Can't Help Falling In Love (The Sullivans #3)(21)

No, Gabe quickly admitted. That kiss had been their first truly honest moment together. Honest passion...full-throttle desire.

As she finally slipped out of his arms and he moved to let her go, she added, “After the way Summer’s father died, I just can’t.”

He should have been leaving, should have left five minutes ago so that none of this could have happened. But, Lord, he wouldn’t regret that smoking-hot kiss. And he wanted to understand Megan’s reasons as well as he did his own.

“How did he die?”

“He was a fighter pilot.”

“Navy?”

She nodded, looking heartbroken, and he had a moment of serious jealousy over a dead man. What was happening to him?

“I don’t date men like you with jobs like yours. Not anymore. Summer was only a toddler when David died, but it still hurt her. If I were to let her get close to another man with a job like that and one day he didn’t come home...”

She seemed to realize she’d said too much about herself and quickly turned the question back on him. “And I’m assuming you don’t date woman you save because—”

“It never works out.” He’d heard what she’d said about not letting herself date a guy in his dangerous line of work, but he could still taste that kiss, could still hear her sexy little moans as their tongues had slipped and slid against each other. Yet again, he didn’t know whether it was for her or for himself when he said, “It’s just not a normal way for two people to meet. It sets up expectations. Ones that can never be lived up to in everyday, real life.”

Knowing he was the one saying too much now, he was glad when she took another step back from him and said, “Okay.”

She gave him a smile that trembled slightly around the edges. “I’m glad we’ve got that out in the open.” She licked her lips. “Settled between us.”

He shouldn’t have been standing there thinking how cute she was when she was nervous, but damn it, that was exactly what he was doing. And he sure as hell shouldn’t have been on the verge of reaching for her and kissing her sweet mouth again.

Gabe shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them from straying back to her gorgeous curves. He needed to leave, the sooner the better. She’d make the coffee. He’d drink it. And then he’d say goodbye and go back to his place and not let himself think about her, damn it.

If only he could have stuck to his original plan of staying as far away from her as possible. But she’d been to his mother’s house. She’d met his family. She was friends with his sister, the same sister who clearly had designs on getting them together.

As if she needed something to do with her hands, too, Megan picked up the bag he’d dropped on the counter and poured beans into the coffee maker.

“Sophie’s your friend and we’re bound to see each other again—”

“—so we’ll just agree to be friends,” Megan said, finishing his sentence. “No big deal.” She gave him another one of those not-quite-there smiles as she pressed the button on the grinder. When the beans were ready for the coffee maker, she scooped them in and said, “I mean, now that we both know exactly where the other person stands, right?”

Still wanting her more than he’d ever wanted another woman, Gabe nodded.

“Right.”

She was a blur of activity, clearing off a stack of Frosty the Snowman drawings she and Summer must have been working on, pulling out a pretty plate and arranging some white-frosted snowflake cookies on it.

He’d never dated anyone with kids. Not, he reminded himself, that he and Megan were dating. But it was the first time he’d seen anyone apart from his mother juggle more than just her own life.

She handed him the cup of coffee. “Why don’t we go sit down?”

He followed her over to the small living room on the other side of the open kitchen, noting that she wisely chose to sit on the small, velvet-covered chair rather than joining him on the couch.

She slid her heels off and tucked her bare feet up under her, rubbing them with her free hand. “My feet were killing me in those heels.”

Gabe wouldn’t ever have called himself a foot man. Feet were just feet. But Megan’s pink painted toes were incredibly sexy. He wanted to push her hand away and replace it with his. He already knew how sweet her mouth was, how soft her hair was. What would her skin feel like beneath his hands?

He was blowing the “just friends” thing already. What made it worse was that not only was he just as opposed to falling for Megan as she was for him, but he also understood her reasons for not wanting to be with him. She had every right to want to be with a man who wouldn’t die unexpectedly on her this time around.

There was no question whatsoever that he didn’t fit that bill. At all.

There was a desk in the corner of the living room, along with a couple of large filing cabinets and a bookshelf that looked like it held reference manuals rather than novels.

Following his gaze, she offered, “I work from home. I’m a CPA.”

Before tonight, Gabe might have assumed that all accountants were dry, passionless geeks glued to their calculators and spreadsheets.

Megan definitely wasn’t passionless.

“Do you like being an accountant?”

“I do.” She took a sip of coffee. “I like how numbers add up. I like the rhyme and reason. How they always make sense, and if there’s a discrepancy, I know that as long as I look hard enough, I’ll figure out what the problem is. And solve it.” She blinked at him with those beautiful green eyes. “I take it you love being a firefighter?”