Miss Adventure Read Online Free PDF Page B

tangible exhaustion, he still moves with cougar-like grace.
    Damn. How does he do it?
    I reach out and yank the pack back. “I want to get your pants,” I explain.
    “My pants?”
    “I want to fix your pants. The ones I ripped off—the ones I ripped. I can fix them and wash them. It’s not fair that today cost you a pair of pants.”
    “I’ll survive,” he assures me, reaching to take back his bag.
    “But they’re fixable,” I argue, holding the rucksack out of his reach, “so I don’t see any reason why—”
    “I can fix them myself.”
    “You know how to sew?” The blurted challenge puts me right up on my Some-Things-Girls-Can-Do-Better high horse, even though it is a totally sexist stereotype that only an idiot would lay claim to. Not to mention I can’t sew much more than a button.
    “I’ve been hiking for over twenty years,” he answers.
    “Hikers need to sew?” My sarcasm serves me well. “For what?”
    “Head wounds, mostly.” He tries to take back the rucksack, thinking I’m going to be satisfied with leaving myself so miserably beholden to him.
    I pull the pack even further away from him. “There’s no reason you should do the work when it’s my fault. I’ll fix your pants.”
    “No, you won’t.” He reaches across me and jerks the pack back.
    “Jack,” I bolt off the couch so we stand face to face. Man, he smells good. It’s so unfair. He used my shower and my soap, and I never smell this good. “Give them to me.”
    “I’m not giving you my pants.”
    Just then, I kind of hear what we’re saying to one another, and it gives me a different idea. “Do you want to have sex?”
    “What?” He leaps backward to get away from me. “No! What? No,” he says again. “Are you crazy?” He pushes past me to go sit on the couch. But he immediately stands up again. He moves to the center of the living room where he paces like a tiger with ADD. “I can’t believe you just said that!”
    “Sorry,” I say, wearing my petulance like a badge. Jeez. Does he have to act so repulsed? It’s not like I’m lusting after him, or anything. I mean, yeah, he’s got this incredible warrior kind of magnetism and this way of moving that makes me think…
    But never mind! I don’t actually like him. Come on! He’s Jack Hawkins. I will not act like some geeky piccolo player drooling after the captain of the football team. And that’s exactly what it would be like if I were actually stupid enough to want Jack Hawkins. I mean, sure, I’d do him, but that doesn't mean—
    Oh, my God! Does he think I actually want him? “It’s just that you’re so miserable,” I rush to explain.
    He looks at me like I’ve just told him his duck is on fire.
    “Seriously, Jack. Your mood is blasting into me like this dark beam of…of…like, dirty snow on the side of the road, you know? Yuck. And I can’t stand it. I’m so depressed.”
    He slams his brows together. “That’s why you have sex? To get rid of depression?”
    I’m thinking this doesn’t sound like such a crazy reason when I realize what he’s doing. “Oh, no you don’t!” I thrust my fists onto my hips so my elbows jut out in a really commanding way. “Where do you get off psychoanalyzing me? You don’t even know me!”
    “No, I don’t,” he agrees. “But you said—”
    “Forget what I said!” I take a deep breath, let it out. “Just forget everything I said. I was just trying…I was…I…I really ruined your day, and now your night, too. And you have to work tomorrow, but you’re stuck here all night. I was just trying to make things better. For both of us. That’s all.”
    His eyes bug out of his head in true Odie-fashion. “By having sex with me?”
    He says this like having sex with Lisa Flyte could NEVER improve ANY situation for ANYONE. I want to punch him. Hard. But I don’t.
    Because I’m scared.
    Not of punching him. I’m sure my hand would hurt for only a day or so if I tried. I mean, I’m too much of a