TEMPORARY MATES PERMANENT CRAVINGS novel Chapter 288

Two hundred and eighty eight

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Two hundred and eighty eight

Isabella POV

Grandma Cassidy disappeared down the hallway that led to her bedroom, and it felt as though the air

had been sucked out of the kitchen.

I didn’t turn around, because I knew Wesley was still there.

The bottle of mango juice touched the counter with a quiet tap.

“So,” he said after a moment, his voice carrying that same lazy amusement from earlier, “you don’t do

women?”

I frowned and looked over my shoulder.

“What?”

The corner of his mouth lifted. “Anita is a catch, you know. If you swing both ways, I don’t see how this is

a crime.”

My heart thrashed wildly inside me. There were so many emotions I wanted to let out, but the strongest one was the urge to scream at him and ask why he was so bent on torturing me. Instead, all I could manage was a dry laugh, if that even qualified as a laugh. It was more like a subdued way of bursting

into tears.

“Last time I checked, I’m as straight as a ruler.”

He chuckled. I hated the sound because it settled somewhere under my skin, and the bond reacted before I could stop it, filling me with the absurd urge to walk over and beg him to touch me. It didn’t help. that he leaned one hip against the counter while his gaze roamed over my body.

“Then things are about to get way more difficult for you, until she decides to move on to her next target.”

“Why are you doing this?” I blurted.

“She recruited me.”

Beyond my usual show of basic respect, I shot him a look that only made his laughter intensify.

In my twenty-one years of existence, I’d dealt with different types of jerks. Straight-up assholes and bullies like Barbara, my family, and Maverick’s dad, as well as the lesser type of jerks who took advantage of me. But never in my life had I experienced anything like this. Needless to say, this one took the cake when it came to getting me worked up. A mate who had never once acknowledged or rejected the bond, and who was now pushing me toward his sister.

“I don’t want to offend anybody,” I said. “But there are millions of women out there that your sister can take a bite from, people who are way better and better-looking than I am.”

“You’ll have to tell her that yourself,” he said, then pushed away from the counter. “Are you seeing

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someone?”

I wasn’t even sure I could be any more shocked. The bond, however, didn’t care about logic. It surged, filling me with one impossible hope after another.

Maybe he was testing me and was finally going to say something.

He stopped a step away from me, close enough that the clean scent of his cologne and cedar wrapped around me again, and close enough that breathing suddenly required effort.

“It depends,” I heard myself say.

His brow lifted.

“On what?”

His fingers caught a loose strand of my hair and slowly wound it around one finger. The touch was feather-light, but my body treated it as though he were stripping me naked and touching me. Heat rushed through me so quickly my knees almost gave out.

“If there’s someone already,” he said, leaning forward, still absentmindedly twirling the strand around his finger, “Anita will back off eventually.”

“You seem awfully invested in this recruitment process.”

“She’s my sister, and she can be very demanding.”

A reckless part of me wanted to hurt him. If he could stand this close, touch me so casually, and still act as though none of this meant anything, then maybe he deserved to wonder for a while.

“I’ve been talking to someone,” I said.

He went quiet. His expression didn’t change much, but something flickered behind his eyes. It was gone so quickly I couldn’t decide whether I’d imagined it.

“Your son’s father?”

A fresh wave of panic swept through me, bringing that familiar dizziness with it.

I shook my head.

He kept watching me, as if measuring every reaction. I’d been blaming him for torturing me like this, but maybe he’d looked into my past. Maybe he’d heard things about me. Maybe this was his way of letting me down without saying the words. I didn’t know anymore. My thoughts tangled into one impossible conclusion after another.

He made a “hmmm” sound and his gaze lingered on my face.

“It must be serious enough for you to have turned me down that night.”

My mouth fell open.

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Why was this man so unpredictable? Here I was, dying of embarrassment, while all he seemed to regret was missing his chance to get me into his bed.

“That’s unfortunate.”

He slipped both hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels.

“Anita doesn’t take losing very gracefully. Besides, we’ve never been the sort of family to compete over the same woman. It tends to make holidays awkward.”

How considerate.

His eyes dropped briefly to my mouth before returning to mine, and the air between us grew so tight it felt impossible to draw a full breath.

The memory of the office rushed back without permission: how he’d almost kissed me, how our lips had brushed. And even now, his eyes were clouded in a sexual haze.

His next words came as though he could read my mind.

“If you’d come to my room that night, at least everyone would’ve had something interesting to gossip about. Now I’d just look like the guy who scared my sister’s crush away.”

My lips parted before I realized they had. He noticed, and his gaze stayed there a second too long.

He was close enough now that it stirred a wild need in me. If either of us leaned forward even an inch, our lips would touch.

I heard Grandma Cassidy returning and jumped back so abruptly I nearly bumped into the counter. She walked in holding my key, completely unaware of what she’d interrupted.

“There it is. I knew I’d left it on the dresser.”

I took it a little too quickly, mumbled another goodnight, turned, and walked out of the kitchen as steadily as I could manage.

The moment I reached my room and shut the door behind me, every bit of composure I’d been clinging to unraveled.

What was wrong with Wesley?

One minute he was close enough to kiss me. The next he was calmly asking whether I was dating someone else, as though the answer would only determine whether his sister still had a chance.

He didn’t sound jealous or conflicted. If he felt the bond at all, he hid it so well I couldn’t see a single

crack.

It hurt. Far more than I wanted to admit. I hadn’t even noticed Maverick was still downstairs until several long moments later, when the silence in my room reminded me I’d come up here alone.

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