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“But you’re not now. You’re a man, not the boy I knew. Not the boy who needed me. You’re a man who unsettles me, and I don’t want or need that.”
“At least you’re being honest.”
“So you understand, we could never be.... Let’s just be acquaintances,” she said, changing her mind about the words she’d been about to say.
“Lovers, Bailey?”
“Acquaintances.”
“I’m not sure I can keep my distance from you.”
“Joe, d-don’t....” Her words fell away as his lips touched her neck.
“I’ve wanted my hands on you since I first saw you in the grocery store, Bailey Jones.” He whispered the words into her ear, before moving in to place more kisses on her neck. “What I once felt for you was innocent and pure; this, however, this is different.”
She shivered. It rolled through her body. She arched back into the hand around her waist, allowing Joe better access to her neck. He kissed and licked, then decided he wanted her mouth.
He took it slow, but deep, drawing a response from Bailey as she opened to allow him in. Joe’s head started to spin; he lost his grasp on reality, and enjoyed the feel of her.
Chapter 12
Bailey shuddered as she leaned into him. No one had held her as if she mattered for years. Not even Clark had made her feel this way with just a touch.
Her head was spinning, her body pressing into his; she wanted this, needed this, and hadn’t even known it.
“God, you’re sweet.” His hands wrapped around her back as he pulled her into his hard chest; his lips took hers again, even deeper, more intense. She held on to him, wrapping her arms around his neck. Heat travelled through her, turning her limbs to liquid and pooling in places it had never pooled before. She had to stop—before she couldn’t.
“No, Joe.” She wrenched free and stumbled backward. “This cannot happen.”
“Why?” He was tense as he looked at her, those green eyes darker with the flare of heat she’d put there. Ignoring the little zing of pleasure that thought gave her, she took another step back. The man radiated lust and forbidden dreams. He was the forbidden, and in his arms Bailey knew she’d find serious sexual fulfilment, but little else. She didn’t need more complications in her life, especially not with him. He was experienced, she was not; if she wasn’t careful he’d break her heart all over again.
“Because I don’t do that,” she said, crossing her arms over her waist. “It’s not who I am, Joe, and you should know that about me.”
“You were thirteen, Bailey, how the hell do I know who you are now? The woman before me is nothing like the girl you were.”
“I’m not... loose.”
“You think I am?”
“I don’t know you either, Joe. How do I know if you’re the type that sleeps around?”
“Well, hell.”
Bailey didn’t back down from the anger she saw in his face. Not anymore. She was stronger now, and she wouldn’t be intimidated again.
“My life is uncertain at the moment, as I told you. I don’t know how long I’ll be here, but I do know that if we did this... it would change things, everything. I don’t want or need that.”
“And change is bad?”
He relaxed slightly, his stance easing, hands unclenching, but the bunching of the muscles in his jaw told her he was still not happy.
“Just leave it, Joe. Please. This, us, is not going to happen, nor should it.”
“Why is your life a mess? What’s going on?”
“That’s my issue, but the point here is, you’re where you want to be, Joe, whereas I have no clue. This is about me, not you.”
He lifted a hand. “Oh hell no, you did not just say the standard brush-off line.”
