Page 86 of Failure to Match

His throat worked to suppress a chuckle. “That’s significantly more generous than I thought you were going to get, to be quite honest.”

“Did it work? Are you disgusted by me yet?”

“You’re marginally less desirable than I found you a minute ago, so yes.”

Only marginally? “How many compliments before my face makes you want to wretch, do you think?”

Jackson stepped around me and leaned a muscular shoulder against the wall. Even covered in a three-piece suit, you could tell the man was ripped.

“Let’s try four more,” he said. “See how we feel.”

Four?

“I don’t think I can come up with—” I cut off when his eyes got all lusty, blowing out a breath. “All right, fine. You have... a somewhat pleasing voice.”

“Really?” Jackson teased lightly. “How revolting.”

I sucked on my cheek, my hands folding delicately behind me as I leaned against the wall. My shoulder inadvertently brushed his chest, and he took it as an invitation to move closer.

“And don’t even get me started on your eyes,” I said. “Because I wouldn’t know what to say. They’re blue, which I guess is better than, like, beige.”

“You’re being far too kind, Miss Paquin. It’s making me ill.”

My mouth expanded into a smile against my direct orders. I felt light; fluttery.

“You smell adequately clean,” I told him.

“You disgust me.”

I giggled as the lightness spread, bubbling under my skin. “Thereisone very particular thing about you that I find exceptionally sexy, though. Should I tell you what it is?”

His pupils flared. “I may vomit if you do.”

Having fully forgotten about the purpose of this exercise, I rose to my toes and whispered, “I’m sorry to say, Mr. Sinclair, that you look like the type of man who’d be packing a remarkably impressive set of forearms.”

He didn’t even try to hold back his grin.

“Makes my toes curl just thinkin’ about it.” I dropped back to my normal height. “How was that?”

“Perfect,” he said. “I may never experience another erection ever again.”

I burst into a laugh.

“You’ve likely rendered me well and truly flaccid for the rest of my sexless days, Miss Paquin. Well done.”

My hands came up to cover my face. I was dying.

“You know what will make it even worse? If you demand that I take you shopping for our third date. I’d positively detest buying you things while you talk about how sexy my forearms are.”

“Shut up,” I laughed.

“Theory successfully confirmed. Now we just need to properly execute. I’ll have Savannah set up an appointment with my shoppers tomorrow.”

I wiped at the wetness trailing down my cheeks. “That’s not happening. We’re going back to my original plan. You go talk to Mabel and Molly, I’ll go prep for our interview, and we’ll forever pretend like this never happened.”

“No.”

“Why the hell not? You said you wanted to talk about it, and we did.”

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