Hungry Heart: Konigsburg, Texas, Book 8 (40 page)

And then he’d been out of a job and scrambling.

Now he gave MG his most earnest look.
Look at me. Believe me. It’ll be okay.

“So we go to the Faro and drink?”

He grinned again—at least he’d gotten her to move this far. “No, we go to the Faro and eat. And maybe dance, if they’ve got a band. I don’t know what they’ve got going right now, but sometimes they have a group.”

He couldn’t exactly define the expression that drifted across her face just then. Anticipation maybe. Or anxiety. Or maybe both. “Or we could go someplace like Brenner’s,” he said quickly. “They’re good. We’re better, but they’re good.”

She shook he head. “No, the Faro sounds fine. Sounds like my kind of place, in fact.”

“Well, then, sounds like it’s settled to me.”

“It’s not—I mean I still haven’t…” she subsided into confusion again.

He leaned over quickly, placing his index finger under her chin, lifting her face so that she was looking at him. “Say, ‘Thanks, Joe, I’d love to go to dinner with you at the Faro on Sunday’.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then the corners of her mouth edged up again. “Thanks, Joe, I’d love to go to dinner with you at the Faro on Sunday.”

“There you go.” He leaned forward, almost without thinking about it and pressed his lips against hers.

He felt her stiffen against him and started to pull back, but then her lips softened. She tilted her head slightly, changing the angle of the kiss so that he slid deeper. He brought one hand up, cupping the back of her head lightly. Her lips opened wider beneath his, teeth against teeth, his tongue rasping against the sudden warmth of her mouth.

Heat spread through his body—he hardened almost instantly. His other hand dropped to her waist, to the slight indentation of her hip bone. He slid his fingers beneath the soft fabric of her shirt, feeling the warmth of the smooth skin underneath. Heat raced through him again, and he growled deep in his throat.

What the hell?
MG Carmody was a nice-looking woman, sure enough, but he hadn’t expected anything to happen between them this quickly. Time to tone it down a notch.

He started to pull back, amazed at the reluctance he felt. Somewhere at the back of his mind alarm bells were sounding.
Danger, danger, Will Robinson!

MG moved away almost as slowly as he had, her fingers pressed against her lips, her eyes wide in the shadows.

He waited for her to say something, even if that something was
Get the hell off my front steps.
After a moment longer, he managed a half smile of his own. “You know, I’ve kissed a lot of women in my time. Some of them let me know they liked it. Some of them let me know they didn’t. A couple of them even socked me. But you’re the first one who’s ever had absolutely nothing to say about it one way or the other.”

It’s either true love…or the biggest mistake they’ve ever made.

Going for Four

© 2014 Erin Nicholas

Counting on Love, Book 4

Hot firefighter Cody Madsen has stayed away from Olivia Dixon for almost two years—technically. Even though he talks to her every day and sees her every weekend. But there’s no kissing, touching, or telling her how he really feels. Because they’re
just friends.
Anything more than that would mean crossing the line that Olivia’s older brother has firmly drawn between them.

Olivia wants what her three sisters have—true love. She could almost believe she’s found it with Cody, if it weren’t for the fact that he’s her older brother’s best friend and her brother won’t have it. And he’s never steered her wrong before. Her head is telling her to trust her brother, but her heart won’t let go of Cody.

Her solution? A dating site where she and Cody can each find their “Perfect Pick” once and for all.

But when the site yields some unexpected results, their real feelings come front and center. And they have to decide if it’s worth the risk to cross the line from friendship to love after all.

Warning: Contains a starry-eyed romantic, a wannabe knight in shining armor, and chocolate chip cookies. A lot of chocolate chip cookies.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Going for Four:

Cody Madsen had never seen Olivia Dixon naked. Until today.

And there was a very good reason for that.

Two, in fact.

She was his best friend. And her brother would kill him.

But damn, the sight was breathtaking.

Breathtaking enough that his entire system short-circuited and all he could think was
Every day for the rest of my life.

“Cody! Oh my god! What are you doing here?”

She’d obviously just stepped from the bathroom. Her hair was wrapped in a towel, the scent of her favorite shower gel and lotion were strong in the air and, most significantly, she was as naked as the day she was born.

Which had to be why his brain and mouth would not connect.

Olivia crossed an arm over her breasts—her glorious, perky, perfect breasts—and put a hand over her even-more-private part—the mouthwatering, holy crap, light blond hair that was trimmed into a perfect
V
pointing the way home—and said louder, “What are you
doing
?”

But it wasn’t until another voice hit his ears that Cody was able to pull himself out of the Olivia-is-even-hotter-than-I-thought daze.

“Cody! I’m heading to the fuse box!”

Olivia’s eyebrows arched. “Is that Conner?”

It was. And Cody’s first spoken word on the matter was, “Crap.”

He grabbed her upper arms, backed her into the bathroom and kicked the door shut.

That proved to be the biggest mistake of all. Her skin was silky and warm and he should
never
have touched her.

“What’s Conner doing here?”

Cody was an idiot. When he’d first seen that she was naked, he should have turned around and gotten the hell out of here. Instead, what had he done? He’d touched her. Then he’d put himself in a closed room with her.

A tiny closed room.

“There’s a good reason we instituted the conservative-clothing-at-all-times rule,” he said gruffly.

She still had her arm and hand covering the most important parts, but that didn’t matter one iota. He was never going to be able to forget what he’d seen.

“That rule is for when we’re together,” she said.

“We’re together now.” Wow, were they. Her scent was imprinted on his brain. Now, standing submerged in a cloud of it between her and the bottles on the shelf behind her, he found himself taking deeper and deeper breaths—and growing harder and harder.

The naked-breasts-and-other-parts thing wasn’t helping.

“I didn’t know we were going to be together now,” she returned. “What are you—and
Conner—
doing here?”

“Fixing the outlet in the kitchen that’s not working.” He breathed deeply and concentrated on keeping his eyes on hers. “I texted you.”

“My battery died.”

“Why are you naked?”

“I took a shower.”

“You’re not in the shower
now
. Do I need to buy you a robe?”

“I don’t need a robe when I’m in my house, presumably alone.”

“You always walk around the house naked when you’re alone?”

“Yes.”

He had nothing after that. He pressed his lips together and resolutely continued to focus on things
above
her shoulders. Like the two empty towel racks. “Where are your other towels?”

“In the dryer.”

He pulled the towel from her head, handing it to her. “God. Cover up.”

She wrapped the towel around her body, her wet hair falling past her shoulders, big blue eyes staring at him. “You okay?”

“Yeah, why?”

“You look…weird.”

“This is, apparently, how I look when I’m trying with every fiber of my being not to kiss you.”

She made a soft choking noise and her hand grasped the towel tighter against her breasts.

“I’ve never seen that look before.”

“Yeah, I saw a few things for the first time today too.”

And she grinned.

That was one of the things he loved most about his “friend” Olivia. She had a fantastic sense of humor.

“What I mean is,” she said, “I thought there have been times in the past when you’ve had to try not to kiss me. And I’ve never seen
that
face before.”

There sure as hell had been times he’d had to resist grabbing her and pushing her up against the nearest wall. Or the nearest desk. Or the nearest copy machine, car door, refrigerator…

He cleared his throat. “Those times I was trying to resist kissing your
lips
.”

“But wh—”

She broke off as understanding dawned. And her cheeks got pink.

“God,” she finally breathed. “The not-talking-about-sex rule we have is a good one too.”

So were the other three rules they’d established nineteen months, two weeks and three days ago.

First and foremost was no kissing.

Second was conservative clothing only when they were together. He didn’t go shirtless, even when he was cleaning out her rain gutters in ninety-eight-degree weather. She didn’t wear fitted tank tops or short skirts. He didn’t wear fitted tank tops either—she’d added that to the list after the last time they’d gone to a baseball game together. If swimsuits were required, he wore baggy trunks that reached almost to his knees, and she had a two-piece with bottoms that looked like shorts and a top that covered her stomach and chest completely.

Third was no talking about sex—with anyone specifically or the overall topic in general. No innuendos either.

Fourth was no getting drunk together—they’d made that mistake once and would have made all kinds of horrible choices if Olivia’s sisters hadn’t come home early.

Fifth was no avoiding each other. That wasn’t acceptable. They were friends. They enjoyed being together. They had an entire group of friends in common.

It didn’t matter that they were more attracted to each other than they ever had been to anyone else. They weren’t going to let it keep them from being friends, and they weren’t going to let it make things awkward between them.

In fact, their friendship was one of the barriers they’d put up in hopes of fighting their attraction. They’d become even
better
friends, entirely on purpose, after the one and only time they’d kissed.

Nineteen months, two weeks and three days ago.

The thing was, the friends-only deal worked. It had started off as “let’s go to a movie” or “want to grab a burger” here and there, but once they’d started talking and laughing together, it had grown. When they’d discovered a mutual love for baking and had started baking together—even when he sometimes wished
baking together
was a euphemism for other things—their friendship had evolved into something real. There was something very innocent and fun and, of course, sweet about baking together. And in the process of mixing up cookies, muffins, brownies and new inventions here and there, they’d talked and shared and bonded.

Now they both protected the friendship staunchly. He’d never survive if he lost having Olivia in his life, and if that meant never kissing her again, so be it.

Or so he typically thought.

When she wasn’t naked in front of him.

“You’re still making that face,” Olivia said, her voice soft and a little breathless.

He was sure that he was. “You’re still standing here in a towel.”

“I can’t fix that until you move out of the way of the door,” she said with a smile.

He nodded. “It would make sense for me to move then.”

She swallowed. “If you want me to get dressed, anyway.”

“Right.”

He didn’t move out of the way.

Hungry Heart

Meg Benjamin

Peace, love, and barbecue—with a big order of sexy on the side.

Konigsburg, Texas, Book 8

Sous chef Darcy Cunningham is less than entranced with small-town Konigsburg’s obsession with barbecue. But her future career as a chef de cuisine requires expanding her culinary horizons, so she talks the Barbecue King, a.k.a. Harris Temple, into taking her on as his apprentice.

However, learning Harris’s professional secrets wasn’t supposed to include falling for his spicy blend of smoky sexiness and laid-back charm.

Chico Burnside specializes in flying under Konigsburg’s small-town radar, but lately life has been going a little too smoothly, even for him. Hoping to shake things up a bit, he talks Harris into teaming up for Konigsburg’s first barbecue cook-off. But once shy scientist Andy Wells catches his eye, Chico’s got more on his mind than brisket. Like enticing her out of her shell to show her just how tenderly a big guy can love.