Page 3 of Dating the Rebel
But still, he couldn’t resist...
He straightened away from the door, which brought him closer to her, so close that he could feel the heat of her slight body. And his began to tingle with awareness.
“Oh, I wasn’t wrong,” he said, and he leaned over more as if there was some cable between them pulling him closer. “Not about you. You’re definitely trouble.”
She uttered a soft sigh, her breath touching his mouth—making him want those shimmery lips to touch his instead. All he had to do was lean a little farther.
But she reached out and pressed her palm against his chest as if to hold him back, as if she’d read his mind and knew how damn badly he wanted to kiss her.
His chest tingled where her hand touched him, where his heart pounded harder with the attraction and desire coursing through his body.
Did she feel it, too?
“And you’re still more trouble than I ever was,” she informed him. “If all you’ve come here to do is call me names again, you can leave.” She used her free hand to point at the door.
She definitely wasn’t going to listen to him any more than she had when she was a teenager. But Grant had always been good at improvising when the original plan for a mission had failed. If he hadn’t been, he wouldn’t have survived.
“Have you considered that I might have another reason for being here?”
She narrowed her eyes with suspicion. “Really? What? You had a crush on me all those years ago, and you’re seeking me out now because of your unrequited love?”
He tried to suppress the chuckle that bubbled up the back of his throat, but it slipped out before he could control it. Kind of like his attraction to her...
But that was new. He’d never been attracted to her before. Even though he was only a few years older than her and his sister, he’d always felt much older—too old to have ever looked at her the way he was looking at her now.
She arched a brow. “What? No unrequited love?”
“What about you?” he asked. He was well aware that some of his sister’s friends had had crushes on him. But Miranda hadn’t giggled and flirted with him like those girls, like her very own sister just had. No. She’d only ever glared at him, like she was glaring now.
And she laughed. But it sounded more forced than his had been. Of course, she’d never found him funny before. Why would she now?
A weary-sounding sigh followed her laugh, and again her breath brushed across his skin with the faint scent of cinnamon. He loved cinnamon.
“I really don’t have time for your games,” she said with another pointed glance at her gold watch. “Why are you here, Grant?”
He couldn’t tell the truth—not now—not when she was already so irritated with his visit. She would probably coerce Blair into doing something stupid just to spite him—like he suspected she’d done when they were younger.
“I want to join your dating service, of course,” he said, as if it was obvious.
She laughed again, and this time it didn’t sound forced at all.
“Why is that funny?” he asked. “Blair had such success that, of course, I would be interested in—”
“Are you looking for a billionaire?” she asked, interrupting him. Then shaking her head, she added with pity, “What? Have you gambled away all your money?”
A curse burned the back of his throat, but unlike the chuckle, he was able to suppress it. He grinned instead. “Quite the opposite, in fact. I would make a great catch.”
She laughed again—even harder than she just had, so hard that her beautiful eyes crinkled and a dimple pierced one cheek.
His breath caught, probably on the curse he’d choked back, over her beauty. She was stunning and, unfortunately, almost as damn aggravating as she had always been. He leaned back against the door so that her hand finally fell away from his chest.
She glanced down at it as if she hadn’t realized it was still there.
Obviously touching him hadn’t had her tingling with awareness like it had him. He crossed his arms so that he didn’t reach for her, so that he didn’t try to make her feel the attraction, too.
Could he...
Was that the new tactic he should take? Making her want him?
