Page 44 of Four Dates and A Forever
Join the club.
Rhett stepped all the way back. “I guess I’ll leave it to you two kids to figure out.” And then he was gone.
Chapter Eleven
Dating Tips from Elsie Dodd
Ignore the little tingle you get when you
like someone. It’s common sense
leaving the building.
“What the hell are you doing?” Rhett asked himself. He was next to his Range Rover, no keys, no ride. Just him and his hard-on. He hadn’t meant to kiss Elsie. Was pretty sure it would have ended with them naked in the back of his car. No, heknewit would have ended with them naked in the back of his car.
What, exactly, was the problem with that?
How was he supposed to be her friend when every time he saw her all he could picture was her naked? And why whenever another date showed up—and there always seemed to be another one—did he feel like punching someone?
“You’re supposed to be giving her room to decompress, not pressing her against the nearest flat surface.”
He’d been fine all night. Doing the whole dog and pony show with Steph while wondering what the hell he was doing there. He met her new fiancé, they had a laugh, signed some autographs, and then she’d dropped the bomb. She was pregnant. After a year of saying she didn’t want a family, she was expecting. It had him wondering if she’d changed her mind or if it was something about him that had her gun-shy when it came to having kids.
And before he knew it, he’d called in a favor from a make-up artist, then hailed a cab and headed across town to a party he hadn’t been invited to.
What was it about Elsie Dodd?
She was complicated and stubborn and a complete mess. She was also sexy and sweet and so damn real he couldn’t stay away. She was like some homing beacon, drawing him closer and closer until he forgot common sense.
She got to him, and he didn’t know how he felt about that.
“I didn’t know I was on a date.”
He turned around and the woman he’d just walked away from stood two feet away. Her hair a mess, her eyes wild, and those just-been-kissed lips still wet.
She stepped closer—dangerously close. “I didn’t know,” she whispered.
“But you are,” he said.
“I told him that I was working, and it was unprofessional.”
“And kissing me?”
“I want it to be a mistake.”
“But?”
“But I’m here.” Oh, she was there all right. In nothing but those skintight pants and some medieval-looking top that was held together by a simple piece of silk ribbon. He wondered if the whole thing would unravel with a single tug. “I told myself the same thing I told Jake, that after this past year I’m not in the right frame of mind to date.”
Something he’d known but he’d kissed her anyway. And it had been insanity. Sheer insanity. The moment their lips touched every problem and pressure evaporated and all that was left was pleasure.
And her.
“Now what?” he asked, because he needed to know what her plan was. And if her plan matched his. The one where they kept things simple; two friends who shared a mind-blowing, unexpected kiss that made a small hiccup in what they were building toward. Or the one where they rip each other’s clothes off.
The first was the safe route, the second felt like the right route.
She stepped closer. Each step made his dick twitch. “I don’t know. My plan was to get as far away from you as possible, but I guess I got turned around and ended up here.”
