Seducing Liselle Read Free Page B

touched her and he dropped his hand with an apologetic look.
She felt bad, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t like being touched
unexpectedly.
    “Jean, Janet, this is Liselle Parker. Liselle , these are my two other sisters.”
    The women offered friendly greetings. Liselle smiled back at them, chewing on the inside of her
cheek when she realized that all their names sounded similar. Should she
mention it? It seemed rude, but she caught John grinning at her as if he could
tell what she was thinking. She gave up on keeping her mouth shut. She had to
say something. “You all have names that start with J?”
    John laughed, startling her again. He
sounded so relaxed. Liselle wasn’t used to that. Most
of the men in her life had been … difficult. You mean angry, mean, tense , she thought to herself. No sense sugar-coating it. She sighed
internally, trying to shake the strange mood that had taken hold.
    John was speaking. “Yeah. My parents thought it was hilarious. When Janet named her boys Anthony and
Daniel, it nearly caused a riot in the family.”
    Janet shook her head, grinning. “I
certainly wasn’t going to give them J names. I couldn’t do that to them. I know
what that was like, growing up.”
    “Yeah, unpleasant,” Jenn chimed in from near the stove. She shuddered dramatically and the rest of them
laughed.
    Liselle looked around for Janet’s sons, but didn’t see anyone else. The
room that lay beyond the low wall was dark except for the fire crackling in the
fireplace.
    “They’re not here,” John said, once again
reading her mind. “Anthony lives in New York and Daniel is in Maryland, at
school. We don’t see them often enough.”
    Janet nodded agreement. “They have to live
their own lives.”
    “Oh.” Liselle bit her lip. What did you say to that?
    “Yeah, yeah, it sucks, but whatever. They
used to put snow down my shirt when they lived here. I don’t miss that,” Beth
interrupted, pulling out a chair and throwing herself into it. She squirmed
around, then extracted a cell phone from her jeans pocket and started typing
very intently.
    “Beth! What did I tell you about texting
at the table?” Jean asked, frowning.
    Beth looked up, blinking vacantly for a
second, before focusing on her aunt. “Oh. I thought that was just when we were
eating? Sorry.” She grinned, then tucked the phone
away.
    Liselle smiled as Jean rolled her eyes. She really liked this family. John
pulled out a chair and offered it to her. She hesitated, looking at his hand on
the chair and then followed the line of his arm up to his shoulder. The muscles
in his forearm flexed as he held the chair. Damn, he was strong. He’d rolled
the sleeves of his shirt up, exposing skin up to his biceps.
    “Would you like to sit?” he said, breaking
into her reverie.
    She blushed, hoping no one saw her acting
like a teenager mooning over the quarterback, and sat down. He didn’t move
away. Instead he loomed over her, all handsome and smelling good and really,
really tall, and she felt her face go even hotter. The last thing she’d
expected when she’d decided to come here was to meet a hot guy. She didn’t
date. She didn’t really like men, not after how her brother and father had
treated her. She’d long ago given up on finding someone and wasn’t planning on
changing her mind, so having John stand near her being amazing and beautiful
was seriously messing with her.
    Just because you don’t date doesn’t
mean you can’t look , a traitorous part of her mind
whispered. She gritted her teeth and shoved her libido down, throwing a mental
lock over that part of her psyche. Getting involved with her niece’s uncle
would be a disaster. Particularly since despite all of his niceness, she had
the feeling he didn’t feel particularly happy about her visit.
    “Thank you,” she said to him. He sat down
next to her. “And thanks for having me over,” she said to the women around the
table.
    “I’m glad you came,” Beth