The Bookworm's Guide to Flirting (The Bookworm's Guide 3)

Despite her stark admission, I laughed. “Would you?”

“Uh-huh. I’d date you so hard, Dylan Parker. You’d never get rid of me.”

“It feels like I never will.” I handed her an uncapped water bottle and two paracetamols.

The water was a mistake.

“Oops!” She gasped as her grip slipped and the water went all over her dress. “Quick! We have to save it!” She dropped the tablets in her effort to get on the floor and save the water.

I pinched the bridge of my nose before getting down with her. “Saylor. Saylor, it’s in the carpet. You can’t save it.”

“But it’s wet.” She looked at me with wide eyes that had a hazy shine only tequila could give them. “We have to—we have to save the carpet! What if it drowns?”

Oh, boy, I was never going to let her live this down.

She was relatively safe, so I pulled my phone out of my pocket and opened the camera. I was so videoing this, and with any luck, she’d tell me she’d date the fuck out of me again.

“Are you videoing me?” She held up a fist. “Thass illegal. C’mere.” She lurched forward and fell down on the wet patch. “Oh, no. I’m all wet. Help.”

I bit back another laugh and moved to help her up.

Safely back on the sofa, she looked at her dress then at me. “You have to help me take off my dress. I’m wet.”

Not the context I was hoping to hear those words in…

“I am not helping you get undressed,” I said firmly. “I’ll help you into your room, but you’re on your own after that, Pinky.”

“Pinky? Does that make you the Brain?” She grinned lopsidedly. “Ha! Ha! You’re not the Brain! If you were the brain you’d get me naked! I’m offering it on a silver platter.” She held her hands out.

“Saylor, I don’t care what you’re offering, I’m not interested in it.” I put my phone in my pocket, still recording, to remind her of how I was a complete gentleman and turned her down. “Come on. You need to get out of your wet dress and get to bed, and I need to get you another water and paracetamol.”

“Oh, no.” Her eyes went even wider. “Did they drown?”

“No. They’re on a popcorn lifeboat. It’s fine.” What the fuck?

“Oh. Okay then.” She fell into me as I hauled her up, blinking at the insanity of what I’d just said and the fact her drunk ass had accepted that as normal. “I’d still totally date you, you know. If you weren’t my rooooooomie.”

There it was.

That was going to be her new alarm.

“I’m sure you would, love,” I said, guiding her into her room and sitting her on the edge of her bed. “You get undressed, and I’ll get you the tablets.”

“Okay, but you have to help me.”

“Saylor, I already told you—”

“No, no, nooooo, shhhh.” She flapped her hands. “It’s a zip. I can’t reach.” She mimed reaching behind her back for the zip and fell backward.

Jesus help me.

I needed it.

“Fine, but that’s it.” I helped her back up and turned her around. “Why did you wear a dress you couldn’t unzip by yourself?”

“Well, obviously,” she said, heavy emphasis on the ‘obviously.’ “I was hoping my date would be someone who could do it for me. But you’re not a bad compromise, sooo…”

“Right.” I pushed her hair to the side over her shoulder. It exposed her neck which had a tiny heart tattoo I’d never noticed, probably because it was partially hidden by her hairline even when it was up.

“Can you dooooo it?” She sighed as if I’d kept her waiting for an hour instead of ten seconds.

I pinched the zipper and pulled it down, stopping it three-quarters of the way down her back. The actual zipper was a little too low for me to be comfortable, but that didn’t stop my gaze dancing across the exposed skin of her back, zipping between three tiny moles that were in perfect alignment down to her spine to the shading of two dimples right where her back curved into her arse.

I cleared my throat and stepped back. “There. I’m going to get your water now.”

“Okay,” she sang, shrugging the dress off her shoulders without missing a beat.

I darted out of the room and into the kitchen. I had absolutely no desire to see her get naked.

No. That was a lie.

I had plenty of desire to see her get naked, just not right now. Not when I couldn’t—and wouldn’t—do anything about it.

I got a sports bottle from the cupboard and filled that with water from the dispenser on the fridge. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice with Miss Butterfingers in there.

I screwed the top on, retrieved her two more paracetamols, then slowly headed back in the direction of her room. “Saylor? Are you decent?”