Page 31 of Once Smitten, Twice Shy

Sitting on his lap is a bad idea.

“I’m fine,” I whisper.

He gives me a stern look. “You’re sore,” he says quietly. “I saw you groan when you got up from the café table. You were limping a little on the walk home.”

Humiliation whines out from my pricked-pride balloon. He noticed.

“Will it feel better to sit?” he asks. “Tell the truth.” Will leans in a little, his voice even softer. “We’re being honest with each other, remember? Youpinkie promised.”

Dammit. On a huff, I plop down on his lap.

“There,” I whisper sourly. “Happy now?”

He shrugs. “Hiding like we’re criminals aside, yes.”

I cross my arms over my chest, sulking, annoyed that he picked up on my aches and pains, that Will has now become another person who fusses over me. “I feel like a kid in her dad’s lap at story time.”

“I mean, I think it’s alittlesoon for you to be calling meDaddy, but…”

I gape in shock and glance over my shoulder.

Will’s got a hand over his mouth, and his cheeks have turned bright red. He drops his hand just long enough to whisper hoarsely, “Thinking thought. Shouldn’t have been a talking thought.”

I bite my lip, trying so hard not to laugh. I have to stay quiet. I clap a hand over my mouth, too, as a laugh threatens to squeak out.

We manage to stay silent for a few seconds as I listen for Kate’s and Christopher’s voices again. They’re no louder, no quieter. They’restillstanding outside my apartment.

Suddenly, Will’s phone starts to ring. Thankfully its sound is muffled by my butt, but it’s still too loud.

“Will!” I whisper-shout, glancing at him again over my shoulder. “Silence it!”

He gives me wide, panicked eyes. “I can’t!” he hisses. “You’re on my lap!”

“Oh, whose brilliant idea was that?” I hiss back.

He blows out a frustrated breath. “Reach in my left pocket, would you? Just hit the button on the side to silence it.”

I hesitate. His pocket is way too close to the very generous part of him I’m trying not to think about, wedged snugly against my butt. “Can’t you?”

He gives me an annoyed look as he whispers, “And risk groping you in the process? No, thanks. EvenIknow that’s not first-date material.”

I press myself harder against his phone as it rings again, trying to smother it with my butt cheeks. “We’re not practicing anything right now! Just silence it!”

“Absolutely not,” he whispers.

“Christ almighty!” I lean on my right butt cheek so I can reach his pocket and shove my hand behind me, feeling around. My fingers connect with something big and thick, but definitely not rectangular-shaped. I freeze. “That’s not your phone, is it?”

Will swallows audibly. “It is not.”

I yank my hand back like it’s been burned, but Will clasps my wrist, guiding it much farther left, until my fingertips brush the edge of a pocket. “There,” he says. “Right there.”

Trying my best not to hear how that sounds very much like a command he’d give me in a much more pleasurable setting, I shove my hand inside the pocket, find his phone, and frantically jab at the buttons on the side until it’s silent.

Two seconds later, it starts to buzz.

“Take it out,” he says, his voice hoarse and urgent. “Please.”

That double entendre, I can’t get past. I choke on a snort, trying my best to swallow the sound. “But an ass grope is too far for a first date?”

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