“Yeah, but don’t take it too far, okay? Kate’s serious about you two not hooking up. She’d be a mess over it. Keep your dick in your pants…or in Felicity, okay?”
He heard Lib’s short gasp of breath in his other ear and winced. Fuck. She was so close to him, she’d heard his brother loud and clear and froze in his arms. When she released the breath in a hiss, her hands unlocked from behind his head, and she untangled her legs, slipping down the front of his body and taking a step away from him as he released his arm from around her tiny waist. He stared at her—at her hurt, increasingly angry eyes.
“I have to go,” murmured Jean-Christian, clenching his jaw with frustration.
“See you later. And be nice.”
The line went dead, and J.C. shoved the phone back into his pocket.
“Who’s Felicity?” she asked.
“Just a distraction. Like Neil.”
“I’m not fucking Neil,” she said softly, then dropped his eyes, flinching like she’d given too much away.
Juxtaposed against the rush of awesome he felt at this admission was the reality that she stood before him looking angry, hurt, and yes, God, still gorgeously fucking aroused.
He reached for her. “Lib…”
“That was good advice.” She pulled her arm out of his reach, lifted her eyes, and nailed him with a hard look. “Keep your dick in Felicity, J.C. You can send me an invoice for the Kandinsky. Let’s go get the cradle, and then you can leave me alone.”
“Not possible,” he said, surprised by how fervently he meant it. He wasn’t going to be able to leave her alone, and the sooner they both accepted it, the better.
“Then I’ll go back to New York this afternoon.”
“Libitz, come on…”
“No,” she said softly, shaking her head, her face colored with deep regret. “I shouldn’t have let that happen.”
“You say that like it’s an option to ignore what’s between us. You can’t, Lib. I certainly can’t. It’s magnetic. It’s chemistry. I haven’t been able to get you out of my head for weeks.”
She inhaled sharply, whispering, “We’re not good for each other.”
She was wrong. She was good for him. She was the only woman he’d ever met who’d made him even consider love and commitment and forever. That had to be good.
“Please…”
“Back off or I leave today, J.C. I mean it.”
Her voice was low and sharp, and there was no doubt in his mind that she was serious. Thinking of Kate’s disappointment and fury, he put his palms up in surrender, unable to keep the frustration from his narrowed eyes as he whispered, “You win.”
She gave Les Bijoux Jolis one last longing look, then turned and walked out of his office.
Chapter 7
Libitz stared out the window as Jean-Christian drove them out of Philadelphia, her stomach in knots, a lump in her throat, and adrenaline making her jumpy even though the car was silent and her seat was comfortable.
Not possible…You say that like it’s an option to ignore what’s between us…It’s magnetic…It’s chemistry…I haven’t been able to get you out of my head for weeks…
His confession, which mirrored the feelings in her own heart, had started a process she’d desperately hoped to avoid: Libitz was falling, head over heels, for Jean-Christian Rousseau, and it scared the ever-loving shit out of her.
She’d been on the brink at Kate’s wedding, of course, quietly swept away by his dark good looks, sexual energy, and focused attention. Frankly, she’d only avoided sleeping with him out of sheer willpower and her loyalty to Kate.
But this?
This was much worse.
Before, she’d lusted after his body. Now she was feeling an indelible unwanted attraction to his head and maybe even to his heart.
And fuck, but she’d worked hard against this happening—shooting him down at the wedding and dating Neil as soon as she got home as a way to distract herself from memories of Jean-Christian but also to focus herself more intently on a mature, meaningful relationship.
She winced because all of it was for naught: she couldn’t ignore what was between them. She was trapped with him in a maelstrom of desire, attraction, and fast-growing feelings, and Noelle’s impending arrival only served to solidify the feelings she so desperately wished to avoid.
She felt it in the way she’d pulled him to her when they kissed, how much she wanted his hard body pressed against hers. She felt it in her kinship to his beautiful gallery and in the way he’d described Les Bijoux Jolis, a portrait so hauntingly beautiful, so thrillingly erotic, so unaccountably personal, she couldn’t stop picturing it.
Goddamn it.
She was falling. And she was falling hard.
So what now? she asked herself.