Tempting Tanya (NSFW Book 3) Page 4

“What happened, exactly?” Grier asked, her brow furrowed with worry.

  I told them about Milton Buck’s retirement party and my confrontation with Jordan in the sitting room and how he insisted on giving me a ride home.

  “Did he leave after he dropped you off?” Chelsea seemed curious more than anything else.

  I shook my head. “No. He—he stayed until morning.”

  Chelsea’s brows lifted. “Really? That’s…interesting. What happened the next morning?”

  “He brought me a cup of coffee in bed, told me he had a brunch date with his aunt, and that he would call me later.”

  Yancy leaned forward, her expression expectant. “Has he called?”

  “Yes, last night.”

  She grinned happily. “That’s awesome. What did you talk about?”

  “We didn’t talk,” I responded. “I didn’t answer.”

  Yancy’s pleased expression faded. “Why not?”

  “Because I can’t do this again, Yancy. I can’t get involved in another affair with him if my heart is involved and his isn’t.”

  “But you don’t know how he feels. I mean, it doesn’t sound like all he’s only interested in is sex if he’s calling you,” she argued.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied.

  Yancy looked to Chelsea and Grier. “Why is she so stubborn?”

  I ignored the fact that she wasn’t talking to me when I answered. “I’m not stubborn, I’m right.”

  Yancy shook her head, but it was Grier who spoke.

  “How do you know? Have you asked him?”

  Of course, I hadn’t asked him. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer if it meant it would hurt.

  “I can’t,” I told her.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t think I could stand to listen to him try to find a nice way to reject me,” I replied.

  “Do you honestly think he’s going to reject you?” Grier asked. “Because it doesn’t sound like that to me.”

  “Me either,” Chelsea piped in.

  “It can’t work,” I continued stubbornly.

  “Why can’t it?” Yancy asked.

  “It never works. Relationships end. Love dies. I see it every day.”

  “So none of us should even try to find happiness or lasting relationships?” Yancy queried. “I should break up with Charles and live the rest of my life alone?”

  “No, of course not. Charles is a good man.”

  “What about Lucy and Chris? If you’re so convinced that relationships end, why wouldn’t you say something to her about marrying Chris?” Yancy pointed out.

  “That’s different,” I answered.

  “Why? Because Yancy and Lucy aren’t you?” Grier asked.

  I closed my eyes then because I finally understood. For years, I’d held the conviction that love never lasted, that things would never work out. But what I really believed was that it would never happen for me. I lost the people I cared about. That was just how my life worked.

  My beliefs were based on faulty logic. I wanted my friends to have long, happy, and loving relationships. I wanted those things for myself, however much I might wish I didn’t.

  In the last year, I’d seen it with my own eyes—true love was real and it only died if one or both parties didn’t nurture it.

  “What am I going to do?” I asked Grier. Of the five of us, she might be the youngest, but she always gave the best advice.

  “Talk to him,” she said. “Tell him that you want more than just a fling. The worst he can do is say no.”

  “You make it sound so easy.”

  “It’s never easy to be vulnerable with someone, especially if you’re unsure of their feelings,” she stated.

  “I’m scared.”

  “What are you afraid of? Being hurt now or the possibility that he’ll hurt you later?”

  I swallowed hard because she made her point with nothing more than a question. I wasn’t afraid he wouldn’t want me the way I wanted him. I feared that he might return my feelings now but change his mind in the future. That I would manage to drive him away, just by being me.

  “I’m afraid I’ll get what I want only to have it taken away later,” I told her, my voice barely audible.

  “Is that how you want to live your life? Focused on your fears?”

  I straightened my spine. “No.”

  Grier smiled at me. “Then talk to him. See what happens.”

  Hope bloomed inside me. Hope that I was wrong to believe I could never find the same happiness that other women found. Hope that Jordan might feel something more for me than lust.

  Still, hope was a fragile thing, easily broken or destroyed. Especially if you’d never experienced it before.

  Chapter Seven

  I sighed heavily and dropped my pen on my desk. I was finally done.

  I cupped the back of my neck with my hand and squeezed hard, hoping that the muscles there would relax a little.

  After lunch with Grier, Chelsea, and Yancy, I’d been bombarded with work. I’d spent the last six hours at my desk, working long past the time that everyone else in the office went home. Though my earlier conversation with Grier was on my mind, all I wanted right now was a meal, a hot bath, and my bed. Jordan would have to wait until tomorrow.

  Unfortunately, it seemed no one sent the man in question my cosmic memo.

  As I shut down my computer, movement at my office door made me jump in surprise. The shadowed figure of a man moved forward until I could see his face.

  “Dammit, Jordan! You scared the hell out of me!” I gasped, clapping a hand to my chest. “I thought I was alone in the office.”

  “Sorry about that.” Though his words were the right ones, he didn’t sound sincere. In fact, he sounded almost…annoyed.

  “So what kept you here so late tonight?” I asked casually, unsure why he might be upset.

  Jordan crossed his arms over his chest and propped his shoulder against the doorframe, giving him a nonchalant appearance that contradicted his next words. “You’ve been avoiding me.”

  My first instinct was to deny the statement despite its veracity. Instead, I decided it was time to pull up my big girl panties and return his bluntness. “I have.”

  His brows lifted and he seemed surprised by my honesty. “Why?”

  “That’s a little…complicated,” I replied. I waved him into my office. “If you have a few minutes, we can talk.”

  I had no idea what he might be thinking, but Jordan closed my office door behind him and took the chair on the opposite side of my desk. Somehow our positioning, me behind my sleek desk and Jordan seated across from me, made it easier to say what I needed to say.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t return your call yesterday,” I began, “But I wasn’t sure the best way to handle this situation.”

  “Is our having sex the situation you’re referring to?” he queried.

  I bit back the smart-ass reply that leaped to my tongue at his sardonic tone. It served no purpose to let him bait me. “Yes,” I answered stiffly. “We might have had a casual affair in the past, but that’s not what I’m looking for any longer. When you called me, I wasn’t sure how to address the issue with you.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “I’m not sure what your expectations are now. It wasn’t as if we discussed any of this before you spent the night with me on Saturday. What we had two years ago was fun, but I’m looking for a more meaningful connection now.” I met his eyes as I spoke, even though it was difficult. Especially since his face gave nothing of his thoughts away.

  “So you’re looking for a serious relationship?” he asked mildly.

  “Yes,” I replied, my pulse pounding at the base of my throat as I answered. This was unnerving and uncomfortable and I despised the sensation of having absolutely no control. It wasn’t a feeling I often experienced.

  “Okay.”

  I blinked. “Okay?”

  Jordan nodded and rose to his feet. “I understand wha
t you’re saying and I’m fine with it.”

  My rapidly beating heart sank at his words. He didn’t want anything more than sex with me after all.

  “If you haven’t eaten, I’d like to take you to dinner.”

  Confused, I shook my head, pushing myself up from my chair. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

  Jordan studied me. “You explained that you wanted a relationship based on more than sex and I agreed. We’ll continue seeing each other until one or both of us no longer wishes to do so. I assumed by your statement that a deeper connection would include things like dinner dates and spending time together doing non-sexual activities.”

  When he put it that way, the entire process sounded cold, emotionless—exactly what I didn’t want. I moved around my desk, closing the distance between us.

  “Look, Jordan, if this isn’t what you want, I understand,” I began. “I’m not trying to pressure you into doing something you don’t want to. I only wanted to make it clear that I—”

  He took a step toward me and cupped my cheek with his hand, his thumb resting on my lips to silence my words. “I want you, Tanya. As long as that continues, I’ll be here.”

  It wasn’t a passionate declaration of undying love, but I would take what I could get for the moment. If it wasn’t enough in the future, well, I would worry about it then.

  As I stared at Jordan across the table, I realized that we were on our first date. Two years ago, we’d eaten together, even gone to the movies once, but it never felt like a date then. This definitely did.

  Tonight I sat across from him in a small Italian restaurant with delicious food and tea lights flickering on each table. The rooms were dim and the music low. Overall the atmosphere was intimate and romantic.

  I loved it.

  As we ate, we talked. First about work, then about what we’d been up to for the last two years. Jordan lost the formal air he often wore at the office and he smiled and laughed, his light blue eyes shimmering in the candlelight.

  If we’d had dinner like this the first time I met him, I would have left the restaurant and never spoken to him again. Not because it was horrible, but because it was so wonderful.

  Two years ago, it would have scared the shit out of me and I would have run for my life.

  Even now it frightened me, but only because I wanted it so badly.

  “I like talking to you, you know,” he stated during a lull in our conversation. “I missed it when I was gone.”

  Grateful I didn’t have a mouthful of wine to choke on, I nodded. “I’ve missed talking to you too.” Feeling happy and relaxed after a glass of wine and a fantastic evening, I smiled at him without worrying about what my face might give away.

  He stared at me with enigmatic eyes and opened his mouth as though he intended to say something. Before he could speak, the waiter returned with our dessert and coffee and the spell was broken.

  We lingered over our dessert and he insisted on paying the bill. Maybe it was old-fashioned and anti-feminist of me, but I liked it.

  When he walked me to my car, his hand closed over mine, our fingers lacing together naturally. I wanted to ask him to come home with me. It was on the tip of my tongue, but he surprised me once again.

  As we stopped beside my car, I turned toward him to issue my invitation, but his arms closed around me tightly, lifting me onto my toes. And when he kissed me…there was no initial lightness, no gradual build up.

  All I could feel was heat. My muscles relaxed and my scalp prickled as my internal temperature soared. His embrace was demanding and bold, his lips firm over mine while his tongue swept into my mouth.

  My hands clamped on his shoulders in an effort to keep me on my feet. The ferocity Jordan had unleashed threatened to reduce me to nothing but a puddle on the pavement.

  Little by little, the onslaught subsided and his lips gentled. Wild abandon was replaced with tenderness. A tenderness that affected me more deeply than the intense passion Jordan shared with me moments before.

  It wasn’t a kiss for a lover—it was a kiss for a beloved.

  Unable to process the emotions careening through me, I blinked up at Jordan when he finally released my mouth, speechless and transfixed.

  “I enjoyed our evening, Tanya. Text me when you get home.”

  I followed his lead as he opened my car door and guided me inside. I managed a soft, “Thanks for dinner, Jordan.”

  “It was my pleasure. I’ll see you tomorrow,” he replied just before he shut the door.

  With trembling fingers, I started my car and watched as he walked around the hood of his. He lifted a hand to me before sliding into the driver’s seat of his sleek black SUV.

  I realized he was waiting for me to drive away before he left and quickly put my car into gear.

  I glanced into the review mirror a few moments later and saw the wide smile on my face. It had been there since I left the restaurant and no amount of effort could remove it from my lips.

  Not that I tried very hard.

  Chapter Eight

  I used my key to unlock the door of my childhood home. Since we moved into the house the year before my mother died, my father hadn’t changed a single thing about it. Not even the locks on the front door.

  “Dad, I’m here!” I called.

  Every Thursday night we could manage, my dad and I tried to sit down and have a family dinner. It wasn’t every week, but it was often. Sometimes, when we were both working late, we would meet for dinner at a restaurant, but most Thursdays, we sat down at the dinner table my parents had purchased the year they married.

  “In the kitchen!” he answered.

  As I walked down the hall, I heard the clank of utensils and running water, indicating my dad was cooking dinner tonight rather than his housekeeper, Mrs. Marshall. I only hoped that whatever concoction he’d come up with was edible.

  Relief filled me when I entered the kitchen and saw a box of fettuccine on the counter next to the stove and my father standing over a large saucepan filled with what appeared to be Alfredo sauce. My father might have burned every meatloaf he’d ever baked, but his Fettuccine Alfredo was delicious and perfect every time.

  He glanced up at me as I approached the stove. “Hey, sweetheart. How was your week?”

  At sixty-five, my father was tall and fit thanks to his daily sessions at the pool and weekend rounds of golf. Though his hair was mostly silver, he looked nearly a decade younger than he truly was.

  My heart warmed at the sight of him and I walked over to give him a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “My week was great,” I replied with a smile.

  He looked down at me with a curious expression. “That’s good to hear.”

  I released him and moved toward the refrigerator. “Wine?”

  “Sure, baby. Whatever you think would be best with the fettuccine.”

  I selected a bottle of chardonnay and opened it, pouring us each a glass.

  “How was your week?” I asked.

  “Fine, fine,” he answered absently. “The usual.”

  My father was an appellate judge and had been for fifteen years. We might discuss particulars of our work if something interesting happened, but for the most part, we avoided the topic. This was at my father’s insistence. He said he knew Tanya the Attorney but that he wanted to stay in touch with Tanya, his daughter.

  Since I not only enjoyed the reprieve from work but thought it was a sweet gesture, I tried to stick to his declaration.

  We chatted about mundane details of our days as he put the finishing touches on dinner. Instead of eating in the formal dining room toward the front of the house, we usually ate in the breakfast nook in the kitchen.

  As we sat down with plates of pasta and glasses of wine, my father studied me.

  “What?” I asked, slipping a fork wound with fettuccine in my mouth.

  “You look…different.”

  I looked askance at him as I chewed.

  “You look happy,” he continued. “Almost lik
e you’re glowing.”

  I wasn’t sure how, but I managed to swallow the pasta without choking. “Glowing?”

  “Are you…are you pregnant?”

  “What?” My voice rivaled a screech.

  “Not that I’d be upset. I mean, you’re about to be thirty-four this year, so it’s about time I had a grandbaby. Since Tessa doesn’t seem—”

  “Dad, I’m not pregnant,” I declared, sweeping up my wine glass and taking a huge drink.

  “I should hope not since you’re drinking wine and that would be bad for the ba—”

  “Dad!”

  My father lifted his hands in mock surrender. “Sorry, sweetheart, but I don’t think I’ve seen you look this radiant since you passed the bar. I may be old but I’m not an idiot. Something’s happened.”

  I dropped my fork on my plate and looked my father in the eye. “Yes, something happened, but not that.”

  “Well? Are you going to tell me what it is?”

  “I—” I paused unsure what to say to my father. Despite our past, my current situation with Jordan still felt new. Yet my father was looking at me expectantly. So I took a deep breath and said, “I’m seeing someone. It’s early, but I like him a lot.”

  My father didn’t say anything at first. He merely stared at me as if I’d suddenly grown a third eyeball in the middle of my forehead. “You’re seeing someone? As in dating?”

  “Yes, I’m dating him.”

  “This must have happened recently. I just saw you last Thursday and you didn’t mention him. How did you meet?”

  I cleared my throat and sipped my wine to ease the sudden dryness. “Well, uh, we work together. He’s a new partner at the firm.”

  Once again, my father’s reaction wasn’t what I expected. I thought he would disapprove since Jordan and I worked together. Instead, he grinned, “That’s interesting.”

  Slowly, I lowered my glass. “Really?”

  My father laughed. “You think I wouldn’t approve?” His laughter grew louder at the sight of my raised eyebrows. “Okay, so I might have had a few things to say about that when you were younger, but you’re old enough to know when someone is worth the risk.”