Long Slow Burn Read Online Free PDF Page B

managed to unfreeze his face. “Yeah, we absolutely gorgeous guys can be real jerks.”
    She laughed, flicking water at him.
    â€œWhat?” He blinked innocently, scraping up the last of the dough from the bowl. “What about the other one?”
    â€œDale? He seems pretty great.”
    No. Dale was not pretty great. Dale sucked. Nathan was absolutely sure of that. “Yeah? What’s his deal?”
    â€œHe’s some kind of consultant. Travels a lot. I wrote to him already. He wrote back right away.” She came over to pick up Nathan’s filled sheet; he could smell her flowery scent under the sugary vanilla aroma in the kitchen and wanted to devour her. “He’s vacationing. In Jamaica.”
    Jamaica. This was bad. Nathan couldn’t afford to take Kim to Jamaica. Nathan could barely afford to take Kim to Applebees. “He’s probably there buying drugs.”
    â€œNathan!” She swept his baking sheet over to the oven.
    â€œWho goes to Jamaica alone for any other reason? Or no, I’ve got it.” He pushed back his chair, turned it to face her. “He’s there with his wife. Or his fourteen-year-old girlfriend. Or both.”
    â€œYou are a hopeless cynic.” The timer went off. Kim took out the second cookie sheet and put his batch in.
    Yeah, a hopeless cynic, who happened to be struck dumb by his first sight of this woman over ten years earlier. A woman who still hadn’t looked back. “I know how men think because I am one.”
    â€œYou’re not all of them.”
    He couldn’t argue with that. “I’m going out with Kent and Steve tomorrow tonight. Want to come?”
    â€œWatch you all get shit-faced and try to get laid? No thanks.”
    â€œKim.” He stood up, wanting some advantage, any advantage, even something that seemed like advantage. The invitation had come out of his mouth in desperation. Because he was desperate. “I haven’t ‘gotten laid’ like that in quite a while.”
    â€œNot for lack of trying.”
    â€œHow do you know?”
    â€œI hear from Kent.”
    Nathan gestured in frustration. Kent exaggerated. Her brother never used to be so swaggering until he’d come back from New York and started hanging around with Steve, the Master Swaggerer. “That’s not all I’m about. I’ve never tried with you.”
    She gave him a withering look. “Like you would.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    She laughed, then saw he was serious; her laughter died and she glanced at him uneasily. “I’m not exactly your type.”
    â€œNo?” They were going to bust at least this part of the myth right now. “What is my type?”
    â€œBubbly with big boobs and a bent for blow jobs.”
    Instinct told him to take the joke further. So instead he caught a stray piece of her hair, stroking its soft length between his thumb and index finger, hoping she’d experience an unexpected and highly sensual shiver. “What if I told you my type was blond and shy with hidden passion waiting to be—”
    â€œHidden passion?” She yanked her hair back as if he were about to set it on fire.
    Crap. She was not experiencing anything like an unexpected sensual shiver. “Someone else said that. There’s no way I would say anything so stupid.”
    â€œGeez, Nathan.” She wasn’t laughing. He wasn’t, either.
    â€œYou’re selling me short. There have been many women I’ve dated who aren’t bubbly and who don’t have big boobs. Many.” He gazed at her earnestly. She started looking cornered, folded her arms across her chest and stepped away from him. Oh, no. Scaring her was not what he wanted to do at all. He frowned. “Well…one, anyway. Maybe.”
    She laughed in nervous relief and he grinned, cursing under his breath, wishing he had the guts to stay serious with her, wishing he had the nerve to set her