"I've never lived here before."
He'd told her that already. Her lips ached for another kiss. She averted her gaze. "Why do you want me to move in so bad?"
"I don't want you hurt because of me."
Her body cooled down. He didn't say he had to have her. That he desired her. She should have expected she was a responsibility. "I'll be fine."
"I need you here."
Her face heated as she dared to hope. "Why?"
"They're reading my father's will tomorrow. Now that I quit the FBI and plan to move back here, I need to keep the people I trust close."
Her heart soared at the fact that he trusted her, which was silly. She tried to sound calm and rational. "Sounds like you have big decisions to make."
His blue eyes melted her the second she stared into his gaze. "All I'll think about is you if you go. If you stay, then I'll know you're safe and I won't have to worry."
She sighed. She'd do whatever he wanted. He had to know that. "Do you want me with you because you need a friend, John?"
He sat back in his chair like she was the bee that stung him. He mumbled, "I guess. Is that bad?"
She poured some orange juice, wondering what she'd done to bring his guard back up. "No, but why me? You have your choice of women—you always did."
He leaned closer. Alice smelled the cedar and pine of his aftershave. "I'm comfortable with you."
She'dcomforthim? She'd drink in the sweet nectar of his kiss and then crave so much that she'd lose herself in him. "So I'm like a worn tennis shoe that's been around the House of Morgan so you know I'll survive if something explodes?"
His brow wrinkled as if she said the craziest thing he ever heard. "You're neither old nor a tennis shoe, but I like you here."
Like. The word reverberated in her ear. They were friends. Just friends. Alice wouldn't let her crush get away with her better judgment. She'd be fine. Alice swallowed and then stared into his open, clear blue eyes. "Okay, but this is just for the week. I need to go to my own place after the closing."
His dimples appeared as he smiled. "You'll stay here, then."
She ran her hands through her hair to cradle the back of her skull and massage her scalp. "If you take me home, bring my car here for later, and somehow we explain to my mother that you're not after my virtue."
He laughed and picked up his milk. "Virtue?"
She sighed. John Morgan would never understand. "Mom is old school."
He licked his lips and the fire inside her grew again. He said, "I promise to behave."
She buried her feelings and held out her hand with her finger outstretched. "Pinky swear."
He stared at her hand and her. "What?"
She met his gaze with as much steel as she could muster in hers. "Pinky swear. We were friends once."
He took her hand and kissed her finger. "That was my sister and you."
She would never forget his tenderness. "So we're not friends now?"
His voice had a gravely sound that etched itself in her heart. "I don't know what we are, but ‘friends' sounds way too innocent."
He lifted their hands and she locked her small finger with his and waved their hands up and down in a handshake. "It's a deal."
Lying to herself, she repeated that she was an adult and one day she'd get over her crush on John. The thought didn't ring true, but there was nothing else to do without possibly putting her family in danger.
