Page 30 of Love JD

I realized then that I’d more or less laid a challenge at Zev’s feet.

And he looked like he was ready to win the Olympic gold medal.

Chapter nine

Zev

Tempting. Very, very tempting. Isla watched me with quiet expectancy, as if testing how I would react to such a foolishly confident statement. Couldn’t kiss? Or have sex?

Bullshit.

I didn’t deny the possibility that she had gotten nervous when she’d tried to kiss a boy at some point. And following that train of thought, if a man were to make her feel both comfortable and confident enough that her desire to kiss him overcame any physical nerves, well, then…

She knew she’d handed me a challenge, and she knew I wanted to take her up on it. I could tell by the way her honey-hazel eyes were watching me. And I did. I really did want to part those pink lips with my mouth and show her how to melt the world into swirls of heady desire with a kiss. But if that was the goal, then a last-minute make out session in the back of a car while I was actively trying to kidnap her wasn’t the ideal time.

Sorry, actively succeeding at kidnapping her.

Isla watched me expectantly, slumped into her seat like she’d given herself over to something. So, I leaned in a little further, stretching across the middle seat, and I hovered my mouth six inches from hers. “Are you nervous right now?”

She shook her head. She’d put her long, silky hair into a ponytail, and it curled over her shoulder and down to her breasts. I smoothed a stray wisp of escaped tendrils away from her forehead to her temple. “I’m awfully close to you, right now. You don’t feel like passing out on me?”

She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth and shook her head again.

My lips curved. Oh, yeah. This was going to be a piece of cake. I sat away from her suddenly, leaning back against my own seat. “Okay, then.”

Isla blinked, long lashes devoid of any makeup but still framing her eyes with a feathery curl. “What?”

“Since you cheated,” I pointed out smoothly, “you have to make one of those truths a lie.”

Her gaze strayed into thought. I let her work through the quick little logical calculation of that because only one of those things could be made into a lie anyway. “And… you’re going to make that happen?”

“Mhm,” I smiled.

She gave me a skeptical tilt of her head. “I want to ask why you’d do that, but maybe asking a guy why he’d want to kiss a girl is a silly question.”

“It is silly,” I agreed. “And I’ll teach you how to kiss and not feel nervous so you can use that or whatever,” I said with a wave of my hand, “and not worry so much about it. But you have to go to Denver with me.”

“Shrewd,” she murmured, squinting one eye. “There’s just one problem with that. I have finals in three days.”

“Not a problem,” I replied dismissively. “I already emailed your professors and I’m proctoring your exams.”

Her jaw fell open. “You can do that?”

“I’m a JD,” I reminded her, “which makes me well qualified.”

“You are exceptionally arrogant, you know that?”

I held up two plane tickets, one with my name and one with hers. “With good reason.”

Being the benevolent captor that I was, I let Isla go home and pack a bag before we left. I followed her into the apartment to make sure there weren’t any psychos lurking in the shadows, and while I waited, she hastily stuffed things into a rolling suitcase. It was while I watched her choose items to bring that I made a startling discovery.

Isla seemed to have bought the least expensive, least noticeable things possible. It fit her perfectly, but I had a pang of sympathy over that realization—an uncomfortable urge to turn her loose with my credit card and ask her to pick out what she would choose if she wasn’t worried about drawing attention or spending money that she hadn’t grown up with.

I indulged in that a little by forcing her to choose dinner from any of the restaurants she wanted in the airport. And I’d insisted that we visit the overpriced bookstore so she could pick out whatever she wanted. She found a romcom that made her smile, and I hid my own smile behind her back. I’d already read it, and it was a top ten for the year for me.

As we boarded the plane, Isla tried to look occupied with her book, but I noticed little beads of sweat gathering along her temples. Then her face went pallid as we stepped onto the plane and shuffled down the narrow walkway. She didn’t face-plant onto the tacky carpet, but I would have bet my next bonus check she was fighting it.

The flight would be maybe forty-five minutes at most, but she tapped her fingers nervously on her leg and chewed away at her thumbnail, and honestly, that surprised me. Hadn’t she traveled all over the world? What was there to be nervous about? As we took off, she did the same thing she’d done the first time she had fainted in the tree. She didn’t give a warning when it happened. Her head simply slumped forward like she’d fallen asleep.

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