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When they reached his rusty old car, he turned her and gently backed her against the passenger’s side window. “Thank you for today. For letting me talk and for being so quick to understand and forgive. Not sure I deserved it, but I’m selfish enough to grab onto it.”
Forcing a smile through mounting guilt, she said. “Thank you for the ice cream. And I enjoyed talking to you. A lot.” She meant it. Even if it jacked the temperature on her guilt up to near boiling. “Um, if you need any help with Kayla over the next few weeks while I’m here, I’m more than happy to spend time with her.”
Understatement of the century. She could feel her time Kayla slipping away and only hoped to have more days with her.
“Thank you. I might take you up on that.”
He stepped closer then. So close, not more than a sheet of paper could have fit between their bodies. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of her neck. She could blame it on the sun. Or the warmth of the car pressing against her, but both would be a lie. And she’d done enough of that for one lifetime.
It was all JP, and how he made her feel on fire with a need she couldn’t fully identify. All she knew was that his eyes had darkened, and he moved in as if about to kiss her.
Danger. Danger.
Everything inside her brain screamed at her to dodge his advance. But her lips tingled, and her stomach tightened with need. Even her knees quivered, and he hadn’t done anything. If this was it, her one chance to be kissed by a man who invoked this kind of desire in her, she was going to take it. Consequences be damned.
And he’d asked if she’d ever knowingly done something epically wrong. If he only knew how she was drowning in the results of her poor decisions.
He came closer and closer still, until the soft puff of his breath drifted across his face. She smelled the sugary goodness of sweet strawberries and cream.
Their eyes met.
Hannah sucked in a breath and held it.
The next thing she knew, his lips were less than an inch away, and her heart was pounding like a stampede of wild elephants. She clenched her fists to keep from reaching for him to close the distance.
At the very last second, he angled his head and pressed his lips to her cheek. They lingered, warm and soft against her skin.
“Thank you,” he whispered in her ear. “You’re kind of amazing.”
Hannah closed her eyes, finally letting out the breath she’d held. Why did an innocent peck on the cheek from JP feel more intimate than any other kiss she’d shared? How did it reach into her and jumble her insides more than they were already twisted?
She needed to end this before one or both got hurt.
It’d be her heart to bruise or worse when he found out who she was and sent her away. For him, her actions would only compound the damage done by her sister at a time when he was discovering new and wonderful parts of himself.
And if, by some miracle, he didn’t banish her from Kayla’s life once her secret got out, her heart could still shatter. JP wasn’t the man for her. He wasn’t even the man for her right now.
She was a boring, homebody CPA who followed the rules and rarely colored outside the lines. He was a wild stallion who wouldn’t be fully domesticated no matter who came into his life.
This entire situation had heartbreak written all over it, and the only way to stop it was to cut it off before she let herself get sucked in any deeper.
But did she listen to her brain’s logical advice?
No.
Instead, she climbed in the car, laughed at a ridiculous story, and agreed to join him and his family for a movie night in a few days.
She was so screwed.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“HEY, JP!” MICKIE burst through his front door without knocking like she always did. Not that he minded. She was as much family as the rest of them by this point.
“Hey, Mick. What’s up?”
“Not much.” She bent down to kiss his cheek. Less than a second before her lips landed, she caught sight of Kayla. “Oh, hello, sweet baby!” She changed course and beelined for Kayla, who was lying prone on a blanket with a barrage of toys around her while he worked on a laptop. Most of the toys had come from Mickie and were things JP hadn’t known existed.
The baby flexed her arms and legs as though trying to swim to Mickie. A wide gummy smile transformed her face from cute to downright adorable. Until the drool came.
Ugh. The drool was out of control.
“Man, she is such a chick repellent, I can’t even get a kiss on the cheek anymore,” he said as he rolled his eyes.
