An Imperfect Match / Next Comes Love: An Imperfect Match / Next Comes Love

But she was right. He wasn’t ready to answer questions. Not even his own.

Honey was already asleep by the time they reached Annabelle’s house. Frowning because Honey hadn’t eaten before she conked out, he wondered if they should wake her. He followed Annabelle inside, casting a wary eye around at the premises, then went straight to Honey’s crib to put her down.

“Shouldn’t she eat first?” he asked softly, moving aside so Annabelle could put the baby into her pajamas. He watched as she maneuvered Honey deftly into a sleeper without waking her. Beth had been able to do that, too. He’d always managed to wake Brandon every time he tried to do the same. He smiled. Must be a woman thing. Annabelle gestured for them to leave the room.

“I fed her before the meeting because I knew it might get late,” she answered with a smile that was far too fleeting for his liking.

“Something’s bothering you.”

She avoided his stare and moved past him into the kitchen. “I’m just a little hungry. Do you want something? I have some pot pies that are pretty good for microwave food.”

He shook his head, catching her hand and gently pulling her to him. He ought to leave. Stop complicating an already messed-up situation, but he wasn’t going to. The breath hitched in her chest and the subtle movement created a cascading response in his body. He swallowed, feeling as if he was standing at the deep end of the pool and he’d suddenly forgotten how to swim. “I can’t think straight when you’re around,” he said softly, dipping to inhale the sweet skin at her neck. “Why is that?”

She shivered and angled her head, glancing at him through thick lashes. “I don’t know but it seems to be contagious,” she said, her voice husky and warm.

He chuckled, loving the fact that even though they were both practically burning up, she still managed to hold on to her sharp wit. He could barely handle a coherent sentence at this point.

“We should stop.”

He heard the regret in her voice. “You’re right,” he said, swallowing around the feel of his heartbeat banging in his throat. God, he felt like a damn kid again. “One kiss and we’ll call it a night,” he suggested and she nodded eagerly.

“One kiss. One kiss isn’t going to hurt anything.”

“One kiss…”

But Dean should’ve known that one kiss would never be enough. It didn’t sate his appetite the way it should have; it increased it tenfold.

Slanting his mouth over hers as his arms wrapped around her body, he drew her flush against him until the ripe fullness of her breasts pressed against his chest, igniting the skin.

Her tongue slid along his, playing and teasing as much as tasting and devouring, and he spiraled in a heady dance of desire that made his eyes cross. She sucked his bottom lip between pearly white teeth, hinting at the way she liked to play, and the blood flow immediately stopped elsewhere in his body to reroute south. Feeling himself straining against the unforgiving fabric of his jeans, he grabbed her behind and hoisted her into his arms, loathe to break contact even as he took them out of the room and straight to her bedroom. Of all the crazy things he’d ever done in his life, this ranked in the top three, but he’d lost any chance of listening to reason. He wanted—no, needed her—the way a man on the edge had to have someone to talk him down before he jumped.

They fell to the small bed, sending pillows bouncing to the floor and he climbed her body until he was back at her mouth. Her lips, swollen and red from his attention, were sexy as hell, beckoning as she twisted and gasped in his hold to better feel him against her. The spaghetti straps on her sunshine-yellow top were little match for him as he easily divested her of the flimsy fabric, tossing it over her head to join the discarded pillows. A peach lacy bra with scalloped edges flirted with her creamy skin and he groaned at the beauty of the sight before him. Damn near perfection. Cupping both breasts, reveling in their full weight, he gently squeezed and nearly lost it when she arched and moaned, gripping his shoulders and digging her nails in with a breathy demand for more.

“Annabelle, you’re amazing,” he murmured, running the tip of his tongue along the shallow valley of her breasts, while he sent one hand sliding down her belly to the tops of her Capri pants. Her legs scissored languorously and she sighed with pleasure as he made short work of the buttons so he could work his fingers beneath the matching peach froth caressing her hips and hiding from view what he ached to see. He worked the pants down slowly, and she helped him by kicking them free until they fell to the floor. Gazing down at her body, her skin heated and flushed, he drank in the sight. As the moment cooled between them, Dean watched as uncertainty clouded her gaze. She tried shifting, but Dean held her still, going down to lightly kiss the faint spidery lines marking her belly, where Honey had grown safe and healthy in her womb. She trembled as his lips grazed the soft skin. “You have nothing to be ashamed of,” he said, meaning every word. She was stunning and deserved no less than to believe it in her heart. “You’re perfect.”

She closed her eyes, but not before he caught the shine that betrayed her tender feelings. “Dean…”

Returning to her mouth, he gently explored her lips, needing to banish whatever had made her question, until she became pliant and yielding at his touch. Taking a brief moment to pull a condom from his wallet, he spent the next hour showing Annabelle in the most reverent way possible how much he enjoyed making love to a woman.

And judging by the scratches she left on his back, she appreciated his efforts.

CHAPTER TWELVE

BRANDON HEARD his father’s truck pull into the driveway and he didn’t need to see the time on his digital clock to know it was late.

His stomach churned as angry tears stung his eyes. His dad never went out late without telling him where he was going to be. He was a stickler for those kinds of things. So that led Brandon to believe that his dad hadn’t wanted him to know where he was. And there was only one place Brandon wanted his dad to steer clear of.

The woman had finally wormed her way into his dad’s pants. Brandon had known it would only be a matter of time. He wasn’t stupid. His dad was probably lonely and Annabelle was hot. Half his friends were already panting after her, gazing in her direction as if she were a Greek goddess or some such shit, making up excuses to go with him when he had to go to the office. But Brandon saw through her game. She needed a man to take care of her. She already had a kid with some other loser, and now she was eyeing his dad like the top prize at a carnival booth.

It wasn’t fair. Wasn’t it enough that they’d lost Mom? She’d been the love of Dad’s life—he was sure of it. He couldn’t understand why Dad was forgetting that fact. Annabelle didn’t hold a candle to Mom, he thought. Mom had been the kind of woman people could trust, the one everyone turned to when they needed help. A PTA mom, a woman who brought brownies for his class to share on his birthday. Annabelle was the kind of woman who was more likely to seduce the teacher than volunteer for lunch duty.

Jessie’s voice broke into his angry thoughts as the echo of their earlier conversation came to mind.

“What’s gotten into you?” she’d asked, irritation warring with concern in her hazel eyes. “You’re going all mental over your dad’s new office manager. I think she’s nice.”

“That’s because you can’t see her for what she truly is,” he’d retorted in annoyance.

“Which is?” She crossed her arms and glared.

“A gold digger.”

Jessie snorted and scoffed at the idea and his ears burned, but he didn’t back down. “Oh, c’mon. You don’t seriously think that, do you?”

He answered with a testy stare.

She shook her head. “You’re way off base. Maybe you need to stop freaking out about stupid things and deal with your issues. You’re creeping me out with all the ugly crap you’ve been saying about Annabelle.”

“Can’t help what’s true.”

She pinned him with a short look. “Yeah? Well, if you keep it up, you’ll be spouting off to someone else because I don’t want to hear it anymore.”

And then she’d left. Brandon didn’t blame her for leaving the way she did. He didn’t much like himself the way he was feeling but he couldn’t stop. It was as if Annabelle had burrowed under his skin like a parasite and was eating away at his ability to be a nice person. A flash of shame followed at the knowledge that his mom would have been very disappointed with him.

He countered by saying that if his mom knew how this woman had designs on his dad she’d want Brandon to protect the family however possible.

Which is exactly what he planned to do.

ANNABELLE couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She suspected it had something to do with the fact that each time Dean came into the building her heart rate tripled and the urge to lick him like a giant piece of man-candy nearly overwhelmed her.

He glanced her way and her mouth curved.

This could be a problem. She allowed her smile to fade and busied herself with work. A fling was transient, fleeting and brief. Annabelle tried to focus but Dean was in her peripheral vision and her attention wandered.

When he looked up from his PDA, their gazes locked. A slow grin spread across his lips and she knew their thoughts mirrored each other’s. She dropped her stare first. They couldn’t keep doing this all day. For one thing, they wouldn’t get any work done and for another, it was incredibly suspect. People were bound to notice.

“Have dinner with me tonight.”

She started at his sudden proposition. “No.”

“Why not?”

“You know why. We already covered that.”

“At my house.”

“Your house?”

He chuckled as if he’d surprised himself with the suggestion but immediately warmed to it. “Yeah. Let me cook you and Honey dinner. Brandon is staying at a friend’s tonight and it’d be nice.”

Tempting. Wildly tempting. Which is why she must decline but she wavered. “What’s on the menu?”

“I can only do one thing well.”

She blushed as her imagination provided a range of possibilities. Clearing her throat, she said, “Which is?”

“Barbecue.”

“Barbecue? Chicken? Fish? Steak?”

“Anything that tastes good charbroiled,” he answered. “Interested?”

Lord help me, yes. “Mildly.”

Dean pocketed his PDA and grabbed his keys. “See you at five. Bring your appetite,” he added with a wink.

Her breath hitched in her chest as she stared after him, trying not to gawk so hard that his jeans caught fire.

A woman could get used to a man like that. It was a full moment before her good sense returned and a regretful sigh followed. It seemed she had inherited her mother’s deplorable compass when it came to steering clear of trouble after all. Only she hadn’t gravitated toward a loser—quite the opposite. But it spelled trouble for Annabelle just the same.

So, what are you going to do about it? She worried her bottom lip and glanced toward Honey, who was playing with a set of toy keys Dean had picked up for her at the hardware store.

End it?

Yeah, how about trying that with a little conviction next time.

BY THE TIME Dean returned to the office he was humming. He entered the building with a smile and went straight to Honey, picking up the toddler as if it were perfectly natural to do so at the end of a long day, and fought the urge to kiss Annabelle. Instead, he grabbed Honey’s diaper bag and gestured for the door. “Shall we?”

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” she asked, hesitating as she followed. “I mean, this is going a bit fast. I don’t want you to think that I expect anything from you just because…”

He glanced back at her, drank in the sight of her standing there backlit by the sun, her hair a fiery halo around her head, and his heart stuttered a beat. He transferred Honey to his other side and pulled Annabelle to him. She gasped, making an adorably feminine sound, and looked up at him with wide brown eyes. He lowered his head to hers and took her mouth firmly, leaving no doubt as to how he felt about her statement. “You worry too much,” he said against her mouth. “It’s just dinner, right?”

“One dinner, one kiss…I think we know how these things end up,” she said wryly, though the corners of her mouth turned up playfully. She pushed away from him. “Fine. Dinner it is, but don’t get used to this. I’m not your girlfriend.”

“What are you then?”

Her mouth quirked as if she didn’t quite know what to call herself and in the absence of knowing, simply shouldered the diaper bag and moved past Dean with a mumble under her breath that sounded a lot like, “office manager with benefits,” and he felt laughter rumble in his chest. He liked her—more than he should—and he knew the consequences would likely make his heartburn feel like a mild flicker.

ANNABELLE, wineglass in hand, studied the pictures on the wall while Dean made all sorts of racket in the kitchen that didn’t sound promising.

“You sure you know what you’re doing in there?” she asked, pausing to glance at a photo of Brandon as a little boy. Judging by the missing tooth, he was probably around seven. Cute. Although, that wasn’t surprising. Despite his crappy attitude toward her, he was a good-looking kid. He favored Beth, it seemed, with his facial features, but he’d got Dean’s wide shoulders. Honey giggled as Dean’s cat wound his way around her small body, twitching his ringed tail next to her face until she sneezed.

“Bless you, Honey-pie,” she murmured, then sighed. Honey looked like Thad, down to her blue eyes and flaxen hair, but somehow a feminine version of Thad had turned out quite lovely. She walked to Honey and picked her up. “Let’s see what culinary treat Dean is subjecting us to. Let’s hope it’s edible.”

Annabelle needn’t have worried, she realized, for, as she rounded the corner to the dining room, Dean had laid a cozy setting for three, though he had wisely left the candles that graced the oak table unlit. A steaming pot of green beans and another of garlic mashed potatoes sat beside a plate of roasted boneless chicken and Annabelle’s mouth watered. “I’d say you can barbecue for me anytime,” she said, taking a seat with Honey, wondering if she’d ever smelled anything so good. “If I ate like this every night I’d be fatter than a deer tick,” she admitted with a rueful smile.

“I’m not one to complain about a little meat on a woman’s bones,” Dean said with a grin that made her feel naked. “Women are supposed to be soft and full of curves. You’re just about perfect in that area,” he added, and she blushed.

Dean disappeared, saying he’d be right back. Annabelle was grateful for the short reprieve so that she could get her head back on straight. How was a woman supposed to stay focused when the guy said things designed to make her melt? Dean returned with a beautiful wooden high chair and she lost whatever resistance she was trying to wage against falling for him.

“This was Brandon’s.” He plucked Honey from her lap before Annabelle could offer a weak protest, and slipped her into the old chair as easily as if he were accustomed to doing so every night. “Still works. Beth’s father made this chair for Brandon before he was born. It’s an heirloom we figured we could give to Brandon when he had kids but it’s just gathering dust for now.”

“Are you sure Brandon won’t mind?”

“Well, until I give it to him for his family, technically, it’s mine. I’d say he has no say in the matter,” he said firmly, signifying an end to that particular conversation, but Annabelle was a little uncomfortable. She had enough issues with the teenager; she didn’t need to compound them.

“Dean…”

“Annabelle,” he said softly, stopping her from continuing. “Let’s just enjoy dinner.”

She nodded. He was right. Brandon wasn’t here tonight, and it wasn’t likely she’d make a habit of coming over for meals, so she’d just enjoy dinner, as Dean said. She smiled. “Pass the potatoes, please. Honey likes the kind that come out of a box, but I think she’ll love these.”

“Potatoes should never come out of a box,” Dean said. “My mom would die before she put something out of a box on her table.”

“Well, not everyone was raised with the Bradys,” Annabelle said, placing a dollop of potatoes on her own plate. “My mom did the best that she could with what she had. And sometimes all we had came from a box.”

“I’m sorry,” Dean said. “I didn’t mean to be offensive.”

She shrugged. “No harm, no foul. But not everyone grew up like you did.”

“Tell me about what it was like to grow up in your home,” he said, and she immediately regretted her candid comments.

She waved away his request. “It’s nothing worth talking about.” True to a point. Her childhood was something right out of a Lifetime TV movie of the week. But who wanted to share that? Certainly not her. “Why do you ask?”

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