Page 23 of The Live-In Temptation (Steele Brothers of Starlight Cove #2)

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHLOE

First of all, I wasn’t spiraling. I wanted to get that out of the way just so everyone was on the same page. I absolutely, one hundred percent was not losing my shit.

Sure, I’d been reading a spicy book last night when I’d been interrupted. And yes, my boss—my boss —had directed me to touch myself as he stood in the doorway watching, his eyes devouring me like I was his favorite late-night fantasy while I came apart.

And okay, fine, the way he’d voiced his orders in that deep rasp had very nearly triggered a spontaneous religious experience on top of the best orgasm I’d had in years.

But I was absolutely not thinking about that.

I wasn’t replaying the way his eyes had heated when they’d landed on me.

Or the rough sound that had come from his throat.

Or how his entire body was tensed as he stood there, his knuckles white on the doorframe as if holding himself back.

Or how out of character it’d been for him to do, well, any of that.

And I sure as hell wasn’t thinking about how just my name on his lips had sent me over the edge and wrecked me more than any orgasm should have the power to.

No, sir. I wasn’t thinking about any of that.

Also not wondering if, when he’d turned to leave without a word and silently shut my door behind him, he’d gone into his own room, wrapped his hand around his cock, and came to the memory of me.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

I wasn’t doing any of those things.

Instead, I was devoting my entire day to winter shenanigans. Core memories, edible glitter to make things sparkle, maybe some mild snow-induced hypothermia. The usual.

Avoidance? Never met her.

It was a sunny—if cold—day, and Emma and I had been outside for twenty minutes playing in the snow. She’d already declared herself Queen of the Backyard Kingdom and appointed our pitiful-looking snowman as her official royal guard.

Captain Sparklepants was shaping up…well, not quite beautifully, but he was shaping up, nonetheless.

“Arms,” Emma called, reaching back as if the candy canes I placed in her hand were scalpels and she was performing surgery.

“Yes, Doctor. Right away, Doctor.”

We’d already given Captain Sparklepants a yellow scarf I’d stolen from the coat closet, pinecones for his eyes, a mouth made of chocolate chips—half of which Emma had already eaten—and a stalk of asparagus for his nose because we were all out of carrots.

A snowman had never looked more unhinged.

But my absolute favorite part of him and the pièce de résistance? A glitter beard.

“He’s not sparkly enough.” Emma propped her hands on her hips as she stared at our ridiculous masterpiece.

“No? I think he’s got just the right amount of sparkle. Really accentuates his green nose.”

“He needs more .” Without waiting for a response from me, she grabbed the container of iridescent edible glitter and upended the entire thing over Captain Sparklepants’s head.

So much for subtlety.

“Well, he’s certainly luminescent now. And perfect,” I said, brushing snow off my mittens and admiring our creation.

“He needs a hat!” Emma yelled, as if I weren’t standing five feet away from her.

“A hat, of course,” I said, glancing around for the plastic tiara I’d brought out.

I snatched it from the pile of discarded accessories and placed it on top of Captain Sparklepants’s head before bowing dramatically. “Your Majesty.”

Emma fell into a fit of giggles at my terrible British accent. And, yeah, okay—apparently, I liked to do accents and I wasn’t very good at them. But with the way she laughed, literally falling over in the snow, thanks to her amusement, I’d do every bad accent I could think of.

I fell onto the snow next to her, a bright smile on my face as I glanced over at her.

She had changed and blossomed so much in the few short weeks I’d been here.

It was hard to believe this girl next to me with rosy cheeks and vibrant eyes and a smile big enough and bright enough to light up the whole sky was the same girl who’d been hiding behind a pillow the first time we’d met.

The thought that maybe—just maybe—I had a little something to do with that made something warm and soft unfurl in my chest.

But I shook that off. Now wasn’t the time to get bogged down by those pesky things called attachments. Safer for everyone that way.

“Time for snow angels?” I asked.

“Snow angels!” she yelled back and immediately began flapping her arms and kicking her feet, sending snow flying in every direction.

My own angel was slightly lopsided and a hot mess—much like my emotional state.

But for the first time in days, I wasn’t consumed with the ever-present question: what did that mean ?

Or trying to figure out how to function around my boss without spontaneously combusting.

I was just here, basking in the giggles of a little girl I adored.

At least until the back door creaked open behind us.

I froze mid-flap, the cold seeping into my body through my coat. But that wasn’t what made me shiver. It was him.

It was always him.

I didn’t have to glance over to confirm what I already knew. I could feel it—the weight of his gaze on me, all quiet hunger and unmatched restraint, just like it’d been last night.

But I knew I couldn’t avoid him forever.

Couldn’t avoid the giant pink elephant sure to be in the room with us either.

Yeah, he’d watched me come. And yeah, he’d told me to shove three fingers into my pussy to get it ready to take his cock.

But so what? That was probably just another Saturday night for most people.

So, I sat up, shielding my eyes against the sun, and glanced toward the house.

And sure enough, there he was, all six feet and a handful of inches of growly, off-duty fire chief. Xander’s beanie was pulled low, his jaw shadowed with that tight-cropped beard that had starred in every single one of my dreams. The same one I’d wanted to feel on my thighs last night.

He wore a black jacket that was somehow fitted enough to show off his unfairly broad shoulders and seam-testing biceps. His boots were planted on the ground like the snow had personally offended him.

But it was his expression that nearly did me in. Not because he was looking at me, but because he looked…confused.

Not awkward. Not guilty. Not cocky like a man who’d told me exactly how to touch myself and watched me fall apart while wearing his hoodie.

No, this was so fucking much worse.

He looked at me like he had no idea. Like he was trying to place something. Like maybe he’d dreamed it.

My breath caught, and my heart stuttered to a screeching halt.

Oh.

My.

God .

He thought he’d dreamed it.

That low, gruff voice telling me to slip my hand between my thighs? Every hoarse command telling me exactly what to do?

He didn’t even realize it had happened.

Meanwhile, I’d already replayed it enough times to short-circuit my vibrator. Twice.

Okay, three times.

But that was it . No more. I was done with that.

Because if he couldn’t be bothered to remember the hottest thing that had ever happened to me, I was just going to pretend it hadn’t happened too. Cut off my nose, spite my orgasm, and carry on like I hadn’t come from his voice alone. If he could forget, so could I.

I lifted my chin and shot him a smile I didn’t feel. And Emma—bless that girl—stole his scrutinizing attention from me.

“Daddy! Daddy, look! We made Captain Sparklepants!” She ran around our homely looking snowman, presenting it as if it were worthy of a medal.

Xander blinked away from me and focused on his daughter. “You named it?”

I huffed out a laugh and stood, brushing the snow off my pants.

Pretending everything was fine. Totally normal over here.

“Of course. He has a whole backstory and everything. Xander Steele, I’d like you to meet Captain Sparklepants, Secret Agent.

He has glitter-based powers and a vendetta against anyone who doesn’t think whipped cream and sprinkles belong on hot chocolate. ”

His lips twitched. Or it might’ve been a trick of the light. It was probably most definitely a trick of the light because Xander didn’t smile. “Sounds dangerous.”

“Oh, he’s a menace for sure.” I gave Xander a quick once-over—in a strictly professional way, of course. His jacket and boots suggested he was out here to stay, but I needed to know what side of this snow war he was planning to be on. “You here to supervise or surrender?”

He narrowed his eyes on me. “Steeles don’t surrender.”

Emma took that as a green light and shrieked with the kind of glee only sugar and snowstorms could deliver. And then she promptly hurled a snowball at him.

With as bad as her aim had been all morning, I was shocked when it landed. A direct hit, right on the side of his head.

I snorted out a laugh and then slammed both mitten-covered hands over my mouth to hide the sound.

Xander glanced at me, sizing me up from head to toe, and then focused on Emma’s giggling form. He brushed the snow from his beanie before bending down and scooping a handful of his own, his movements slow and ominous. “You sure about this, peanut?”

“ Yes !” she yelled.

“Chief,” I warned. “You’re outnumbered, so maybe you should rethink this.”

“You’re assuming I play fair,” he said with a smirk and a glint in his eyes that made my nipples perk up.

No . My nipples were no longer allowed to respond to this fuckhot man. Not when he didn’t even remember the hottest night of my life.

He tossed a snowball at Emma, who shrieked with glee as I ducked behind Captain Sparklepants for cover, nearly falling on my ass at the sound of Xander’s booming laugh. Something I hadn’t once heard in the weeks I’d been staying here.

The snowball he lobbed my way missed me by mere inches, exploding in a puff of white against the tree trunk behind me. And even though it hadn’t been a direct hit, I retaliated, gathering up a snowball of my own and hurling it at him.

It hit him in the shoulder, and he didn’t even flinch, the smug, oversized, incredibly built bastard. But he leveled me with a look that had me slowly backing away.

“Oh, it’s on now, chaos,” he muttered.

It was pure pandemonium after that. Not to mention three direct hits to my ass and one suspiciously accurate shot that knocked the tiara off Captain Sparklepants, courtesy of Xander.

Emma gasped in horror like she was on an actual battlefield and had just witnessed her partner-in-arms go down.

“No, Daddy!” she shrieked, then rushed him, plowing into him at full speed.

It was actually more of a body slam to the knees, but he went down like he’d been tackled by a linebacker instead of a tiny four-year-old an eighth of his size. He landed flat on his back in the snow with a grunt and a grin that almost undid me.

Emma tossed back her head in cackles and climbed on top of him like a victorious Valkyrie. Xander tried so hard to maintain his grumpy firefighter dignity. Tried and failed spectacularly.

Through it all, I watched, flushed and breathless, laughing so hard my ribs hurt. And forgetting for a moment the utter humiliation that was last night.

Then he looked up at me, something calculated in his eyes, and gathered a fistful of snow, his determination clear.

“No,” I said firmly, holding up my hands as I backed away. “The snowball war is over , Chief. I swear to God, if you throw that?—”

He did, sending the snowball sailing toward me. It hit my chest with unerring accuracy, perfectly illustrating that every time he’d missed before had been on purpose.

I glanced down, huffing out an indignant breath as I brushed the snow from my coat. “You did not just do that.”

He stood, gathered another snowball, and grinned. Full teeth. Pure evil. “Better run, chaos.”

He didn’t have to tell me twice.

Laughing so hard I could barely breathe, I sprinted across the yard, my boots slipping in the snow as Emma yelled encouragement from the sidelines. But my short little legs and firm stance to only run if zombies were on the loose were no match for the fire chief in his peak firefighter physique.

I glanced back once—just like every dumb heroine in a horror movie—and there he was, bearing down on me so fast I had no chance of dodging him.

I shrieked as soon as he was on me. But instead of pushing me into the snow like I assumed he would, he wrapped one strong, solid arm around my waist, hooked me into his side, and sent us tumbling into a snowbank, rolling us so he took the brunt of the fall.

I was laughing and breathless and…somehow straddling him, my hands on his chest, his on my hips. Completely frozen in a way that had absolutely nothing to do with the cold outside.

For several heartbeats, the world narrowed, everything else falling away. Including my resolve.

He was warm. So warm, I wanted nothing more than to sink into him. Wanted to rock against where I could feel him growing hard for me. He flexed his hands against my hips as he stared up at me, his eyes intense and unflinching, filled with something I didn’t have the guts to name.

“Chloe,” he murmured, soft and sweet. Nothing like the hoarse sound it had been last night.

A night he didn’t even remember.

He reached up—slow, as if I might flee—and brushed a snowflake from my cheek with his thumb.

My heart didn’t just stutter at the touch or his soft voice. It flatlined completely.

I opened my mouth to— what ? Reply? Beg for a kiss? Confess that last night hadn’t been a dream for him and, yeah, we actually had done all of that? Who knew? Sure as hell not me.

Thankfully, my short queen saved my dignity with another war cry, so I didn’t have to find out.

“LoLee won!” Emma hollered from the porch, cackling with glee.

Scrambling off Xander, I slipped on the snow before standing and pretending I’d meant to do that.

“That was close. We almost corrupted the youth,” I said, breathing out a forced laugh.

One Xander didn’t return.

Instead, he just watched me. Slow and steady and intently, like I was a book with no title and too many torn-out pages to make sense of, but he was desperately trying to anyway.

The physical urge I had to flee was overwhelming. I wasn’t at all interested in someone getting close enough to do that. And definitely not if that someone was my boss.

That was the moment I realized I wasn’t just avoiding my feelings. I was actively trying to outsprint them.

And if Xander kept looking at me the way he was—all intent and disarming—I was absolutely going to lose.