Page 71 of My Best Friend's Mardi Gras Wedding

Andrew’s reminder had come just in time.

She wasn’t this girl.She didn’t wear sequins and heels.She didn’t dance in ballrooms in one-hundred-and-seventy-five-year-old mansions on plantations in Louisiana.She didn’t even drink champagne.She definitely didn’t have relationships with guys who lived over a thousand miles from Elton, Iowa.

She did, however, apparently, fall for guys that gave her a few grins and said a few sweet things and introduced her to his grandmother.

Of course, that introduction had been an accident.

Yet, here she was blowing it all out of proportion.

With a loud, heartfelt groan, Tori pulled her pillow over her face.Dammit.

She’d gotten caught up.Just like last time with Josh.Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras was another world.So was the Buckworth Plantation.So was a ballroom full of tuxedos and evening gowns and a string quartet.None of this was anything like her real life back home.

And that definitely included Josh.

Even if he wasn’t faking one hundred percent of this—because Lord knew that their chemistry was real and he did seem to be sincerely fond of her—the rest of everything they were doing was happening in a setting and amid a bunch of circumstances that were not real life for either of them.

She could not be falling for him.That was ridiculous.Well, notridiculous.It was quite easy to fall for a guy like Josh Landry.He was the quintessential vacation fling.But this was all like a dream.A fantasy.And it couldn’t last.She couldn’t get hooked on things like being twirled around a ballroom or being thrown over a guy’s shoulder.

She was going to go home to her cows, where she wore jeans and maybe two-stepped around the bar down by the highway once in a while.Where girls and guys met—if they hadn’t known each other since first grade—went out to dinner and movies and to ballgames and slowly spent more and more time together until one of them asked the other to move in and then eventually announced they were getting married.It was just natural and low-key and predictable.There was no pomp and circumstance.No big surprises.No running through the airport to stop a plane just in time to declare eternal love.People didn’t really do that stuff.Grand gestures were generally awkward in the real world.Even on Valentine’s Day.Even when the girl was just a freshman in high school and the whole thing was really just sweet and innocent.

Tori groaned louder into her pillow.The embarrassment of that day was still acute now when she thought about it.

She couldn’t fall for the grand gestures and being swept off her feet—literally.

Josh really could ruin her for other men.And not just for sex, but for real courtship.

Being with Josh was fun.It made her breathless.It made her heart pound.It made her laugh and feel sexy and feel like her quirks were endearing rather than weird.It had been full of surprises.

That wasn’t how real life went.

The two most important men in her life, her father and Andrew, had taught her that declaring her feelings and making grand statements, not to mention gestures, was generally frowned upon.Andrew had always pulled her back in an effort to protect her.Her father had always discouraged it to avoid embarrassment.

There was a soft knock at the door just before Josh cracked it open.“You decent?”

“Yep.”Well, she was covered up anyway.

“Damn.”He gave her a grin as he came into the room with a duffel thrown over his shoulder.

He’d stalled.There was no way going to his truck to grab his bag had taken this long.The fact that he realized she needed some extra time made her just like him even more.Crap.

“So, I was thinking,” she said, propping up on her elbows, the comforter pulled up to her chin.“We could still share the bed.Even if we’re not naked.”

She was such an idiot.She’d been talking about having sex with him all night.She’d tried to drag him upstairs.If he hadn’t stopped to dance with her, they could be well into round two by now.Or three.Round one probably wouldn’t take long.She wanted him.She knew he wanted her.Their chemistry was explosive.A first hard and fast, take-the-edge-off, up-against-the-wall screw would have been just fine with her.

She blew out a breath.If she wasn’t going to sleep with him, she had to stop thinking about sleeping with him.

“Yeah, we could do that,” he agreed.

“Great.I think that will be…good.”It wouldn’t be good.It would be torture.She’d probably barely sleep.Josh Landry, the guy she’d been thinking about for almost a year, was going to be lying next to her.In a bed.

“Yep.That will be…good.”He glanced toward the bathroom.“I’ll just go brush my teeth.I’ll be back.”

“Okay.”She gave him a bright, everything-is-great smile.

The smile died the second the bathroom door shut behind Josh.

This was going to be a long night.

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