“Let’s just focus on the task at hand. Are they engaged yet?”
Nate leaned a few inches to the side. “Nobody’s hugging, crying, or screaming, so I’m going to say no. Honest question, how long doyou think you can keep them from noticing you? You are a distinctively tall woman.”
“Would you knock it off about my height?”
“So it is a sore topic for you.”
“Are you trying to start another fight?”
Maybe. It was the most fun he’d had with a woman in months. Who was he kidding?Years.Could he even remember the last woman he’d had fun with? And after a day like today, Nate could use a little fun. “I’m just trying to keep you from kissing me. You seem rather determined.”
She leaned in so close he could see flecks of pale green woven within the bright blue of her eyes. “I assure you, the last thing I want to do right now is kissyou.” She punctuated the last word with a little thrust of her chin—and a definite purse in her lips.
“Really? Because something just touched my lips. And I’m pretty sure it was your lips.”
And she knew it too, based on the rosy flush in her freckle-spattered cheeks. “I didn’t mean to get that close.”
“Has this whole thing been a ploy just so that you could kiss me?”
“It was an accidental lip bump.”
“Do you even know that moose and chipmunk over there?”
“Can you just pretend that you like me for thirty seconds without being weird about it?”
Maybe it was his nonexistent dating life since college. Maybe it was the loss of his mentor. Maybe it was the ongoing texts from his dad he was finding harder to ignore. Nate didn’t know. But pretending to be someone he wasn’t, such as a flirty guy with a gorgeous girlfriend for thirty seconds, felt a lot better than being himself—a lonely poetry-loving teacher with a gaping wound in his heart and daddy issues.
Which must be why he dropped his mouth next to her ear. “Like this?”
Her shoulders hunched. “But without all the breathiness, please.”
“So like this?” He straightened like a guard at Buckingham Palace.
“That’s worse. Relax.”
He started swiveling his hips like a terrible Elvis Presley impersonator. “Like this?”
“Oh my goodness, please tell me Oliver is down on one knee and my sister is jumping up and down, saying yes.”
Nate peered past her shoulder. “Everyone is still on their feet. And hate to say it, but all those feet are walking our way.”
“They see us?” Crazy Pants whimpered.
“Well, not to bring up the whole height issue again, but between that and the explosive amount of red curls on your head, you’re kind of hard to miss. Plus I’m pretty sure you left your camera and Windex spray on the bench.”
She whimpered again. “My sister can’t know Oliver was planning to propose to her. This still needs to be a surprise. There’s got to be a way we can salvage this. Think, think, think.”
“You want to bump lips again, don’t you,” Nate said, obviously joking and obviouslynotthinking. Because her eyes locked on his. Her brows rose in question. She didn’t really want to kiss him, did she? And he didn’t really want to let her, did he?
His head dipped a small nod in answer to the question in her eyes. Apparently, he did. Maybe because he couldn’t even remember the last time a beautiful woman had wanted to kiss him. “Fine,” he whispered, half expecting her to chicken out.
She did not chicken out.
Her arms wrapped around his neck and she kissed him.
Kissed himkissed him.
No accidental lip bump about it. His hat fell off her head as their noses, lips, chests, everything, were pressed flush together. And her hands... how many hands did she have? They were everywhere.
