An Imperfect Match / Next Comes Love. Kimberly Van Meter

and he was glad. Annabelle might be able to pretend that they hadn’t locked lips, but he was having a hard time doing the same. Now that he’d tasted those plump, pouting lips, it was all he could do not to lean in for another. She smelled like a sexy fruit salad—if there was such a thing—and it was hard to ignore the sensory overload.

      He stood and gently handed Honey over to Annabelle, swallowing the impulse to babble all sorts of ridiculous stuff about last night, and headed for the door.

      Her voice—oddly forlorn and at odds with the strong woman he knew her as—stopped him.

      “I know you didn’t mean to kiss me.”

      He wished that were true.

      “It was probably just one of those spur-of-the-moment, high-emotion kind of things. I know it didn’t mean anything.”

      A part of him desperately wished he’d felt nothing but uncomplicated desire as their lips touched. It would simplify the situation by half. But he knew the truth. He’d never been the kind of man who could be intimate without involving his heart. Sex for the sake of physical release never felt right.

      Closing his eyes for a split second, he opened them as he turned to face her. She stood, cradling Honey on her hip, backlit by the sun coming in from the far window, and his throat closed at the sheer beauty of the picture she made. He couldn’t lie. “Kissing you was my choice.” And given half a chance I’d do it again.

      ANNABELLE stared, not quite sure she’d heard that right. But the tight set of Dean’s jaw and the piercing look in his brown eyes told her differently.

      “So why do you look as if you just admitted to something awful?” she asked, putting Honey into her playpen for the time being.

      “It is awful,” he said simply, his gaze tracking her movements, sliding over her like a caress. “It’s inappropriate given our working relationship, but it wasn’t an accident. There’s no sense in lying. I wanted to kiss you.”

      Heat curled deep in her belly and pooled in her pelvis but she managed to nod. She’d wanted to kiss him, too. But where did that leave them? The question must’ve flashed in her eyes.

      “We go back to the way things were. It shouldn’t be that hard. We hardly know each other, right?”

      “Right.”

      “So, we just tuck this incident away in our private thoughts and leave it there. We both know it can’t go any further and there’s no sense in chasing after something that’s doomed to fail.”

      Very sensible. But her chest felt leaden. Had she hoped for more? Flustered by her own reaction, she offered a breezy smile that she certainly didn’t feel, and nodded. “Absolutely, that’s the best idea. I’m completely on board with that. Much less complicated. Good thinking.”

      He eyed her with suspicion and she wondered if she was smiling too brightly to be taken at face value. What did it matter what he thought? They’d agreed to a course of action and it seemed the most logical given their circumstances, so whatever else she was feeling—disappointment, chagrin, frustration—would just have to dissipate on its own.

      “Glad we agree,” he said slowly, though he didn’t make a move to leave as she’d expected. In fact, the air between them felt heavy with unfinished business and Annabelle knew what was missing.

      “Just one question,” she started, her heart rate kicking a tango in her chest as she closed the short distance. He regarded her with wary interest, his whole body tense. She swallowed, wondering what the hell had gotten into her.

      “Yeah?”

      The tight scratch of his voice rubbed against her raw nerves and sent heat curling through her body.

      “What if I didn’t want to pretend that nothing happened? What if…I wanted to try it again?”

      Dean’s eyes darkened, and she could tell he fought a war against himself. She sensed the battle between propriety and desire, and the fact that he struggled made her want him all the more. It was insane and went against every principle that she stood for. Don’t lust after your boss. The rule was very simple. Sticking to it was not so easy.

      “Annabelle…”

      “I know.” She lifted on her tiptoes and did the very thing she knew she should never do. But as her lips touched his, she wondered if being good was overrated.

      CHAPTER ELEVEN

      “ANNABELLE? Did you hear me, dear?”

      Annabelle started, embarrassed to have been caught daydreaming during a committee meeting by none other than Dean’s mother, Mary. She adjusted Honey on her lap in an attempt to look as though the baby had needed her attention. Shameful to use her own daughter that way, she thought ruefully and pressed a quick kiss on Honey’s head.

      “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that,” she admitted, feeling her cheeks heat. She couldn’t very well tell Dean’s mother that the reason she wasn’t paying attention was because she was replaying that day’s activities in her head. Repeatedly. Well, mostly only a few select moments. But they were really good moments.

      “Would you like us to bring the lemonade canisters to Dean’s office or to your house?”

      “The office would be fine,” she murmured.

      “They’re heavy once you fill them,” Mary said, then looked to Dean. “You can help her, right, son?”

      Dean caught Annabelle’s gaze and she felt the power of his stare all the way down to her toes. Before she knew it, a smile was curving her lips and all but announcing to the room that something was going on between them.

      “No need,” Annabelle said quickly, dropping the smile in favor of something more businesslike. “I’m sure I can manage on my own. I’m stronger than I look.”

      A wave of light laughter filled the room but all Annabelle could see was Dean as he told his mother that he’d help in any way the committee might need him.

      He was an incredible kisser. Sweet, yet firm; gentle yet demanding. He’d possessed her mouth with nothing less than mastery and Annabelle had had to fight to keep her expression carefully schooled lest it drift into something akin to blissfully dreamy.

      “You look like you have something juicy to share,” Dana whispered out of the corner of her mouth. “Tell now? Or later?”

      “What are you talking about?” Annabelle said, trying to bluff, but Dana wasn’t buying. She tried harder to throw her best friend off the scent. “I’m just happy to be involved. Feels good, you know?”

      Dana nodded but a shrewd light shone from her eyes. “Mmm-hmm” was all she said, but Annabelle breathed a secret sigh of relief that Dana didn’t seem inclined to press just yet. The operative word being yet. That was okay. By the time Dana got around to squeezing something out of Annabelle, whatever was going on between her and Dean would likely be over. Annabelle wasn’t a fool. Well, at the moment she was certainly acting like one, mooning over her boss, but in the long run, she knew where things really stood. This was a fling. Plain and simple. Ordinarily, Annabelle wasn’t one to play that game, but there was something about Dean that robbed her of the ability to think straight. Especially when he hit her with those smoldering glances that all but screamed he was thinking of one thing.

      And that should piss her off. She hated being objectified. But coming from Dean it didn’t feel like something cheap and tawdry, though a part of her was petrified that it was exactly that, but she was too googly-eyed to notice it for what it truly was. Ugh. She rubbed her temple as her own dizzying logic sent a stabbing pain straight to her brain.

      Somehow the meeting ended and she managed to make all the appropriate head bobs and agreements though she couldn’t for the life of her recall what had been the topic of discussion. Something about refreshments? Cucumber sandwiches? Who eats those? Sounded dreadful. Hope she’d