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treated his sister properly. Kale suspected wedding bells would be ringing in their near future.
    At the mere notion of wedding bells, his thoughts careened backward in time to relive the passionate kiss he’d shared with Erin at Jay and Laura’s reception. A kiss so full of emotion and tenderness it nearly brought him to his knees.
    Casual, his ass!
    Hell, no woman could possibly kiss like that without feeling some deeper connection.
    Erin’s arousing feminine scent and the slow, torturous way her tongue had mated with his while he explored her sleek, sexy legs had made him fairly mad with longing. And when he’d whisked his fingers across her damp panties and connected with her moist private parts, he thought he’d been given a gift from the gods. Hell, he must have done something right in a past lifetime.
    Just thinking about her triggered a reaction from his body. Perspiration broke out on his skin and clung to his upper lip. He instantly grew needy for her as he replayed the passionate slide show in his mind’s eye.
    Shit, he’d better tamp down his desires and censor his thoughts. This was not the time or place for such delicious memories.
    As everyone at the table concentrated on the lovely meal before them, Kale redirected his focus. He wondered what Erin was doing at that exact moment. Would she be having dinner with her family? Hanging out with her friends or testing her bad-girl act with another man? A sudden surge of jealousy rushed through his veins and fired his blood. The flash of possessiveness made his stomach twist. He frowned and worked to dispel the image of Erin playing bad girl, or playing anything with another man.
    Kale knew Erin was not simply a passing interest. She made him feel the way no other woman had ever made him feel. He liked everything about her, right down to her cute ponytail and dark, soulful eyes. There was no question about it. He wanted her, and not just on a sexual level. Kale had never been exclusive before, but he wanted exclusivity with Erin.
    For a reason that he resolved to get to the bottom of, Erin was anxious to take a stab at being the bad girl she pretended to be. Fortunately, that gave him the perfect opportunity to take their relationship to the next level of intimacy and show her that he could be more than a casual sex toy. Not that he wasn’t interested in being her sex toy, mind you.
    A small grin tugged at his mouth as he conjured up the numerous ways to help her play the bad-girl act. Oh yeah, things around the lab were going to get very interesting. Because he planned on heating things up.
    First thing tomorrow morning.
    Starting in the elevator.
     
    Night had closed around them as Erin sat at her mother and father’s dining room table with the rest of her family. Her younger married sister, Terry, as her mother so frequently pointed out, and Terry’s husband, Kenneth, fussed with their three-year-old daughter, Sarah. Her other sister, Kayla, the youngest of the three girls, hadn’t been able to make it to dinner. Her husband was on call at the hospital, and Kayla had been up all night nursing her new newborn.
    Erin swallowed her last bite of mashed potatoes and secretly thanked the Lord that she’d made it through another Sunday dinner without her mother bringing up her single status. It was rather refreshing to eat a meal in peace without visualizing herself stabbing something, or someone, with her fork. Thank God her father didn’t pressure her too.
    She caught her mother’s glance. Oh no. Perhaps she’d jumped the gun. A familiar matchmaking gleam danced in her dark eyes and sent alarm bells skittering down Erin’s spine.
    The sound of Luke, her one-year-old nephew, waking from his nap in the other room gave her reprieve. His high-pitched cries were like music to Erin’s ears.
    Erin wiped her mouth and tossed her napkin onto the table. “I’ll get him.”
    Excusing herself, she rushed across her mother’s Persian rug, stepped into the living