Gone With the Nerd (Nerds, #4)(25)
Author: Vicki Lewis Thompson

Now he couldn’t think of much else besides hav**g s*x with Zoe, which didn’t fit very well with proposing to Kristen next weekend. Still, hav**g s*x with Zoe was completely illogical. She wouldn’t ever consider marrying him, for God’s sake. So was he prepared to throw away a viable marriage partner so he could have a night of sex with Zoe?

Then there was the lawyer-client relationship to consider. He was pretty sure hav**g s*x with your client violated a bunch of ethical codes, and he’d never crossed an ethical line in his career. Being a straight arrow suited him down to the ground.

Once they had sex, they’d never be able to regain their former business relationship. Maybe she’d be able to forget it ever happened, but he wouldn’t forget for the rest of his life. If she wanted to remain his client, which she might not, the sex would be the elephant in the living room every time they met.

"Let’s do this scene." Zoe put her lemonade on the rickety table between them and handed the script to Flynn. "It seems like a pivotal one, so it could well be the one they have me read next week. Besides, we’ll both relate to the setting."

Flynn took the script while careful not to make any sudden movements as he sat in the ancient rocker. He expected it to collapse any minute under his weight. That would fit the general pattern of disasters they’d encountered so far.

He glanced at the scene Zoe had found. "Why are they in a cabin?"

"Tony convinced her they needed to hide out for a few days until the cops can get some leads on who’s after her."

Glancing quickly over the dialogue, Flynn could tell the scene was a cozy one. Familiar, too.

"While they’re hiding out in the cabin, a policewoman is impersonating Vera and working late in the lab to see if she can trick the kidnappers into showing their hand. But Vera has her computer containing all her notes with her at the cabin, so the formula’s not in jeopardy."

"Unless the impersonation doesn’t work and they track her to the cabin."

"Right." Zoe leaned over so she could see the script, too. She wore the wire-rimmed glasses and had her hair lucked under the floppy orange hat again. She would have looked fairly dorky except that at some point she’d unbuttoned the top two buttons of her blouse. It gaped open, revealing the scalloped top of her bra. There was nothing dorky about Zoe’s cl**vage.

He supposed she was wearing what she’d called a nerd bra, plain cotton with the hooks in the back. That didn’t matter to him. He was still extremely interested. "Maybe you should fasten the top two buttons of your blouse."

She glanced down. "Thanks for the suggestion. That suits Vera’s character more. I must have unfastened them out of habit." She buttoned up.

So she unbuttoned her blouse out of habit. Whew. Watching her button it again made his mouth water. It didn’t take much imagination to reverse the process. He could see those slender fingers undoing what they’d just fastened before moving on down the line to give him an unobstructed view of the nerd bra and all the beauty it contained.

"Any other pointers?" she asked.

"You don’t have to do it right now, but you should probably file down your fingernails. And take off the polish."

She studied her red nails. "Not even a French manicure?"

"I don’t see Vera taking the time and trouble. Short nails, no polish."

"What does Kristen do with her nails?"

He wondered if she’d introduced Kristen into the conversation on purpose, so he wouldn’t forget about her. "She gets a French manicure, but she’s a lawyer and appears in public a lot. Vera’s a scientist who spends all her time in a chemistry lab." He paused to look over at Zoe. "Besides, I never said Kristen was a nerd."

"So she’s not?"

Picturing bookish, quiet Kristen, he realized she fit the profile. "I guess she is."

"That’s what I thought. You two are probably perfect for each other."

He’d thought so twenty-four hours ago. Now he was afraid they’d bore each other silly. But he felt disloyal saying that. "I guess we are."

"There you go, Flynn." She smiled. "You have the first line."

"Yeah." Looking away from that smile wasn’t easy, but he finally forced his attention back to the script. If he kept his focus on the dialogue, he might make it through without an incident, although she did have that spicy scent going on. "You might want to skip the perfume, too."

"You think?"

"She’s not trying to attract a man. She’s trying to perfect this formula." "Okay, no perfume."

Flynn wondered if eliminating the manicure and the perfume would make Zoe less sexy to him. Probably not. As she leaned close, her arm brushing his, even her body heat called to him. He couldn’t very well ask her to turn that down. So he concentrated on reading his lines.

TONY

I wish I could figure out what it is about you. Vera looks up from her computer.

VERA

What do you mean?

TONY

You’re the least seductive woman I’ve ever met. So why is it I want to jump your skinny bones?

VERA

I can think of two reasons.

TONY

Then by all means, enlighten me, because this urge is a real pain in the ass.

VERA

Reason number one: I’m different from other women you’ve taken to bed. I’m a mystery. You wonder how sex would be with a flat-chested nerd like me.

Flynn paused. "This ‘flat-chested’ description keeps coming up. How are you going to manage that?"

"Wrap my boobs in an Ace bandage. I brought one. Do you think I should do that? Would it make the read-through more authentic?"

"Uh, no. That’s okay. I just wondered." He didn’t want to think about her going into her bedroom and taking off her blouse and bra. For the good of the cause, she needed to keep all clothes on and all buttons fastened.

"Ready to continue, then?"

"Sure."

"Your line."

Yes, it was, and he could feel the tension mounting in the scene. And on the porch.

TONY

Yeah! You’re an effing mystery. If I passed you on the street I wouldn’t look twice, but I have to hang around, so I get curious. Like about your brains.

VERA

My brains? I thought we were talking about sex.

TONY

We are. I wanna know how your brains might figure into the same ol’, same ol’.

"I think about that, too," Zoe said in a soft voice.

Flynn’s body tightened. He kept his gaze mostly on the script. From the corner of his eye he could see she was doing the same, as if she knew that if they looked at each other, it would be all over.

"Well, don’t think about it," he said. "Brains are not a factor."

"I don’t believe you."

"Sex isn’t a thinking activity." Which was why he was in so much trouble. His penis took over the controls, and all his noble resolutions disappeared in a flood of testosterone.

"Flynn, I don’t want to mess up your situation with Kristen."

Too late. "I know you don’t. I appreciate that." He was glad the script covered his lap so she wouldn’t see the obvious activity going on there.

"But I keep thinking about hav**g s*x with you. I don’t know what to do about that."

He knew exactly what to do about it, but they’d have to hurry. Luanne was due to show up in less than an hour.

Chapter Eighteen

Zoe had never wanted anyone this much before, but reading the script explained a lot. Flynn was a mystery to her, a fascinating mystery. Despite what he’d said, she believed that a really smart guy would make love more creatively than a guy with average intelligence, but she didn’t have enough sexual experience to know for sure. Part of the turn-on might be the unknown.

Flynn cleared his throat. "Maybe if we just did it, took all the guesswork out of it, we’d be better off." He gazed off into the trees, as if they were contemplating a deep philosophical question instead of whether they’d do the wild thing in a few minutes.

Zoe glanced off in the opposite direction, although she wasn’t seeing the beauty of the forest; she was imagining Flynn nak*d… on the Bigfoot sleeping bag. She wanted to agree with him. She so wanted to agree with him.

But she couldn’t. "If you’re thinking we’d get it out of our system, I’m not so sure about that. Sometimes it works, if people are totally incompatible. They have bad sex and that’s the end of that. It’s over."

"We could have bad sex," he said hopefully.

"You didn’t seem to think so the last time we discussed this."

"Well, it’s possible. I don’t think bad sex is entirely out of the question. Then we could laugh about it and go on with our lives. Most people have bad sex to start with, right?"

"I guess." She was no expert. The wind through the tops of the pines sounded like a lover’s sigh. Zoe wouldn’t mind having a reason to sigh like that. "But what if it’s not so bad? What if it leans toward the good side? What then?"

"I’d rather go on the assumption that it will be bad."

"Hey, Flynn, now you’re starting to sound like me. I’m the one who wants to go on limited information. You’re supposed to be the guy who wants all available input." And speaking of input… oh yeah, she could imagine how great a certain type of input would be right now.

"Here’s what I’m thinking. Luanne will be here in about forty-five minutes. That’s a decent amount of time to have a round of bad sex."

Her eyes opened wide. Forty-five minutes? Slowly she turned to look at him. He’d just elevated himself to a whole new level of respect. From her limited experience, forty-five minutes was a long time. "Um, Flynn?"

"Yeah?" He glanced sideways at her.

"Is that an average time for you?"

"Oh, it’s less time than I’d like, but—"

"Oh." She might combust on the spot.

"Not long enough?"

"I’m sure it’s … long enough." She grew wet in all the right places.

His gaze scorched a path to hers. "Then maybe we should go inside."

This was it. She hung suspended between what was right and what was more tempting than she could stand.

His cell phone rang.

Zoe should have expected it. Her weekend had been going like this. She knew who was on the other end—the person who had enjoyed forty-five minutes in heaven with Flynn Granger. Kristen had impeccable timing.

Flynn grimaced. "Probably Kristen."

"You need to pick up. Otherwise she’ll wonder why you didn’t. She’ll get suspicious."

"Right." Flynn unclipped his phone from his belt and answered it.

Zoe decided not to stay there and listen in on the conversation, which would probably end any chance of forty-five minutes with Flynn anyway. He wasn’t the kind of guy who could talk to his girlfriend one minute and jump into the sack with another woman the next.

Therefore, she needed to shift down, stop revving her engine, and gently lower her rims. Be a good girl after all. She stood and walked into the cabin, leaving the front door open. Fortunately, the gas smell was gone.

Maybe she’d brushed against the oven knob and accidentally turned on the gas last night. But that didn’t make much sense. If the gas had been on all night, they would have smelled it this morning.

She walked into the kitchen, drawn to the stove that could have disfigured her if the gas had exploded. She hadn’t been near the stove since cooking that assault on the digestive system they’d called dinner. The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced she hadn’t accidentally turned that oven knob.

Flynn might have, though. He might have bumped it. But what if he hadn’t? That meant that someone had come into the cabin and turned it on while she and Flynn were in town eating breakfast.

The bees could have been a prank, something that wouldn’t have been dangerous except for her tendency to swell up like a balloon in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. But leaving gas on when someone might strike a match was heavy-duty stuff. Someone with more than pranks in mind might be after her.

She blew out a breath. Or not. Margo had been a drama queen in high school and would probably love to believe in some kind of plot against Zoe. The poor woman had nothing going on in her life other than Bigfoot sightings.

Flynn’s footsteps sounded on the pine boards of the living room. "Zoe?"

"In here, trying to figure out why the gas ended up being turned on." And making sure I’m turned all the way off.

He appeared in the kitchen doorway, bis expression worried. "I don’t know why it was on, either. I admit it’s suspicious." He blew out a breath and shook his head. "Damn, all of this is crazy. The bees, the gas, Kristen…."

"What did she say?"

"She asked me whether I was attracted to you." Guilt settled in Zoe’s stomach. "What did you say?" "I couldn’t lie to her."

"Why the hell not? Okay, scratch that. I understand. So what did she say after you confessed to a teensy bit of lust?" She peered at him. "You did minimize the lust factor, right?"

"Sort of."

"Oh, Flynn. Tell me you didn’t describe the moment on top of the Sasquatch footprint."

"No. I wouldn’t do that. But she… seemed to get the picture."

Zoe took a deep breath. "And?"

"She reminded me that you were a movie star, and that I shouldn’t do anything foolish. She’s afraid I’ll get hurt"

Hell and damnation. Zoe felt lower than whale poop. Had she considered whether Flynn would get hurt? No, she had not. She’d only been worried about the Kristen situation.

Well, she would mend her ways. "Then I’m glad she called, because she’s right. Having sex would have been dumb."

"Maybe." But his gaze hadn’t cooled all that much.

"No maybes about it. You have a good thing going with a woman who cares about your welfare. Sadly, it looks as if I was fixated on your body."

He smiled. "Nice to hear."

"The point is, I don’t want you to get hurt, either, but I didn’t exactly make that a top priority."

"Possibly because you give me credit for being able to take care of myself," he said quietly. "Kristen doesn’t."

"Can you blame her? She’s frantic with worry that I’ll come between you two, so she uses the first thing she can think of to stop that from happening. She warns you that I’m a movie star and movie stars break hearts."