Page 15 of Playing With Temptation

Long dark hair lashed around her as she shook her head. Images of my hands gliding through that thick mane violently clashed with the vision of it spread out over my sheets.

There was something about this woman. Emotions I hadn’t felt in fifteen years clawed their way to the surface—need, compulsion, longing.

Not even with my wife had I felt an all-encompassing craving—nothing remotely close to what I’d felt with Rainy and now this nameless, faceless woman who had stirred to life a primal instinct that had long ago died.

What the fuck?

“School pickup is at three-thirty, right?” Ethan asked from beside me.

School.

My kids.

I shoved my crazy thoughts into the trash where they belonged and focused on my responsibilities.

Kids.

Making sure Juni was adjusting to her new classmates and teacher.

Checking in with Colson and how he was making out with the change to middle school.

Police work.

However, I’d yet to accomplish this by the time I followed Ethan into the parking lot of the station.

Who the fuck was that woman and why the hell did a glimpse of her in profile and the sound of her laugh set my blood on fire?

CHAPTER FIVE

It was right after Christmas break, Lucas’s third-grade year, when he asked me to stop parking my car to walk him into school. A few weeks after that, he demanded I stay in my car and pull through the pickup line instead of meeting him at the front door.

So there I was, inching my way through the line, jealous as all get out of the moms and dads waiting by the front door for their kids.

Out of habit, I reached for my phone, stalling just before my fingers could pluck it out of the cup holder.

Breathe.

Just breathe.

I was so deep into my grief Zoe was no longer my go-to with good news, or any news, or when I was sitting in the pickup line, or when I was grocery shopping, or anytime I just wanted to shoot the shit, I nearly jumped out of my skin when Lucas swung the car door open.

“Well? How’d it go? You rocked, didn’t you?” he chirped as soon as his butt hit the seat. “Ice cream celebration tonight!” he tossed his backpack into the footwell and continued to prattle on, “Hey! There’s Juni.”

My gaze shifted from the back seat to the school entrance. There was only one little girl in front of the school, rushing across the grass with her long brown hair flying behind her. A smile so big it split her pretty face. Juni. The name totally fit.

I lost sight of her when her little body hit a tall wall of dark-haired man. In a flash all thoughts of Juni flew out the window and my attention snapped to the way his navy-blue t-shirt clung to his wide shoulders. I’m a sucker for tall and broad and this guy fit the bill.

Gah. Now I’m perving on a dad at my son’s school, and he’s probably married.

I was not that girl!

Thankfully the car in front of me moved, saving me from having to hand over my membership to the sisterhood for drooling over another woman’s man.

“First, how was your day?”

“Good. Brandon invited me to his house for his annual back-to-school party. His parents set up a movie screen in the backyard for an all-night movie marathon. Can I go?”

My instinct was to say no. I’d only started to allow sleepovers last year, and only if I knew the parents.