rolled his eyes until his gaze fell on the new addition to the porch. A fat pumpkin sat cockeyed by the door. A shining example of why they were incompatible. Who starts decorating for the next season without even cleaning up the festering wine glass from the last? She was a mess.

Cordelia, the little rat, charged the threshold—ready to maim.

Since the day they met, the dog had decided they were sworn enemies. Something it had in common with its moody mother, who still hadn’t invited him in.

“You need to get that thing a muzzle,” Soren said, raising his voice over the vicious yipping and snapping.

The scraggly Chihuahua growled up at him, her tongue lolling from the side of her mouth, her unicorn hoodie cinched around her absurd little body, as if that rainbow spike gave it the strength of a rhino. The little rodent barked harder, and Soren gave up trying to speak over the noise and gave Jocelyn a desperate look of do something, or I will.

She huffed and casually pushed off the chipped wooden frame. “One second.”

The door slammed in his face. Soren listened to her muffled negotiation on the other side of the wall, followed by subdued silence.

The back door opened a second later. “Sweet Odin, she hates you.” Jocelyn blew a loose thread of hair out of her eye and leaned against the frame, arms folded within the sleeves of her silk kimono as she continued to block his entry.

“This is why you don’t feed gremlins after midnight.”

“Don’t talk about my daughter that way.”