Surprised by Family: a Contemporary Romance Duet (8 page)

This was foolish, he told himself as he hung up. He was blatantly defying his wise decision to pull himself away from Leila and her family.

But he couldn’t stand the expression in her eyes when he’d treated her coldly, and he wasn’t prepared to lose the look on her face now—still a little questioning but full of laughter and something like hope.

After all, it was just a lunch lecture. Nothing serious. Nothing life-changing.

How much damage could one lunch do?

***

Baron wondered if Leila had dressed up for him.

They weren’t really on a date. He’d asked her to lunch again, ostensibly to follow up on their discussion after the lecture last Friday and for him to ask her more about the history of the church.

He was genuinely interested in the church because of its connection to his parents, but that wasn’t really the reason he’d asked her to lunch.

He wanted to see her again. He wasn’t, however, sure what her reaction would be if he’d simply asked her out to dinner or the symphony. He also wasn’t convinced that dating her was the best idea.

So another lunch it was. Until things fell more clearly into place.

Leila hadn’t appeared surprised by his lunch invitation, and she’d accepted without hesitation. Her attitude, when they met at a bistro near campus and he walked her backed to James Hall afterwards, was casual and friendly. She wasn’t flirtatious. She didn’t appear to be trying to impress or allure him. She’d seemed slightly annoyed when his phone kept vibrating with work calls and messages that just wouldn’t stop—even for lunch—but she mostly just treated him like a regular person.

He did wonder, though, if she’d dressed up for him.

Her outfit was perfectly appropriate for work, and it fell well within her characteristic style. The soft, thin sweater was clingier than what he’d seen her wear before, though, and it had a low enough neckline to allow him to catch a mesmerizing hint of cleavage. The brown pencil skirt she wore was incredibly sexy, as were the very high heels.

If she’d chosen that outfit for his benefit, Baron was fully appreciative.

Although he would have been able to concentrate better on their conversation as they walked back to campus if he hadn’t been continually distracted by the way the pendant on her necklace kept slipping into her cleavage and the way her skirt hugged the curves of her ass.

“Don’t you think so?” Leila asked, stopping in front of the main door of James Hall. She tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. The rest of it was secured in a knot at the nape of her neck.

Baron couldn’t for the life of him remember what she’d just been talking about. Taking a cue from the direction of her question, he murmured a vague acquiescence.

She gave him a sharp look, and he wondered if he’d made a conversational gaff. Then she smiled and changed the subject. “Charlotte and Jane made you something. I’ve been directed to give it to you.”

Baron’s eyebrows shot up. “They made me something?”

“To thank you for the flowers you gave them at the party last week. It’s up in my office. Do you mind coming up?”

Baron had no idea what to say to such a thing, and he couldn’t imagine what the girls would have made for him or why they would have spent their time making it. So he just said, “All right,” and followed her into the building.

He caught Leila watching him out of the corner of her eye as they stood side by side in the elevator. As if she still couldn’t quite figure him out.

Which made perfect sense. Baron couldn’t really figure out what he was doing either.

He couldn’t seem to stop doing it, though—no matter how much more sense it made to pour his limited energy and emotional resources into everything else he had going on in his life.

“Thanks for lunch,” she said, breaking a minute of silence.

He hid a smile in response to the hint of amusement in her eyes. “You’re welcome. Thank you for having lunch with me.”

She appeared to hide a smile too. “You’re welcome. I enjoyed it.”

She stepped off the elevator before him, and Baron was treated to the sight of the provocative sway of her hips and the sensual line of her legs, accented by her ridiculously high heels.

Spurred on by some impulse that he really should have suppressed, he asked, “Do you wear those shoes a lot?”

Leila had been fumbling in her leather bag for her keys, but she glanced down at her feet at his question. Her slightly guilty expression revealed the answer, but she responded gamely, “Sometimes. They’re a little too high to be practical, but they look good with this skirt.”

“They
do
look good with that skirt,” he affirmed, surprised when his voice came out rather husky.

Leila’s cheeks reddened slightly, but she slanted him an ironic look. “Nice save. At first it sounded like you were questioning my choice of shoes.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. I was just appropriately impressed by your ability to walk in them.”

“Oh. I see.” Leila laughed as she opened the door. “It just takes practice.”

Then, as if some malicious fate intervened, her ankle twisted on her first step into the office.  Her knee buckled, and she caught herself on Baron’s arm.

“Don’t say a word,” she warned, still half-laughing as she clung to his arm and regained her balance.

Part of Baron wanted to smile in response to her amused expression and clever irony, but the rest of him was suddenly overwhelmed by the proximity of her body, her scent, and her warmth. He’d reached out to stabilize her when she’d stumbled, and now his hand lingered on her shoulder, sliding against the soft knit of her sweater.

When Leila leaned down to slip her shoe off and then back on her foot, her neckline dipped low, and Baron was treated to the sight of her lush breasts, barely covered by the lace of her bra.

He swallowed as his body started to react.

“All is well,” Leila said cheerfully, evidently unaware of the response she was provoking in him. “Shoe and ankle are both fine.” She dropped her bag on the floor and reached up to check her hair. “Damn it,” she muttered, when she discovered her hair was no longer neatly restrained.

Baron watched, absurdly mesmerized, as she reached up with both hands to take a clip out of her hair and then attempted to roll it back up in the knot. Her thin sweater stretched against her breasts, revealing a faint outline of nipples.

A rush of desire buzzed in his head and tightened in his groin. Attempting to make natural conversation, he asked, somewhat inanely, “Can you get it back up in the knot without a mirror?”

Leila scowled at him, but without any heat. Her eyes were still glinting with amusement. “It’s not a knot. It’s a chignon.”

Baron had no idea what a chignon was, and he didn’t really care.

“Damn it,” Leila said again, as the clip failed to fasten her hair.

Before she could twist it up again, Baron reached a hand out to stop her. “Leave it,” he said, his voice again huskier than it should have been.

Leila frowned in confusion and dropped her hands. She peered up at him questioningly and finally seemed to process the full extent of his mood. Her face flushed even more, and she licked her lips, although he didn’t know if that was from nerves or from interest.

Her hair had tumbled down around her shoulder, and Baron reached out to trace his fingers down one of the tousled waves.

“Baron?” Leila's voice was barely a breath.

His hand moved from her hair to her face, and he waited to see if she would withdraw.

She didn’t. Her mood had shifted to match his, and she looked warm and breathless, her head tilting into his hand and her eyes hot and intense.

Thinking of no good reason to restrain himself anymore, he leaned down into a kiss.

She responded immediately, wrapping an arm around his neck and shifting her body closer to his. A wave of heated gratification washed over him as he tangled his fingers into her loose hair and deepened the kiss.

Leila moaned softly into his mouth and reached blindly behind him to close her office door. Possessed by the kind of helpless desire he hadn’t experienced in years, Baron pressed her body into his, one of his hands sliding down to cup her ass.

When his arousal pushed into her middle, Leila tore her mouth away and gasped, “Oh God, Baron!”

For a pained moment, he wasn’t sure if it was an exclamation of pleasure or the prelude to saying they should stop. He knew this was too fast, too much—when nothing for either of them was clear.

But then she rubbed herself against his groin and grabbed his head again, pulling him down into another kiss.

After that, they both seemed to stop thinking entirely—acting only on instinct and physical need. After kissing in hungry urgency for a few minutes, they somehow ended up sprawled in a hot, panting heap on the small loveseat against the wall of her office.

Leila was soft and eager beneath him, trying impatiently to get his suit jacket off over his shoulders. When her tugs became insistent, Baron raised his mouth from her throat, where he’d been sucking on her pulse, and helped her get the jacket off his arms.

He returned his mouth to her neck. Then lowered it even more, adjusting the neckline of her top until he could mouth her breast through her bra. She whimpered in pleasure, shifting beneath him, as he suckled her nipple through the damp fabric.

Baron’s position wasn’t at all comfortable, but he didn’t care. He wanted Leila so badly his eyes had blurred over, and his erection was painfully tight in his pants.

“Baron,” Leila rasped, tugging at his shirt until she’d pulled it out of his pants and could caress the bare skin of his back.

He mumbled something in response over her breast, wanting to please her even as he was dying to sink inside her at last. One of her hands had curved around his skull, and she was stroking the sensitive skin at the base of his neck in a way that made him want to howl.

Her pencil skirt was so tight he couldn’t get his hands between her thighs, so he pushed the skirt up toward her hips. He’d almost gotten it out of the way when a knock on the office door startled them both into frozen shock.

The knock came again, louder this time. “Mrs. Luther?” a young male voice came from outside the door. “Are you there?”

Leila’s body was suddenly tense beneath him, and she shook her head with tight urgency.

Another knock.

If Baron were in a better state, he could have swung the door open and tossed the obnoxious boy down the stairs.

Finally, the knocking stopped and footsteps faded down the hallway.

Leila released a loud breath.

Baron straightened up so he was sitting on the loveseat beside Leila, who was still reclined back in a debauched sprawl.

“Oh, God,” Leila said, pulling herself up and trying to straighten her clothes. “That was Bradley. The work-study student in the department.”

Baron rubbed his face, trying to get control of his body. “He needs to work on his timing.”

“Yeah,” Leila agreed. Then she darted a glance over at him. “Although...”

He knew it was coming—as soon as the interruption had occurred. “Yeah.” If only his aching erection could have known it too.

“I’m sorry,” Leila said, finally managing to pull her skirt back down to her knees. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know what happened. I mean, I do. But I wasn’t thinking.”

“I know. Neither was I.”

“It’s not that I don’t want to. Obviously, I really do. But I can’t just... I mean, I’m a mom. I have to think of what’s best for them. And I just can’t jump into something... I just have to move more slowly.”

“I know. It wouldn’t have been smart.”

Sometimes Baron hated being smart.

“Are you sure?” Leila said, putting a hand on his arm.  “I know it’s not fair—to get you all hot and bothered and then stop. I should have stopped us earlier.” She sighed and rubbed her scalp with her fingertips. “I just got carried away.”

“I did too. I should have stopped us too. Don’t worry about it.”

Leila shifted uncomfortably, and Baron wondered if she was as aroused as he was.

After a moment, she glanced at him again. “Are you mad?”

He gave a huff of laughter. “I’m not mad.”

“Are you annoyed?”

He met her eyes and saw she was genuinely nervous about it. For a moment, he was offended—understanding that she really thought he was the kind of man to get angry when he couldn’t fuck who he wanted when he wanted to.

With a sharp pang of realization, he wondered if he
was
such a man.

He wasn’t angry or annoyed now. Moving so fast wouldn’t have been good—for either one of them—so it was just as well they were interrupted.

He just needed to get his body to understand that.

“I’m not annoyed,” he said, realizing Leila was waiting for a response. “Just give me a minute before you want me to move.”

Leila laughed, still flushed and breathless but genuinely amused.

Despite his discomfort, Baron couldn’t help but laugh a little too.