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‘Have you found it hard so far?’
She gave him an ironic look. ‘It’s only the second week of January so, no, not at all.’
‘Will that be the longest you’ve been without male company?’ he asked.
Georgie tried to read his expression but could make little of it. ‘I’m not a serial dater if that’s what you’re implying,’ she said. ‘For one thing I’ve been studying for the last nine years so that has been my main focus. What about you? How long has it been since you broke up with Leila?’
‘I can’t really remember,’ he said, shifting his gaze from hers. ‘Nine months or so, I guess.’
‘Have you dated anyone since?’
His eyes moved back to meet hers. ‘You’re the first,’ he said with a rueful look, ‘although technically this isn’t a date.’
‘No … of course it isn’t,’ Georgie said, trying not to stare at his well-shaped mouth for too long.
‘So, Dr Willoughby,’ he said with a hint of a smile, ‘your thousand dollars is still safe.’
Not as safe as I’d like it to be, Georgie thought. God, he was so gorgeous when he smiled like that. His midnight-blue eyes crinkled up at the corners and his features relaxed, giving him a laid-back, devil-may-care demeanour that was totally irresistible.
Her stomach did a rapid tumble turn when she thought of how it would feel to have those firm lips pressed to hers, the stroke and glide of his tongue parting the shield of her lips to hunt down and mate with hers. Desire began to crawl over her skin, making it lift and tighten all over. The tender spot between her thighs began to pulse with longing to feel the thick invasion of his male presence, his rock-hard abdomen slick with sweat as it pinned hers beneath him in the most intimate way possible …
‘Have I got spinach in my teeth or something?’ he asked jerking her away from her traitorous thoughts.
‘Er … no.’ she said, desperately trying to control the steady creep of colour in her cheeks.
‘You were staring at my mouth.’
She feigned a guileless look. ‘Was I?’
‘Yes.’
Georgie forced her gaze to hold his teasing one. ‘I guess you’re pretty used to having women stare at you all the time but, let me assure you, in this case it had no
thing whatsoever to do with your physical attributes. I was thinking about something else entirely.’
‘What were you thinking about?’
She looked at him for a moment while her brain hunted for a lie. ‘Um … dessert,’ she said, mentally congratulating herself for finding something that was at least partially true. ‘I was thinking of what I could have for dessert.’
His eyes dipped to her mouth before returning to hers, a cryptic little smile turning up the edges of his mouth. ‘So was I,’ he said, and handed her the menu, his fingers brushing against hers.
CHAPTER SEVEN
GEORGIE buried her head in the menu, her fingers still tingling where Ben’s had touched hers. She was ashamed at her weakness. She had been so confident she would win the bet with Rhiannon but she could see that things were going to get tricky if she didn’t put a stop to this right now. She couldn’t remember a time when she had been so instantly attracted to a man. Sure, she’d had a few boyfriends, and Andrew McNally, the last one, had been relatively serious. She had even considered herself in love enough to contemplate marriage until she had found out his previous girlfriend hadn’t quite moved out of his life.
Georgie realised that it had been her pride that had taken the beating, not her heart. But falling in love with Ben Blackwood was not just going to lose her a thousand dollars. He had a chip on his shoulder that was going to take quite some shifting and she wasn’t sure she was up to the task of doing it.
Besides, she was supposed to be focusing on her career, not marriage and babies, although the thought of a baby with dark blue eyes was certainly very tempting. So, too, was the method of conceiving one.
‘What have you decided?’
Georgie looked at him blankly. ‘What?’
He indicated the menu in her hands. ‘Dessert,’ he said. ‘Are you a gelato girl or a cheesecake chick?’
She looked back at the menu, this time actually reading what was printed there. ‘It’s a toss-up between the cheesecake and the chocolate mousse,’ she said, suddenly feeling self-conscious under his steady gaze.
‘We could get both and share,’ he suggested.
