Sweet Temptation

|5| 𝑴𝒊𝒏𝒆

“Well, that was fun.”

Injecting a cool note into her voice, Julia turned away from Warren and picked up her crumpled panties.

He didn’t respond. She fumbled to find her bra, calling upon every reserve of strength she possessed to collect her composure.

“I have an early meeting tomorrow.” She got to her feet, still not looking at him, and slipped into her lingerie. “I need to go.”

She felt his gaze as if it were a touch. He pushed to his elbows, his eyes hooded. Unselfconscious in his nakedness, his skin still damp with sweat and muscles taut, he was totally unfamiliar to her—a man who’d fucked her raw and made her come hard enough to see stars. Not Warren King, her sister’s husband, the widower who’d become her best friend.

The man to whom she could never confess her love.

She smothered a stab of guilt, blocking an image of Rebecca with her elegant, lovely features, her sleek blonde hair, always cut in a fashionable bob, her model-like figure.

As a child, Julia had worshipped her older sister, and at first she’d resented Warren when he’d captured all of Rebecca’s attention and then swept her off into marriage. Later, Julia had learned they’d wed partly due to Rebecca’s unexpected pregnancy, but the circumstances appeared to have no effect on their rock-solid devotion and love.

Julia hadn’t envied their marriage—in her eyes, they’d been tied down with children, Warren working all hours of the day, Rebecca stuck at home—but they’d been committed to both each other and their life together. That part Julia had envied. She’d told Warren as much on the night when she’d so shamelessly thrown herself at him.

A hot flush rose to her cheeks. She bent to pick up her shirt. Warren turned away from her and pulled on his boxer briefs. Her focus snapped involuntarily to the flex and stretch of his back muscles, the straight vertebrae of his spine and slopes of his shoulder blades. A sharp longing rose in her to slide her fingers over his back, trace the structure of his bones, learn every part of his body the way she’d learned every inch of his character.

She backed away, afraid she would act on the urge the way she’d almost confessed.

He turned and advanced, his expression set with determination.

“Julia, we need to talk about this,” he said.

“This was a mistake.”

“The hell it was. You’re wrong if you think this hasn’t been waiting to happen.”

She held up a hand, trying to ignore her racing heart. “Spare me the post-coital discussion, please. I’m accustomed to men rolling over and going to sleep.”

Warren frowned. “Don’t you turn Ice Queen on me.”

“I’m not turning anything,” she snapped. “This is who I am.”

“You’re a lot more than that.”

She couldn’t respond. Warren was Rebecca’s husband. He’d always been hers. Her presence had filled their lives for thirteen years through the children and the foundation. So much of the work she and Warren did together was in honor of Rebecca. To keep her alive.

How could Julia have allowed them to cross the invisible line they’d always kept so firmly drawn? How could she have let herself almost confess the deepest secret of her heart?

“I admit it’s been quite a while since I’ve gotten laid,” she remarked crisply. “Thanks for scratching my itch. We should do this again in another thirteen years.”