At one time, this would have been his dream: settling down and starting a family. A cozy home filled with laughter and love, children’s drawings on the fridge, and the scent of home-cooked meals wafting through the air. Lazy Sunday mornings spent in bed with Sophie. Wait. Fuck. Not Sophie. He and the redhead were oil and water.
“Why exactly is it a good thing you’re not secretly hoping to become my real boyfriend?” Sophie paused to give him her full attention.
For one, he’d have to compete with all the book boyfriends who currently held her heart. Not that he’d ever say anything along that line. No Navy SEAL worth their salt would ever back down from a challenge.
Instead, he held up his copy ofFunny Story. The hero in the book, Miles, was so un-James-Bond-like that Stone had found himself wincing at several of his actions and words. “I’ve read your damn book, and I don’t possess one thing in common with the hero.” Not that there was anything wrong with Miles—in the end, he’d been quite likable. He just wasn’t wired the same as Stone.
“Wow.” Sophie looked at him like he’d just declared he hated puppies and kittens and sex.
He bristled. “Wow, what?”
Her look of dismay slowly faded away and became one of feigned nonchalance. “It’s nothing.”
“That sounded like a something.” This was how most of their conversations had gone over the past week.
“I just assumed you were…at the very least…probably good in bed…like Miles. Not that that’s the reason he’s my newest most favorite book boyfriend.”
Stone didn’t react. Not on the outside, anyway. Instead, he considered which part of what she’d just said he most wanted to address. The one that questioned his ability as a lover, or to inquire how in the hell Miles had taken the honor of most favorite book boyfriend? “Darling, the things I could do to you in bed would make Miles’ sexual knowledge fade to black.”
That was a new phrase Sophie had taught him while they’d been getting to know each other. In some romances, the sex is out in the open, and the reader gets to enjoy the journey. Otherromances have a closed-door policy where the bedroom door is shut on the sex, a.k.a., fade to black. And then there were clean romances where sex simply didn’t happen.
Now, he watched in amusement while Sophie boldly eyeballed him up and down and then back up.
“Do you have any references that can verify your grandiose statement?” she finally asked. “I mean, it’s quite obvious when Emily Henry created Miles, she made him all that and a good book when it came to pleasuring a female.”
“How, for the love of common sense, do you consider that obvious?”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “The guy owned several pairs of not sexy shoes.”
“Your theory is based on his collection of Crocs?”
“Spectacular sexual prowess was a must for the author to give Miles in order to salvage him from that wardrobe detail. Not that I’m bad-mouthing men who wear them. In fact, the detail endeared Miles to a multitude of women worldwide, because they shouted good guy who doesn’t take himself too seriously. Which makes Emily Henry a genius at creating book boyfriends.”
“Good guy but not sexy guy?”
“Correct.”
Stone pondered the revelation. Romance readers possessed layers of complexity that rivaled some of his former SEAL assignments. “I thought his personality saved him from his less than spectacular introduction to the reader.”
In all honesty, he’d spent a considerable amount of time thinking about Miles and what it was about him that flipped Sophie’s skirts. Stone had decided it was Miles’ willingness to be vulnerable. An attribute that might work on the written page but was an ingredient for heartache in reality.
“All heroes worth a damn,” Sophie said, “have a most excellent personality that comes out to play with the right woman. Now, back to the question at hand, do you possess proof of your claim to possess off-the-charts sexual aptitude?”
Having forgotten the origin of their conversation, sex, he chuckled.“Damn straight I do.” Seldom did a person surprise him, but Sophie’s brazenness continued to catch him off guard. Starting with her declaration of her intent to break his romance cherry.
“I’m listening,” she cooed, fluttering her lashes.
“You don’t need proof, because I am not your type.” While that last bit was for her sake, he took it to heart as well. A confirmed bachelor would be a fool not to load up with all the ammunition at his disposal to keepwhat ifsat bay.
“Which works out nicely,” she mused, “considering I know yourI’d never, and that doesn’t mesh at all with myI can’t wait. Of course, we’ve not mentioned toying with the idea of a torrid fling. But I’m guessing that’s a thought better left unthought. So, forget I even spoke it.” She waved her hand in the air as if she could erase words already spoken.
A torrid fling?He rubbed a hand over his jaw. Her I-take-that-back technique had failed. No shocker there. If he’d learned nothing else this past week, it was that Sophie E. Clark was going to be the death of his serenity. A word he’d never once used in his thirty-five years before meeting her, but now found himself pulling it out several times a day.
She glanced at him as if expecting him to comment. He said nothing—another thing he found himself doing a lot around her. Not because he chose to hold his tongue, but because she mostly left him speechless.
“Have a seat.” She pointed to one of the two chairs around her minute kitchen table. “Dinner’s served.”
He shoved away thoughts of casual sex with Sophie, took a seat, and felt a tiny bit disappointed at the thought of her sayingI Doto a normal relationship with some Miles-like man in the future.
