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“I had a good time tonight,” Derek admitted, sounding surprised.
My brows flinched. “You know, I really did too.”
He lingered too long, and we couldn’t stop looking at each other. My body felt like it was going haywire from the inside out, the way it did any time we found ourselves standing close. I tried to get a grip and make myself say goodnight, but I got sucked into the gleam of his big blue eyes.
The wine and everything shot straight to my head, and the next thing I knew, I was standing up on my tip-toes, planting a long, soft kiss on those perfect lips of his.
15
DEREK
A heat wave spread from the touch of Melody’s lips against mine throughout my entire body, tingling on the edges of my fingertips. My heart pounded in my chest as all of my muscles seemed to relax into weightlessness.
While my body deflated into the warmth, sirens were going off in my brain. There was a reason why this was bad. In fact, there were many reasons. If only I could just see through the haze enough to remember what they were.
It had been a long time since I kissed a woman. Melody was beautiful and we had a great night together. It was difficult to snap out of it and recall exactly why I had to put a stop to this.
This wasn’t what I wanted,right? This was the exact opposite of everything I needed in my life right now. I needed fewer complications and less to worry about. That kiss spelled trouble. She was paying me to do a job, and…she was engaged!
It was wrong in so many ways. I finally came to my senses enough to pull back. Melody looked just as surprised as I was. Neither of us had stopped it as soon as we should have, but she was the one who started it.
“What are you doing?” I asked, shaking my head. “I thought you were….”
“I’m sorry!” she exclaimed with a sharp breath. Her cheeks turned bright pink.
Before I could say another word, she turned and stormed off into her house, slamming and locking the door behind her.
I was left frozen there for a moment on the front steps, still shocked from the whirlwind of everything that transpired in those few brief moments. It all happened so fast.
Since she obviously wasn’t coming back out, which was probably for the best, I was left with no choice but to walk off in the direction of my own home.
My body was still reeling with adrenaline from the kiss with every step I took. My boots crunched along the gravel in the darkness, and I could hear raccoons or mice or some other kind of creatures scurrying off in the nearby brush from the sound of me approaching. I hoped the brisk walk would clear my head, but I only felt more out of it by the time I got to the front door of my house.
Alyssa Johnson, who I had hired to babysit per my brother’s recommendation, was eating popcorn on the couch and watching a movie.
“Hey, Mr. Mullins.” She reached for the remote and flipped the TV off before tossing it back down onto the couch cushion. “Did you have a nice night?”
“Fine, thank you,” I grumbled. “Is Em…”
“Asleep. She passed out about an hour ago. We had a good time. I helped her with her homework, and we played board games.”
“Thanks a ton.” I pulled out my wallet, then realized I had no idea what the going rate for babysitters was. Rebecca always handled that sort of thing. It was a stark reminder of just how little I had gone out since we lost her, which was not at all unless Keith or a neighbor could watch her. “How much do I owe you?” I asked cluelessly.
“Forty bucks,” she smirked.
I handed her two twenty-dollar bills and walked her to the door. As soon as she was gone, I leaned my back against the front door and let out a heavy sigh, closing my eyes. The moment I did, the taste and feel of Melody’s soft lips came rushing back to me.
I swiped my hand down the front of my face as if to erase it all and went down the hall to peek in on Em. She was sleeping sound, a sight that calmed me a little. I stood there for a moment and relished in it, then went to the fridge to crack open a beer. I sat at the kitchen table and tried to take comfort in the silence of the house. But my thoughts raced on anyway while I mindlessly picked at the damp label on the ice-cold bottle, peeling it off and rolling it between my fingers.
No matter what I tried to think about, work on the lake house, Em’s schedule, my upcoming shift at the fire station, it all morphed back into the same thing. The look on Melody’s face as her lips pulled away from mine while the scent of wine and her perfume still filled my senses, along with the electric feeling she sent coursing through my veins.
What kind of woman kissed another man when she had a fiancé back home?That’s what he gets, I caught myself thinking. They couldn’t be too happy together. I knew there was something off about her being down here handling all of this on her own. If Rebecca was still here and her mother had passed away, I would have put everything on hold to be there for her. Family was more important than anything.
Of course, that was my line of thinking. I had never been to New York or any city like it. Who knew what people there thought or cared about. Maybe, Melody didn’t want her fiancé to come with her. Maybe, family wasn’t as important to her.
I tried to shake the thought because I really didn’t want to judge her the way my brother and everyone else had. Then again, how could I not? I could still taste her on my lips.
To her credit, the attraction had been building between us all week. We were both doing our best not to mention it, just ignore it and hope it would go away. I still couldn’t deny it, so it was a little hard to hold it against her. You could only let urges like that build up for so long before the dam breaks.
