Page 68 of Not Exactly a Small-Town Romance

And who better than one of the best Romeos in LA?

I sit up and face him. “Zachery Montgomery Carter, will you have sex with me?”

Chapter 22

ZACHERYUNLOCKS THEJELLYJAR

My brain goes offline for a second.

Did I hear what I think I heard?

My hands are still warm from touching her, which was physically painful, given the intensity of emotions I’ve gone through since we stepped foot in that damn festival.

She sits in front of me in a pool of gold dress, her loose hair in wild disarray.

Kelsey. My best friend. My beautiful, sweet partner in work crime.

Her gaze doesn’t falter. She’s waiting on an answer to a question I can barely comprehend. All the possibilities lay in front of me like a chessboard of Kelseys, my fantasies about her on the same plane as this one reality.

“Just once,” she says, as if rebutting the arguments in my head. “No strings. Like your Desdemona dates. You do have sex with them at least sometimes, right?”

I nod absently, the chessboard overloaded with images of other women, ghosts of my sexual past.

“I don’t deserve you,” I manage to get out.

This breaks her gaze. “Of course you do. I know you like to drift, but think of me as one of your red-carpet girls, and we’ll never speak of it again.”

She takes my hand, and it’s startlingly warm, as if my body has gone arctic.

“We’ll be okay, Zach. It might not work. And if it doesn’t, I’ll pack up and go find a therapist. Figure things out. But when you touched me, I felt different. I think it will work. Just let me see. Maybe I’m like a jelly jar that’s been closed too long. You know how the sugar makes a seal? And it’s impossible to open it unless you warm it up under a hot tap?”

“Jelly jar?” My comprehension is miles behind her words.

“I’m a jelly jar and you’re the hot water.” She scoots closer. “We’re two consenting adults. Let’s do this.”

I’m all wrong for her. A joke. A has-been.

But when I look in her eyes, I know damn well I’m not going to turn her down. This is her leaping-off point. Tomorrow, she’ll search in earnest for what she’s looking for.

But this is tonight.

She turns around and lifts the length of her hair. “Unzip me.”

When I don’t reach for her dress, she looks over her shoulder. “Are you saying no? You won’t do this? I’m not a virgin, Zach. It’s just an act. I’m trying to figure this out with someone I trust.”

She’s right. She trusts me. I trust her. Otherwise, she’ll be afraid. She’ll try with someone who could hurt her. Or maybe she’ll stop trying at all. This might be what I’ve been seeing all this time. Her failure to try.

It’s what led me to pay that fortune teller.

This is apparently another step in my original plan.

She needs me to play the rake, the playboy, the seducer.

And I will. It’s my best role, because it’s who I am.

I am not for her, not long-term.

But I can be this.

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