Page 90 of Things Good Girls Don't Do (Rock Canyon, Idaho 1)

No way was he going to miss this golden opportunity.

With a devil’s grin, he moved and had her back against the aging barn wall before she’d finished gasping. “Look me in the eyes right now and tell me I don’t affect you, that you’re not interested.” He traced a lazy path down the side of her neck with his fingertips and felt her shiver. “Because I don’t believe that line for an instant, sunshine.”

Close enough to feel the heat she was throwing from her deliciously curved body, JP laughed softly when she tried to sidestep and squeeze free. Her shyness was so damn cute. He raised an arm and blocked her in, his palm flush against the rough, splintering wood. Leaning in close, he grinned when she blushed and her gaze flickered to his lips. Her mouth opened on a soft rush of breath, and, for a suspended moment, something sparked and held between them.

But then Sonny shook back her rose-gold curls and tipped her chin with defiance. “Believe what you want, JP. I don’t have to prove anything to you.” Her denim blue eyes flashed with emotion. “This might come as a surprise, but I’m not interested in playing with a celebrity like you. I have a business to run and a son to raise. I don’t need the headache.”

There was an underlying nervousness to her tone that didn’t quite jive with the tough-as-nails attitude she was trying to project. Either she was scared or he affected her more than she wanted to admit. She didn’t look scared.

JP dropped his gaze to her mouth, wanting to kiss those juicy lips, and felt her body brush against his. He could feel her pulse, fast and frantic, under his fingertips.

It made his pulse kick up a notch in anticipation. “There’s a surefire way to end this little disagreement right now, because I say you’re lying. I say you are interested in a celebrity like me.” He cupped her chin with his hand and watched her thick lashes flutter as she broke eye contact. But she didn’t pull away. “In fact, I say you’re interested in me.”

JP knew he had her.

Her voice came, soft and a little shaky. “How do I prove I’m not?” The way she was staring at his mouth contradicted her words. So did the way her body was leaning into his.

Lowering his head until he was a whisper away, he issued the challenge, “Kiss me.”

Her gaze flew to his, her eyes wide with shock. “You want me to do what?”

What he knew they both wanted.

“Kiss me. Prove to me you’re not interested, and I’ll leave here. You can go back to your business and your son and never see my celebrity ass again.”

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It would have been remarkable if Teresa had not been quivering in her prettiest slippers. Six pairs of eyes stared at her as though she wore horns atop her hat. She was astounded that she had not yet turned and run. Desperation and determination were all well and good when one was sitting in Mrs. Biddycock’s parlor, traveling in one’s best friend’s commodious carriage, and living in one’s best friend’s comfortable town house. But standing in a strange flat in an alien part of town, anticipating meeting the man one had been dreaming about for eighteen months while being studied intensely by his female relatives, did give one pause.

Her cheeks felt like flame, which was dispiriting; when she blushed, her hair looked glaringly orange in contrast. And this was not the romantic setting in which she had long imagined they would again encounter each other—another ballroom glittering with candlelight, or a rose-trellised garden path in the moonlight, or even a field of waving heather aglow with sunshine. Instead she now stood in a dingy little flat three stories above what looked suspiciously like a gin house.

But desperate times called for desperate measures. She gripped the rim of her bonnet before her and tried to still her nerves.

The sister who had gone to fetch him reappeared in the doorway and smiled. “Here he is, then, miss.”

A heavy tread sounded on the squeaking floorboards. Teresa’s breath fled.

Then he was standing not two yards away, filling the doorway, and . . .

she . . .

was . . .

speechless.

Even if words had occurred to her, she could not have uttered a sound. Both her tongue and wits had gone on holiday to the colonies.

No wonder she had dreamed.

From his square jaw to the massive breadth of his shoulders to his dark hair tied in a queue, he was everything she had ever imagined a man should be. Aside from the neat whiskers skirting his mouth that looked positively barbaric and thrillingly virile, he was exactly as she remembered him. Indeed, seeing him now, she realized she had not forgotten a single detail of him from that night in the ballroom. She recognized him with the very fibers of her body, as though she already knew how it felt for him to take her hand. Just as on that night eighteen months before, an invisible wind pressed at her back, urging her to move toward him like a magnet drawn to a metal object. As though they were meant to be touching.

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