Page 93 of Failure to Match

He chuckled, presumably reading my mind. I didn’t know if it was the best whiskey sour in the country, but it was the best one I’d ever had. He’d perfected it.

“A pretty solid point in my favor, wouldn’t you agree?” he teased as he settled beside me—waytoo close. “Think about it, you come home at the end of a long day, exhausted, and your husband makes you a fresh cocktail while you vent.”

I wouldn’t havea job to come home from if I married him, but all right, sure. I nodded.

“And if I’m not here, your staff will be.”

I raised a brow. “My staff…”

“You really haven’t thought this through, Jamie.” He twisted on the couch to face me, arm slung over the backrest. “One year of marriage and you’d never have to lift a finger again in your life.”

I turned so that we were face to face. “Quick reminder that I’ve turned down all of your previous monetary?—”

“I’d stop reminding me of that if I were you.”

“Why?”

He leaned in to whisper his answer like it was a secret. “Because you’ve managed to awaken something rather odd in me. The more you turn down my money, the more…inclinedI become to want to spend it on you.”

I blinked. “That’s incredibly irrational.”

“I’m aware.” He sipped his drink. “You wanted a list of my kinks? There’s your first one.”

My third mistake was asking, “People rejecting your money is a kink for you?”

“No, Jamie,yourejecting my money is a kink for me.”

Fireflies infiltrated my chest. My oxygen levels tanked. “That’s…”Nonsensical. Inappropriate. Probably a lie.“A quickFYI—friends don’t have kinks centered around their friends, and if they do, they keep that information to themselves.”

He cocked his head. “Do friends kiss the way we did yesterday?”

“I thought we weren’t going to talk about that anymore.”

“Tell me you didn’t like it and I’ll never bring it up again.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. “Whether I liked it or not isn’t the point.”

“Ah, but you see, it very much is the point—my next one, in fact.” He gestured lightly between us. “This works.”

“Whatworks?”

“Our bodies. They’re quite into each other.”

Were hot flashes in your late twenties a cause for medical concern? Because I’d been experiencing a noticeable number of them lately. “I’m not sure that’s accurate.”

One good kiss was just that—onegood kiss. It didn’t mean every subsequent one would be earth-shattering.

With a cheeky smirk, Jackson polished off his whiskey, got rid of the empty tumbler, and held out his palm. “Give me your hand.”

“I think I’m good. Friends don’t really hold hands.”

He chuckled. “Just humor me for a moment, would you?”

With a strangely nervous sip of my drink, I placed my fingers in his palm.

That was my fourth mistake.

His hand engulfed mine, sending a buzz over my skin that had nothing to do with the alcohol. Then he did something I wouldn’t have predicted in a million years.

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