Good Girl (Love Unexpectedly 2)

I lift my head and give him a slow smile. “Yeah?”

His eyes are surprisingly serious as he lifts a hand, resting a palm to my cheek. “Yeah.”

Noah’s eyes are on my lips, and I know he wants to kiss me. I can feel it. Please.

His head moves slightly downward and my breath catches, but at the last minute he freezes.

Then with a movement so fast, so confident that I think maybe I imagined the moment before, I’m on my back again, my arms pinned on either side of my head as he gives me a wicked smile.

“Now, princess, got any more of those zip ties?”

—

A long time later, my wrists are just sore enough to give me pleasant memories of the thoroughly depraved things he did to my body, Noah’s arm is wrapped low on my waist, and the dogs are doing their best to zap all the romance out of the moment, Ranger lying on his back on the other side of Noah, Dolly curled in a tiny ball between our two heads on the pillow.

The moment is perfect.

Almost perfect.

But as I lie there staring at the ceiling, I can’t help but lift my fingers to my lips, wondering why he won’t kiss me.

Wondering if he ever will.

Noah

If you’d told me a month ago I’d be taking Jenny Dawson on a date to a swanky Italian restaurant in Baton Rouge, I’d have laughed in your face.

I’d have told you that guys like me don’t date girls like her. I’d have told you that I don’t want to date a girl like her.

Hell, I’m not even sure it is a date.

But as she sits across from me, relentlessly asking the waiter a thousand questions about the wine list, I’m struck not only by the realization that it feels like a date, but by the realization that I want it to be one.

Fuck this girl and her addictive everything.

“Jenny,” I interrupt when she opens her mouth to ask what exactly “smoky” means as it pertains to red wine. “Get the Montepulciano.”

Her nose wrinkles. “The what?”

“Excellent choice, sir,” the server says in relief. “And for you?”

“I’ll have the same.”

She leans forward. “What did you just order me?”

“It’s good. If you don’t like it, you can send it back. But I needed to save that poor waiter from your inquisition.”

Her eyes narrow as she reaches toward the breadbasket. “How do you know so much about wine, anyway?”

“I don’t.” It’s a lie. I know plenty about wine, and she’s obviously caught on to that.

Alarm bells go off in my head.

“You know a lot more than a guy who grew up in a trailer park and spends his days doing carpentry and woodworking is likely to know. And yes, I know I’m stereotyping, but you just ordered for me like I was the little woman, so let’s go with it and say we’re even.”

I lift my water glass and don’t quite meet her eyes. “My father was…uppity.”

She doesn’t even pause in her chewing except to drag the bread through the saucer of seasoned olive oil in the middle of the table. “Go on.”