Page 90 of Sinful Like Us

I frown, about to respond, but another voice slices into the kitchen.

“Whoa, Banks.” O’Malley rolls to a halt with an armful of firewood, and Quinn bypasses him with another bundle. The Epsilon bodyguard eagle-eyes Thatcher like he’s lost his mind.

Thatcher is surprisingly calm and casual. Like Banks would be. He lowers my arm to my side and steps back from my body. “What do you want?”

O’Malley lets out a soft laugh. “You’re three inches from your brother’s girl and that’s notbizarreto you?”

“I had to grab her before she touched the burner. She didn’t realize I turned iton.” He lifts a shoulder. “That’s it.”

I shoot O’Malley a look. “Why? What’d you think Banks was doing?” I’m still a client, and he treats me with more respect than he does Thatcher.

Apologies fill his eyes. “Sorry. My mistake, Jane. I didn’t mean anything by it.” He disappears towards the living room.

Alone again, worry bunches my brows. “Did he buy it?” I whisper. “Or was he just placating me?”

“He thinks I’m Banks.” Thatcher sounds assured. “Whether he thinks Banks could be into you—I don’t know.”

I cringe. We knew it’d be a risk, but I don’t like the idea that Tony and O’Malley could believe I’m sleeping withbothMoretti brothers. “Do you think we should be more careful?”

He shakes his head. “They’ll think what they want no matter what they see.”

I appraise our distance apart. “We aren’tthatclose,” I rationalize under my breath.

His lip nearly lifts, his arms woven over his chest.

I realize something horrific and my mouth falls.

His muscles contract. “Jane?”

“How are we going to have sex?” I whisper. “We can’t sleep in the same bedroom.”

He opens his mouth to reply, but Maximoff hikes into the kitchen, cell clutched in a gloved hand. “I just got off the phone with the owners.”

“And?” I turn more towards him.

“The heaters are broken, and no one can come out here for another couple days. So we’ll have to work with whatever’s here until then.”

“We’ll survive,” I say confidently. “There are enough brains and brawn here to make it two days in a cold house.”

He nods, slipping his phone in his back pocket, and his forest-green eyes ping from Thatcher to me, back to Thatcher, then me. Under his breath, he says, “You two should…” He makes a motion with his hands for us to separate.

Thatcher backs up and adds more cold space between our bodies.

I try not to shiver. “We’re notthatclose,” I tell Moffy.

He makes a face like I’m no longer residing on Earth.

Possibly Thatcher is a magnet and I’m pulled in no matter the occasion, and I’ve really lost all sense of reality. And measurements. Spatial measurements.

Because three inches from him to me doesn’t feel close enough. God, evenzeroinches is far too little. I desire him closer, deep in the epicenter of my soul, and it’s absolutely…

Petrifying.

“Janie,” Maximoff says. “You look flushed.”

Oh no.

I’m wide-eyed on my boyfriend.