Emerging Temptation: A BWWM Romance Limited Edition Collection

by Peyton Banks

  “So, what do you think I should do?” Because honestly, this conundrum was shit I’d never dealt with before.

  Grandma looked at me for a long moment, then brought a forkful of potatoes and meat to her mouth, chewing and swallowing with her usual perfect manners before she answered me. “You’re grown, so I can’t tell you what you should do, but I can tell you it would be a lot easier to recover from something like what you went through if you’re in a quiet, peaceful place. When you’re not chasing down drug dealers every week or investigating murders all the time. Wampanoag might be this side of boring, but you could do well here. And I think if I had a chance like what you’ve got with Lukas, I’d take it in a heartbeat.”

  I thought about that for a few minutes as I ate my food, weighing what she said against what I spent so much of the past two weeks thinking about. “I agree about Wampanoag being a place that I’d be able to find some peace and solace at but,” I paused, “As far as me and Lukas, I don’t even know if he wants to be serious, this could just be a fling for him.” Deep down, I was leaning towards trying to see if he and I could make what we had more than just fucking but turning my back on my job in New York…that bothered me.

  Grandma took a sip of her glass of water. “It might be,” she said, her voice sceptical. “But I don’t believe that flings are his thing, or he’d already would have slept with half the town. From what I’ve heard and seen, all the single women and some not so unattached females in town have propositioned him. He’s turned them all down. But a man that handsome, not settling down, people will talk. Hell, some folks even started speculating that he’s gay.”

  I nearly chocked on a piece of meat before finally clearing my throat. “Lukas gay?” I chuckled. “Believe me, he’s definitely not gay.”

  Grandma grinned. “I’m glad that you have first-hand knowledge of that. And talk to him about you thinking about staying here and if he’s interested in more than rolling around in the hay.”

  I snickered at her ‘rolling around in the hay’ phrase but took her advice to heart.

  She continued, “And another thing,” She jabbed a finger at me. “Don’t let your sergeant rush you into a decision, no matter what you do.”

  “I won’t,” I mumbled, eating a little more of her delicious steak. “One day, you will need to give me your secrets for this,” I pointed my fork at the steak on my plate. “You will not be around forever and nobody else makes it like you.”

  “Grind your own grass-fed meat and use a Lipton onion soup packet in the gravy,” Grandma said with a grin. “That’s all it is, baby girl.”

  I laughed. “No, it’s not. I saw you sneaking tablespoons of your homemade special seasoning into the meat before you cooked it.”

  Her eyes widened. “You saw that?”

  “I did. I’m a detective.” I pointed my fork at her. “I see everything.”

  “You’re too smart for your own good.” She rolled her eyes. “Now, eat your food and be quiet.”

  We starting eating again, and a comfortable silence blanketed us. It was then that it really hit me, how much I missed simple normal things enjoy eating dinner with her. She was my world and only family and I’d didn’t know how much more time I had with her before she was no longer here. Why the hell did I stay away from her for so long?

  I blurted out, “I love you Grandma.”

  Grandma froze, her fork midway to her mouth. “I love you too Kendra, more than you’ll ever know.” She winked at me before continuing to eat.

  I blinked back tears of emotions. I’d sacrificed so much for the sake of my career and making detective and had very little to show for my efforts, all because I’d made a conscious decision that my job came first. There was nothing back in New York but my job. I had no boyfriend or lover waiting for me to return and no girlfriends missing our weekly ‘Girl’s Night Out’ and champing at the bit for me to return. Yes, my job as a detective was important. But wasn’t having a life filled with happiness, family, love, good health, and friendship more vital?

  My mind whirled with all the life-changing decisions I’d have to make; the most important determination was whether to stay here or go back to New York to my old job and life.

  It was ironic how in just a few weeks back in town, I’d started thinking about the possibility of a new life that included seeing Grandma every day, a less risky, more laid-back job working with the Sheriff, just maybe, something more permanent with Lukas.

  But it scared me to walk away from the career I’d built in New York and try something different.

  13

  Lukas

  I spotted Kendra looking beautiful as usual as she sat at the table she’d taken, at McDuffy’s—an old school diner in the town where we’d eaten plenty of meals on Friday or Saturday nights as kids. It smelled like it always did—grease, burgers, and bacon, with a splash of fresh orange juice cutting through it and as I stepped around the tables to get to the one Kendra had chosen, next to a window, I almost felt like I’d gone back in time.

  I leaned down giving her a quick kiss before sitting down. “This was a great idea. I don’t think I’ve been here in months!”

  “I figured that it would be a good change-up from you cooking for me,” Kendra stated.

  I chuckled. “But I love cooking for you.”

  “I adore you for it.” She sent me an air kiss.

  “This place has one downside, my bedroom isn’t only a few steps away,” I pointed out.

  “That’s the truth,” she agreed with a saucy smile.

  A waitress, Barb, came to the table, and we both ordered our usual choices from back in the old days, the cheeseburger ‘Royale’ for me, which had a fried egg on it, with cheese fries, and a meatloaf melt for Kendra, with zesty fries for her side. We got beers and settled in to wait for our food to come up.

  “So, did you sleep in like you were planning?” Kendra asked me.

  Too exhausted after a few emergencies at the end of my shift to invite her over the night before, but we text back and forth, planning to meet up since it was my day off.

  “I got a good nine hours,” I told her, stretching at the memory of waking up fully rested. Refreshed in a way that I hadn’t been in years—and that, I could confidently say, was almost definitely to do with Kendra coming back into my life and us spending quality time together getting to know each other again and not just on a physical level but I would not complain about our fantastic sexual chemistry which was a hell of a bonus. I beamed at her. “Maybe we should go back to my place after this so, I can show you all the wicked things I can do to your sexy body when I’m fully charged.” I waggled my eyebrows.

  “Maybe.” Her eyes shifted away then back to me.

  I looked at her a little more intently. Years of living with my father, with his outbursts, had trained my brain to recognize the slightest difference in someone I was close to. I’d gone through the therapy—it was part of encouraging my buddies from the Army to get help for their problems. And in fact, I had a therapist tell me he was sure that part of how I’d come through my deployments without getting PTSD was because all the trauma of my childhood had more or less inoculated me to it. But it had left me with the hyper vigilance, if not the other symptoms.

  “What’s up?” I asked. Barb brought our beers to the table so she couldn’t answer right away. We took sips of our beers and I kept waiting for Kendra to tell me what was going on.

  She sighed heavily. “My sergeant is trying to push hard for me to come back.”

  She’d mentioned him calling once or twice, but judging the unusual tension displayed on her face, there was more to it.

  I leaned forward. “How is he pushing?” I asked, trying to keep my tone as neutral as possible. “And are you saying that you want to go?” She isn’t just going to run away to NYC, is she? Without giving us a chance at more?

  “I’ve got a great record,” Kendra revealed. “He wants me to go for the evaluation next week, then a stent at desk duty depen
ding on how the psych part goes.”

  My fingers clenched around the beer bottle. “So, you want to go back next week?” I demanded.

  “I don’t know if I want to go back at all,” Kendra protested. “But honestly, I’m not sure if agreeing to take the job here is the right thing for me.”

  “So why does it matter if your sergeant is pressuring you?” I countered. “Can’t you tell him to back off?”

  “Can we enjoy our meal before we get into an argument about this?” Kendra picked at the tablecloth and then sipped her beer.

  I took a deep breath and made myself calm down. “I’m just trying to understand.”

  Barb brought our food to the table. The service at McDuffy’s was always quick.

  “Let’s enjoy our food,” she suggested, “then we can discuss what I will do.”

  “Fine,” I replied.

  I took a bite of my burger, making myself focus on the taste of it—fatty, meaty, and delicious. I watched as Kendra started in on her meatloaf sandwich.

  Kendra avoided eye contact with me as she ate and the silence between us stretched. What should have been an enjoyable meal with the woman that I adored was turning into a nightmare.

  “Okay,” Kendra said finally, setting her food partly aside. “Can you let me explain everything to you before you react?”

  “Yes. I’ll do that,” I promised, putting my burger down and eating one of my fries.

  “The long and short of it is that I don’t know what I want to do,” Kendra said. “I feel like I owe a lot to the NYPD.”

  “And?” I said.

  Kendra’s eyes narrowed.

  I shrugged. “I’m not reacting. I’m just prompting.”

  She carried on, “I want to end things in New York a high note.”

  “So, you’re going back.” Anger flared at the thought of losing Kendra but I refused to rant and rage like I’d always seen my father do when shit didn’t go his way. I’d fought for years against the idea that something destined me to be like him, that I had anything in common with that man at all, apart from the bad luck to have some of his genes and to have spent my childhood around the asshole.

  “I have to,” she snapped.

  I snorted. “You mean that you want to.” I took a sip of beer.

  “You don’t under...”

  I cut her off, “And what about us?” I arched a brow. “Are we going to do that whole long-distance relationship thing?”

  Her shoulders sagged. “Lukas, long-distance relationships never work.”

  “Right.” My eyes narrowed. “So, just like that, we’re done.”

  “Lukas...”

  “Kendra, you mean the world to me,” my voice was husky. “And I’m willing to fight tooth and nail to make our relationship work.” Reaching over, I grabbed her hand weaving my fingers through hers. “You know why?”

  Tears glistened in her eyes. “No,” she rasped.

  “Because I can see forever with you Kendra Powell.”

  “Fuck. Lukas. Don’t make this hard for me.” She bit her bottom life.

  I was sure I was falling in love. Not that I had any examples of a loving, healthy relationship—my parents’ marriage was toxic and volatile. All I had were my gut feelings that Kendra was a woman that I could love and protect for the rest of my life. But thinking about such a commitment was too soon for me and for her.

  “You are my woman. And before you walked back into my life, I didn’t give a shit about having a woman in my life. In fact, I wanted to spend my life alone.” The last part sounded selfish as fuck but it was the truth. “You’re the first woman that I’d ever wanted more with. But my feelings can’t be one-sided, you need to want me too.” I pulled my hands away from hers.

  “I do Lukas. I’m just not strong enough to walk away from what I know into the unknown with you.”

  “Okay,” I said flatly.

  “Okay?” She frowned. “That’s all you have to say?”

  “Yes.” My heart hammered. “I won’t force you to want us. You either do or don’t.” Each word was like a stab to the gut. “I told you how I feel...” and she hadn’t reciprocated, which was very telling. It was fucking with my head that I misread our whole relationship, that we were actually building a solid relationship that went beyond just fantastic sex. “And what I want, which is you.” I paused. “I want us, but you don’t. And if you’re expecting me to fly into some asshole rage about it, I’m not that kind of man Kendra. I’m not like my father who forced my mother to give up her dreams just to be with him and cater to his ego.”

  Kendra replied, “You don’t understand how scary this is for me to decide about my career based on our relationship. I’ve spent years focused on my career and making detective and some asswipe comes along and shoots me, taking what I’ve worked so hard for away. I can’t even fucking hear firecrackers without losing my shit. And now you expect me to give up my life in New York?”

  “I don’t expect shit Kendra. You’ve made your decision and I will not argue about it.” My cell buzzed and I checked to see who it was. Shit. It’s the Chief. “It’s a text from the fire station. There’s a big fire at the plant. I need to go in.”

  “Duty calls.” She sighed heavily. “We’ll talk later.”

  I signaled for Barb, our waitress who came over quickly. “Check please,” I demanded.

  “Be right back,” She chirped before hustling away. She was back in a jiffy giving me the check.

  I stared at Kendra while peeling out enough cash to cover the amount of our meal plus tip. “I don’t enjoy leaving like this.” It bothered the hell out of me I’d had to leave before we finished our discussion. Her deciding to leave was still fucking with my head but it was her decision whether I liked it.

  “I understand.” Kendra looked at me. The disappointment on her face was almost worse than anger.

  I scooted my chair closer leaning in; I kissed her slow and easy like we had all the time in the world but we didn’t, Kendra was leaving town and I couldn’t stop her. Breaking off our kiss, I stood, walking away from her…forever.

  14

  Kendra

  “What is Pride and Prejudice?” the Jeopardy contestant on the TV said. I snorted.

  “It’s Sense and Sensibility,” I told Grandma. I sipped a glass of water that Grandma had insisted I needed. I had gotten out of the habit of staying hydrated while I was working, but Grandma had brought it all back with her insistence on glasses of water several times a day. “Good for the kidneys, good for the liver, good for the spleen and great for the skin,” she always said.

  “I’m sorry,” Alex Trebek told the contestant. “The correct answer was Sense and Sensibility.”

  “You should go on the show,” Grandma said, giving me a proud look. Even before I lived with her when I was young, she’d got me to read as much as possible and when I’d moved to her place after Mom had died, she’d insisted on me reading fifty books a year, one for every week. I got the occasional pass on longer books and sometimes made up for lost time with short ones, but on average I made it through. I was the best-read detective in my precinct and even after college; I still read at least twenty books a year.

  “I’d bomb in that Art History category,” I pointed out. “Books I know. History I’m good at. Psych and Criminology, I’m great. But I’ve got big gaps.”

  “Just make some of your books more rounded,” Grandma suggested.

  I smiled, shifting in the chair I’d taken. It was a ritual out of my childhood, watching Jeopardy with Grandma either during or after dinner, talking about the categories and the contestants. But I felt off despite the familiarity. I was leaving in a few days, and frankly, I’d missed her something fierce once gone.

  When I told grandma that I was going back to New York, she just said, “Baby girl. Why would you want to walk away from a new beginning, just to go back to a past you know that you don’t want?” Deep down in my heart, I knew she was right. But the mere thought of walking away fro
m a career that I’d fought for with lots of blood sweat and tears broke me out in a cold sweat.

  And then there was Lukas.

  A wave of sadness washed over me when I remembered the hurt and anger in his eyes when I told him I was going back to my job.

  I couldn’t pinpoint when our relationship had moved from just sex to more but it did. I was falling in love with him and this new dynamic worried me.

  What if I stayed and our relationship went south?

  Could we go back to friendship?

  No. We couldn’t.

  I knew from the moment that we’d first had sex that we couldn’t go back to being just friends. What Lukas and me had was too complex, too passionate, too deep. We had an ‘all in or all out’ kind of relationship, which was why it both irked and hurt me that he’d kept his distance since our diner debacle. He’d only sent me a text saying, “I’m here for you if you need me. But I’m giving you space.”

  I nibbled my bottom lip, feeling like at any moment I would break out into a hot ugly cry.

  I knew what he was really doing was pulling away from me, from us. But I couldn’t blame him. At the diner, he didn’t pull any punches when he’d told me how he’d felt about me and what he wanted, me. Instead of telling him what I’d suspected for a long time, that I was falling in love with him, I sat there, struggling to sort through my overwhelming feelings and putting them into words that made sense.

  Stop lying Kendra.

  You didn’t tell him how you felt because you were too fucking scared to reveal your feelings. Damn. I made a big mistake not to at least tell him what I’d felt.

  But the real kick to my gut was the kiss he gave me that felt like goodbye before walking away from me and out of the diner.

  “You okay, baby girl?” Grandma said, cutting through my thoughts. “You’ve gone quiet over there.”

  “Yeah, just tired,” I told her. It was the only lie I could get away with around her and I wasn’t sure I even convinced her. “I think I will turn in early.”