Another Saturday, another show. Another session of sublime torture.

Though this would only be the second evening since Chase had started guarding Summer, he’d already realized that he might be in over his head. His saving grace was that he spent limited time in her sphere. Two hours max per night, so far only once per week. No biggie.

So he wanted her, just like every other guy who glimpsed her singing her heart—and all the rest of her—out. Unlike them, he wouldn’t allow himself to even make a play. He had to keep her safe and that took precedence over everything else. Distractions weren’t a weakness he could indulge.

She still offered token excuses why she didn’t need security. She was fine, she knew martial arts, she needed to be close to her fans. All well and good, but he wasn’t letting her fans be that close to her. End of story.

Besides, why should they get fringe bennies he didn’t? Hell, he even tried not to breathe in too much of her apple scent. Fruit had never turned him on to that extent before. Maybe he’d investigate some kind of nose plugs.

Her shift at Triple Scoop was due to end at four, and Chase agreed to pick her up at her place at five before their drive into the city. He ended up getting done with PT early and to fill up some time, went to half of an AA meeting, which he counted as a victory despite being gently scolded by the group leader for taking off before the end. Since he usually split before introductions were finished, he figured he’d made solid progress. That left an afternoon of doing nothing and more nothing or bothering Summer and his sister.

Naturally, bothering his favorite two females won.

Plus he’d have supervision in the form of Cass. She wouldn’t let him even look at Summer, never mind touch.

When he strode into the ice cream shop at just past three, they were both assisting customers. Cass helped an elderly woman choose between rocky road and peach melba and Summer appeared to be selling a guy about her age some chocolate sauce. The dude seemed way too interested in the silky mint fudge for Chase’s liking, and as he put his newly developed stealth skills to work by edging up behind them, he realized why.

“Oh yes, I guarantee you’ll enjoy it. The flavor is very subtle and the mint offers a slight tingling sensation on the tongue.” Summer chuckled and tipped her head, letting a dark wave fall across her cheek. “Or other places, your choice.”

“Wow, really?” Grinning Dude braced an arm on the shelf of assorted ice cream related paraphernalia just above her head and leaned close. “Tell me more.”

Like hell.

Chase stepped forward and took a moment’s delight in the way Summer’s eyes went wary and wide. He knew the look of someone trying to close a deal and she had it. She also flushed, a sure sign she’d been using her considerable feminine wiles to hawk his sister’s sauce.

As much as he appreciated her entrepreneurial spirit, he’d just put a swift end to that.

“Hi there, kids. Can a guy get some service around here or should I come back later?” Chase asked, clasping his hands behind his back. He wasn’t gripping them to keep from dragging Summer away as if she were his favorite piece of meat. An evolved male like him? Never.

“Wait your turn,” No-Longer-Grinning Dude snapped.

“I don’t think so.” Chase inclined his chin toward Summer. “Ma’am? Do you think you could help me?”

“I doubt it.” She exhaled and faced her customer. “Would you like me to bag some of the sauce for you to go? I can include samples of—”

“No. Never mind.” Aiming a sour look at Chase, the customer shook his head. “Don’t think I need any tonight.”

Chase shifted away to study the shelf of glass serving dishes and suppressed a smile at the sound of Positively Miserable Dude’s retreating footsteps. The door thunked shut with a jaunty peal of bells.

He didn’t get long to revel in his victory.

“What is the matter with you?” Summer punched him in the arm—the left one, of course—and he had to bite the inside of his cheek to avoid grimacing. She had quite a right hook. “Do you have to scare off paying customers?” She dropped her voice half an octave. “What are you doing here now? It’s not time yet.”

“Time waits for no man when it comes to the search for willing pussy.” He used the frank language intentionally, hoping to send her scurrying behind the counter to where Cass still chatted and laughed with Mrs. Finster from across the street. He hadn’t recognized her at first without her usual frizzy blue wig.

But Summer didn’t scurry. In fact she stepped closer and used that same hand on the shelf trick as Grinning Guy had, adjusting for the height differential. “I didn’t realize you were in need.” She visually accosted Chase’s groin. Said groin responded inappropriately by stiffening and searching for a stroking hand to go with her caressing look. “If I’d known you’d be stopping by early, I would’ve skipped the panties.”

She sashayed away before he’d rolled his tongue back in his mouth.

He rubbed the vague knot in his forehead. Maybe he should’ve stayed at his AA meeting.

“Chase.” Cass hurried up to him, apparently having divested herself of Mrs. Finster. “What’re you doing here?” She also glanced down his body, but stopped at his elbow. “Are you okay?”

“It hasn’t miraculously healed, if that’s what you’re wondering.” To soften his rebuff, he strolled to the glass-fronted case and scoffed at the sheer volume of choices. He was so proud of the business his baby sister had built, but teasing her made up the brightest part of his week. “What happened to plain old chocolate?”

“You came all the way from the city to get something boring?” She didn’t let him answer before she encircled his waist. “I’ve missed you, you big lug.”

“You talk to me on the phone.” But he pressed a kiss to her hair and hugged her back before drawing her away and frowning. “You’ve lost weight. You’re not dieting again, are you?”

“No. I’m surrounded by sugar and cream and fat every day. What would be the point?” She laughed and squeezed him before heading behind the counter. “Did you say hello to Summer?”

“Yep.”

“I hope you were friendly.”

“Aren’t I always?” A rueful smile touched his lips at their last exchange. “Don’t answer that.”

Rather than respond, Cass adjusted the pink and purple straws she’d arranged in her bright red bun. Instead of looking ridiculous, on Cass it seemed fun and perky.

Perky. Fuck him, he was losing it. If he didn’t get laid soon, his dick would spontaneously turn into a vag.

“So, what, you came all the way down here for a bowl of plain chocolate with a side of white chocolate chips?”

He glanced around to make sure the shop was still empty. Summer had yet to return from the back room or wherever she’d disappeared to. “You still have those mini ones?”

“Sure thing. I keep a special stash for my big brother.” She opened a narrow tube at the side of the ice cream case and white chocolate chips overflowed her hand like a sugar addict’s jackpot. “Waffle bowl?”

“I shouldn’t. I’m training.” At her questioning look, he sighed. Someday he’d have to admit PT didn’t count as conditioning. Like right now when he could have a waffle bowl of pure chocolate goodness. “Ah, hit me.”

“Now you’re talking.” Cass grinned, on the verge of doing his bidding when Summer sauntered out, her apron folded and tucked under her arm. “Look who’s here,” Cass said over her shoulder.

“So I saw.” If Summer’s tone got any drier, he’d offer her some grapes and cheese. A fine wine had nothing on her. “Pack up his little snack to go, if you don’t mind. I’m heading out and he’s coming with.” Already anticipating Cass’s question, she shot him a glance and added, “He can fix my shutters. They’re loose. Practically swinging in the breeze.”

Somehow that imagery made him consider what else could be swinging in the breeze if she really had been sans panties—particularly the sweet globes of her ass. Not that they would be swinging, per se. They were too firm and tight. “Do I look like a handyman to you?”

“Don’t think you want me to say what you look like.” Her cheerful reply floated over him as surely as that damnable apple scent she gave off when she sailed past him. “Add some of the raspberry-mocha-white-chocolate sauce to the bag, if you don’t mind. Catch you tomorrow, Casstastic.”

“Her shutters, huh?” Cass grabbed a jar of something—probably the sauce—and placed it into a second bag. In the first she’d already packed a waffle bowl, plastic spoon, container of white chocolate chips and a pint of chocolate. “Is this something you discussed when you ran into each other at that club?”

He frowned. Cass could be shifty, and if she was trying to trap him somehow, he wouldn’t make it easier on her. At least Summer had mentioned seeing him at a club, though he’d bet his team’s pennant she hadn’t told Cass exactly what she’d been doing there. “Uh, no. Her shutters are a spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“I wonder why she’d think you were good with a hammer.” Neatly rolling up the top of the bags, his sister flashed a blithe smile and passed them to him over the counter. “Poor misguided woman.”

Because he wasn’t entirely certain he hadn’t missed some vital female subtext—again—he just grunted and mumbled something about hidden talents and Bob Vila. That had been the guy with the home reno show back in the day, right? No Property Brothers bullshit for him.

“Thanks, sis. I’ll enjoy this.”

Cass wiggled her fingers in a wave goodbye. “Tell Summer not to enjoy hers too much, okay?”

More subtext. He wasn’t biting. “Sure. See you later. Don’t lose any more weight or I’ll force feed you half a turkey at Thanksgiving dinner.” Her laughter followed him out of the store.

He met up with Summer by her sweet pink Caddy in the parking lot. He could never make up his mind if he’d classify it an eyesore or a classic. Probably both. “What’s the deal with you and this sauce?” he asked, pushing the second bag into her hands.

Summer offered him the same secretive smile as Cass. Disconcerting. “It’s just chocolate sauce.” She took his bag too, ostensibly to stick in her freezer while he worked on her menial tasks. “You like white chocolate, right?”

“You’re not supposed to know about that.”

“You’d be surprised what I know, Deuce.” She slipped into her car without giving him time to grouse about the nickname usage.

By the time they arrived at her place, he’d come up with a plan to combat their aloneness for the next hour and a half before they started the trek into the city. He’d nail her shutters or whatever and then he’d stand at her sink and scarf down the ice cream without making eye contact or conversation. That would succinctly convey his disinterest.

Or it might’ve if she hadn’t parked ahead of him in her driveway and rushed inside, declaring she needed to change. Hard to ignore someone who wasn’t paying you any mind.

He dawdled in his SUV, not wanting to spend any longer in her personal space than necessary. In and out—that was his motto. No entanglements, no drama.

When he knew he couldn’t stall any longer, he trudged up the wide plank porch steps to the door, noting the shiny urns full of thriving fall flowers and cheerful half moon welcome mat, and pulled open the screen door. He’d taken two steps inside when Summer bounded downstairs in a tiny ass robe that showed her legs approximately up to her nipples. Maybe even higher.

“What the hell is that?”

Slyly, she held out the object she’d hidden behind her back. “This, my dear Deuce, is a hammer. One uses it to nail…things.”

“I don’t mean the hammer. I mean that piece of clothing. Why are you practically naked?”

“I need to take a shower before my show.” She inched closer, the hammer still clutched between her perky breasts. And there was that word again. Perky. “You don’t want me to stink when I’m on stage, do you?” She lifted her wrist and sniffed. “I reek of—”

“Chocolate and vanilla and everything nice?” He barely resisted a snarl.

She smirked. “You seem stressed. Maybe you should sit down and eat your ice cream before you go play with my hammer.” As she stroked it, he shifted uncomfortably. If he didn’t have sex soon, he’d probably shoot off from the image of those golden fingers wrapping around the wood. Squeezing again and again.

Christ. He needed ice cream or a cold compress or something. Maybe he should stuff his dick in the pint of chocolate. Couldn’t hurt.

“I’m fine,” he gritted out. “Give me the freaking hammer. And go get dressed. We need to leave soon.”

“Oh, we have plenty of time.” The way she caressed the word plenty made his balls throb. Stupid balls. Stupid celibacy.

Like his pathetic truck trick, he took as long to mess around with her shutters as humanly possible. If they’d actually been loose, it would’ve helped. They weren’t. He still hammered and banged the outside of her house, hoping she’d feel guilty for driving him out into the cold and wind to avoid her numerous blatant sexual overtures.

They had been blatant sexual overtures, right? Sometimes he just wasn’t sure. Not that it mattered. His fish couldn’t be lured with pink, perky nipp—hooks.

When he came back into the living room, his hands ached from his vigorous needless pounding. Other parts of him ached because they hadn’t pounded anything in way too long. Seeing Summer all curled up in the corner of the couch with a spoon in her jar of sauce and his ice cream stuff spread out on the coffee table didn’t help with the latter.

“Hey. Thank you. You’re so sweet.” She leaned forward and her robe gaped almost to the point of indecency. She didn’t seem to notice. “Here, let’s eat. I’ll get showered and ready to go when we’re done.” She waved her dripping spoon. “I had paperwork to do,” she added, all blue-eyed and pink-cheeked innocence.

“Uh huh.”

He took the opposite end of the couch and reached for his melting ice cream. Instead of his plastic spoon, she’d given him a fancy dessert one with a long handle. “You didn’t need to go to any trouble. I’m not company.”

If she noticed his peeved tone, she didn’t react. She smiled around her spoon, currently hidden between her luscious pink lips. Then she slid it out, nice and slow. “No, but you are doing a service for me. Protecting my assets and all.”

“Uh huh.” That would now be his standard answer to everything.

“Come on, Chase. We used to be friends.” She stretched out her bare legs and nudged his thigh with unpainted toes. The surprising lack of artifice turned him to stone faster than any coat of passion red or whatever they called that crap. “Can’t we hang out and have fun?”

“Sure. You having fun yet?”

She heaved out a sigh. “No, but I know how to get the party started. I have a confession to make.”

“God help me.”

“I have a pair of Daggers team panties with your name on the ass.” Though he was too busy swallowing his own spoon to look her way, he heard her sucking on hers. “I’m wearing them right now.”

The Daggers had team panties? That fabric got to cup her slick pussy while he nursed the hard-on from hell?

Surely there had to be an appropriate way to redirect this conversation. Until his brain cells regenerated he’d focus on not adding fuel to her fire. “That’s nice. Always glad to have a fan support the team, even if it’s not technically mine anymore. Did you catch any games last season?”

“I never missed one of your games.”

His chest tightened and he dropped his forgotten spoon in his waffle bowl. Pretty soon he’d be able to drink his ice cream. “Why?”

“I’m a baseball fan. Can’t say I kept up on much of the drama that surrounded you and the team, but I like the sport itself.” She shrugged and swirled her spoon in the jar, clinking the sides. “I like you too. Not that you’d ever see me that way.” Her mirthless chuckle echoed in his head. “Sister’s best friend equals no stray zone, right?”

His brain had detoured somewhere around the mention of her watching all his games. Then he clicked into the rest. “What way?” he asked, knowing full well. He shifted to face her, needing to watch the words form on her damp lips. Hearing them wasn’t enough. “You know I like you too.” Too much. Dangerously much.

“It’s different.”

“And?” He motioned for her to continue. “Don’t stop now.”

She pulled her knees up closer to her chest, slightly parting her thighs. Letting him glimpse the royal blue color that belonged to his team. Had been his team. The pang came swift and hard, dissipating only when she whispered, “And I’m wet for you. Every day. Every night. All the moments in between.”

A groan ripped from his throat. He couldn’t let the images form behind his eyes or he’d never get the words out. “Dammit, Summer.”

“I’m sorry you can’t handle the truth.” She didn’t sound sorry. She sounded pissed. Yeah, well, join the club.

“With you and me, it’s not that simple. It can’t be.” Big blue eyes bored into his and made his throat go dry. He couldn’t seem to figure out what to say to stop all of this, and worst of all, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to. “Yes, there’s Cass. We have so much history…”

“Why is that a bad thing? We know each other so well.” She flung her toes at the vial of white chocolate chips on the coffee table that, now that he’d given up alcohol, served as his most potent vice. Other than her. “I know you don’t want anyone to know you love chocolate and hate peas.”

His mouth twitched. “I don’t care if people know I hate peas. They’re vile.”

“I also know you’ve bought into your persona more than anyone else. You’ve actually convinced yourself you’re a boozer who bangs any chick who moves. That’s your identity now and you wear that badge of shame with pride.”

Chase pressed his knuckles into the cushion beside him, craving that quick, obliterating pain that would shoot up his arm and erase everything else for an instant. For once, it didn’t come. “What do you know about pride? You watch my games on TV and you remember what vegetables I hate. That doesn’t make you some expert on me.”

“I’ll tell you what I know about pride. I know it won’t keep you company in bed at night. Neither will those women who don’t care about how you like your ice cream or how you bob your knee when you’re nervous—” she gave his leg a pointed glance until he went still, “—or that you miss your mom the same way I miss mine, even if you’d die before saying it. I know you, and I’m still sitting here. Tell me that doesn’t count for something and I’ll call you a liar.” She studied him with way too knowing eyes. “One more thing you can add to that list of failures you wave around so much.”

The chaos in his head could be quieted with one simple statement. He could disavow a million honorable reasons for why he shouldn’t take what he wanted and take it hard. Except one.

“You’re my employer and I won’t compromise your safety for any reason, including unnecessary personal involvement.”

“I can’t employ someone who refuses to accept payment.” She spooned up more chocolate and reminded him that he hadn’t finished his. A thought that vanished as soon as she trailed a thick line of white sauce along her full lower lip.

He might as well admit defeat. She’d officially signed his death warrant.

He wasn’t thinking about her mouth wet with chocolate sauce. Not even close. He wanted her lips wet from him. Wanted to lean down and drag his teeth over her flesh and taste what he’d left behind after she’d relieved the relentless throb in his balls.

“You don’t know what you’re stirring up, little girl.” He pushed her foot back harder than he’d meant to and she let out a startled squeak. “Sorry.” He grasped her calf and rubbed. “Did I hurt you?”

“No. I’m not delicate. I’m also not a little girl. And you’re not the brute you obviously think you are either. Do you think anything nice about yourself? Ever?” She kicked at him and dislodged his smile. “Eat your ice cream. I’ll sit here and think chaste thoughts.”

At a complete loss, he swallowed some of the melting chocolate. Then he went back for more. “Is that even possible?”

“Probably not.” She sulked into her chocolate sauce.

“What do you want from me, Summer?” he asked once five minutes of tense silence had passed. “Why don’t you just tell me instead of leaving me to guess? Am I supposed to prove to you that I think I’m a decent guy by bending you over this sofa and ramming inside you? You really think that’ll redeem my sense of self?”

She ran her spoon over her lip, obviously weighing something in her mind. Yet again he couldn’t be certain she’d heard him. Her inattention rankled. “A kiss,” she decided finally. “That’s all.”

“A kiss?” Narrowing his eyes, he cocked his head. “Where?”

Smiling, she took another lick of her spoon and set the jar aside. Then she crawled closer and hovered beside him, her gaze already fixated on his lips. “Mouth to mouth, baby.”

That tightness in his chest returned. He didn’t like her calling him baby. It didn’t seem right.

He liked it too much.

“Fine.” He set aside his ice cream and motioned her toward him impatiently. Better to let her think he wanted to get it over with. “Let’s make this fa—”

Her lips met his and his thoughts died a fiery death.

Her gentle, seeking kiss incited a whole new throb beneath his waist. He didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. His only defense against her careful assault was to wait it out. Then she slipped her tongue, flavored with sweet raspberry and chocolate, along his and he forgot that he couldn’t participate. He grabbed her arms and tugged her onto his lap, pulling her legs on either side of his so that she straddled him. Reaching up, he shoved his hands through the miles of dark hair that fell down around them and met her stroke for stroke.

Instead of trying to drive the intensity higher, she softened around him. Yielding to his touch. He’d figured her to be the type to expect a guy to follow her lead, but she seemed to want to let him set the pace. He found himself easing back on his speed, his fingers slipping from her hair to cup her cheeks as he slanted his mouth over hers. Finding a whole new angle, a new way to make her breath stutter and catch. Going deeper and hotter and wetter. Not as a prelude to getting her naked, but because he’d never tasted anyone or anything as succulent. Never experienced a kiss that meant so much more.

Lifetimes passed in that kiss. Kisses, plural. He operated on auto-pilot. After a while, his jaw started to ache and his lips grew numb. Her breasts pressed to his chest, her exhalations blew hot over his lips, her knees dug into his thighs. When the weakness in his arm rendered his grip shaky, he let his hands fall. She simply framed his face between her palms and continued her onslaught.

Drawing from a well of tenderness he hadn’t even realized he had, he banded his arms around her and held on with all the strength he had left. And somehow, he found more.

Breaking apart hurt. Air rushed from his lungs and fanned the tendrils of dark hair that clung to her flushed cheeks. She kept her eyes closed and struggled to breathe, her thick, tangled lashes fluttering from the effort.

He needed to kiss her again. To take her to bed. For the first time, he wanted to know what making love was like. He’d done everything else. She’d show him things he hadn’t even believed existed.

In that moment, he might’ve been weak enough to risk it. But she stumbled off his lap and backed toward the door. “I have to get dressed. My show.” Her dazed expression opened up holes inside him. The panic that followed poured acid into them. “I’ll be late. The shower—” She gave up and left.

Chase groaned and dropped his head on the back of the sofa. The next time she said the words “just a kiss” he’d know better.

No such thing existed, at least with Summer Maitland.