Free Must Love Ghosts by Jennifer Savalli

acted like he’d never heard the word fiancé before. Why did you lie about it?”
    She kept the pillow over her head, too chicken to face him despite the need to confess pushing words out of her mouth. “Because I thought if a relationship between us was off-limits, I wouldn’t be tempted by you.”
    Silence fell as he pressed the exact right spot on the arch of her foot and she bit back a moan.
    â€œRichard’s mad now, but he’ll take you back. He’d be a fool not to.” Dec’s voice was flat, utterly expressionless, giving her no clue to what he was thinking.
    â€œI don’t want Richard back. He was a mistake.” If only she could figure out what had gone wrong with her perfect plan, she could figure out how not to make the same mistake again.
    Suddenly, the pillow was yanked off her face and Dec loomed over her. His movement shifted her legs, his hard thighs slid under hers, and she was breathlessly aware that they’d moved from a friendly foot-massage position to something much more intimate. Every nerve ending in her body fluttered to life. She met his dark eyes, her skin heating when he flashed that grin at her again. This time so close that if she raised her head, she could kiss him, taste him.
    He was like a double chocolate gelato dipped in sin and she’d been stuck with nonfat tofu ice cream for far too long.
    He snaked an arm under her back, lifting her a few crucial inches. “It’s probably tacky to make the moves on a woman who was dumped less than an hour ago.”
    â€œTotally tacky.” She coiled her arms around his neck, playing her fingers in his hair. Just one kiss and then she’d stop. Even as the thought flitted through her mind, she knew she was as bad as any addict going back for one more hit. Except her drug of choice was a Dec-induced dopamine rush.
    â€œI have to move fast with you,” he whispered. “No doubt you’ll find another boring idiot to marry by tomorrow.”
    And then his lips were on hers and all thoughts of biochemical madness scattered. She wrapped both arms around him, the taste of his mouth making everything in her world disappear but the thrum of wanting pulsing through her. That was why she’d gone to bed with him on their first date. Their goodnight kiss had gone from light and polite to hot and hungry in an instant, and then he’d bet her a night she’d never forget, and she’d let him all the way in.
    Dec pulled off her glasses, tossed them on the coffee table, and bent his head back to her to run his tongue lightly across the seam of her lips. She shuddered, parting her lips and he deepened the kiss. He lowered her back down to the couch, following her with his body so his delicious weight pressed against her breasts. Would it be so bad if she let him in again?
    One of them moaned, maybe her. He trailed his fingers down her back, hesitated an agonizing moment at the hem of the silk shell she wore, and then his warm hand slipped under the material and moved up her stomach. His thumb grazed her breast, heat flashed in the pit of her stomach, and fireworks boomed in the distance.
    Fireworks?
    Her eyes flew open and she blinked at the blurry darkness. All the lights had gone out.
    â€œLooks like now’s the time to ask what your intentions are toward my grand-niece.”
    Dec came to his feet in one powerful surge of motion. All the warm parts of Tia went cold at his absence. She sat up slowly. The cold might also be because the temperature in the room had dropped ten degrees. She found her glasses and shoved them back on.
    Her great-uncle sat cross-legged on the hearth, grinning like a leprechaun.
    â€œYou!” Tia was on her feet next to Dec in a second. “What on earth were you trying to do tonight?”
    His smile dimmed. “Just having some fun.”
    Dec shook his head and strode to the window, drew back the curtains to peer out into the darkness.