Page 83 of You've Got Male

“You can’t text a guy like that and expect him to sit in bed wondering what happens when he uses his magical abilities.”

“You read that?”

“I read that.”

“I was hoping that the text would somehow disappear between now and when you woke up to read it.” A frown folded on her forehead. “Wait. Why aren’t you home asleep?”

“When a man gets a text about his magic mouth, he’s going to want to see what happens when he uses it.”

“It can melt a woman’s clothes right off,” she informed him as if she were the reigning expert on magical mouths. Correction. As if she were the reigning expert onhismagical mouth. A title he was damn happy to give her.

“Shall we test it?”

Her gaze landed on his lips. “It would be odd for my boyfriend to greet me without a kiss. We are in the honeymoon phase after all.”

She wobbled a little and had to put her hands on his chest to steady herself. He pulled her closer—telling himself that he wasjust helping stabilize her. “How drunk are you?”

“Not so shit-faced that I don’t know what I’m doing, but tipsy enough to admit I want you to kiss me. Not because of the people in the bar, but because you want to kiss me.” Her lashes fluttered. “Do you want to kiss me, Jonah?”

“Desperately.”

“Then let’s see just how magic that mouth of yours is.”

Jonah was, hands down, a blessed man because he didn’t get the chance to kiss Evie—she was kissing him. He didn’t grab her or take control, he just stood there with his hands casually resting on the curve of her lower back, letting her set the pace. He thought she was going to give him a chaste kiss, but one brush turned into two, and finally, by the time she worked her way into kiss number five, a round of hoots and catcalls went up.

He pulled back slowly, savoring the way she chased his lips, trying to fill the growing distance between them. She blinked at him and the dazed expression was from more than a few drinks.

“Your clothes are still on. Maybe I’m doing it wrong,” he said.

“Oh, you’re doing it right,” she said. “But just for experiment’s sake, maybe we should try again. In your car.”

He groaned. She was killing him. “There is nothing more I want than to melt your clothes off, but I don’t want you to regret it come tomorrow.”

She cupped his cheek. “I won’t,” she promised.

“Let’s circle back to that when you’re sober,” he said. “But until then, how about you let me drive you home so I know you get there safely.”

“You came here to make sure I get home safely?”

“Sunshine, I came here to see you in that blue top.”

Chapter Thirty-One

Evie

It was well past two and instead of being in bed, trying to sleep off what was sure to be a doozie of a hangover, Evie was lying on her patio lounger gazing at the sliver of moon hanging over the Rockies in the distance, sipping on a hot cup of coffee. The stars were brighter than normal, twinkling in the sky like millions of fairy lights.

The events of the night had her tied into an emotional pretzel. The more time they spent together, the more natural their interaction became, until the beginnings of a bond began to form—a bond she would be crazy to explore. But it was there and impossible to ignore.

Should she have played her cards differently—stuck to the plan?

For one, she never should have invited him inside the house. She should have told him to get his own glass of lemonade in his own damn house. Also, the moment he got within kissing distance, she and her blue panties should have headed for thehills. Maybe climbing the Rockies would have burned off some of that sexual frustration. But instead she’d drunk-texted him, then propositioned him for a quickie in the back seat of his soccer-dad SUV, which housed a booster seat and goldfish-cracker crumbs.

Lord help her.He’d kissed her on the cheek and sent her inside, a perfect gentleman, but Evie had to face facts. In the span of a few weeks, she and Jonah had gone from feuding, to flirting, to faking, to fuc—

A rustling sounded in the distance. Evie sat straight up as a shadow appeared from the side yard, so fast coffee sloshed over the rim, burning her skin. But she was too busy going through all the reasons there would be that kind of foot-on-leaves rustling.

Heart ricocheting off her ribs, she strained her eyes, wondering if maybe she’d manifested Jonah out of high-altitude-thin air. Had he come to melt the clothes off her body? And if so, would she let him know that she was mostly sober?

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