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He thought about it for a moment. “You know that my guilt over hurting your feelings is going to make me go anyway, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I replied simply.
“So why bet it?”
“Because if it doesn’t matter, you’ll do whatever it takes to win so I know you’re feeding them by choice.” I gave him a wan smile and put down my cup. “But if you’re really sorry, you’ll have an emergency which means you have to leave and I win.”
“I don’t see a situation here where I win.”
“There isn’t one.”
“I’m starting to remember why I don’t date.”
“We aren’t dating. We’ve had a date. It’s not dating until it’s plural.”
“You know what? I spent an hour earlier listening to your two best friends tell me all these things about your confidence, but I’m starting to think that it’s my confidence that needs to be worked on here.” He paused. “Like whether I’m confident enough to take on your damn riddles and figure out the right thing to do.”
“Well, if it helps, you’ll do something wrong either way,” I said brightly. “Which is something you should get used to if you do want to date me. I’m never wrong, which means you’ll have to be.”
“You have to be wrong sometimes.”
“There’s like a one percent chance, on average, that I’m wrong.”
“How do you figure that out?”
“I’m a woman,” I replied slowly. “I’m always right.”
“Right,” he said, brow creasing. “Since we’ve just come out of a minor disagreement, I’m going to smile and nod like I agree with you.”
He put on a huge fake smile, widened his eyes, and nodded.
“See? You’re learning?” I grinned at him until he broke and returned it.
“How long do we have until this thing starts?” he asked, taking a step closer to me.
I grabbed his wrist. “You’re the one wearing a watch. Let’s see—five minutes.”
“Good. Then I have enough time to do this.” Preston cupped my face and covered my lips with his. He kissed me slowly, savoring every second until he swiped his tongue along the seam of my mouth.
I yielded, letting him kiss me deeply, and clenched my fingers around the soft cotton of his t-shirt. My toes curled in my ballet flats, pressing hard against the top of them. The tingle that shot down my spine beelined right between my legs and exploded in a firework of lust that had me clenching my thighs together to make it stop.
I did not need to start today turned on.
As if he knew, Preston slid one hand down my body to cup my ass and pull me against him. My stomach pressed into his hip as he held me—
Dear Lord, that’s not his hip.
Nope. Most definitely not.
Unless hips suddenly twitched of their own accord and grew bigger.
Nope. Nope. Nope.
That was Preston’s cock.
Abort mission. Abort! Abort!
“Ooookay!” I breathed, pushing him away from me. “That’s enough of that.”
My cheeks flamed as I turned away from him. I was hot freakin’ everywhere, and there was no way I had enough time to compose myself and put my game face on now.
Damn it.
Preston chuckled. “You smudged your lipstick.”
I shot him a dark look over my shoulder. “And your penis is showing, but there we go.”
He adjusted his shorts. “Yeah. We’re opening late while this goes away.”
I bent over to get my lipstick and mirror from my purse. “Staring at my ass won’t help.”
“Shit, do you have eyes in the back of your head?”
I peered back over at him in time to see him ferociously swipe the curtain so he could get put some kind of barrier between us. It was my turn to laugh.
And, not for the first time, I was thankful that I was a woman.
***
The booth was shut.
It happened every year on Friday night. It was the main round of the talent show, with the final to be judged the following night. You’d think it’d lead to more traffic—and it did, just not to this side of the fair.
It’d been an extraordinarily slow day all around. We’d barely made a hundred bucks between us and, annoyingly, we’d kissed the same amount of people.
It was pretty telling.
We were never going to break the stalemate.
Sometimes, when the universe tells you something, you have to listen.
“Well, now what?” Preston asked, putting his hands in his pockets. It was barely past five, and it was the first time in a week either of us had nothing to do.
“I’m not really sure,” I replied, looking around. “I do know that I’m fed up of this place, though.”
He chuckled, nudging me. “Same. Wanna get something to eat?”
“I guess,” I said hesitantly. “Someplace where nobody will see us and gossip?”
“I got accosted by the milk in the grocery store this morning,” he replied. “So, yes. Why don’t we get pizza at your place since we’re headed there anyway to feed your critters?”
