Muffin Top (Page 18)

Her shoulders sank, but she refused to look away from him. She’d own it and take its power, just like she had with her size. “The last thing I want is for people to realize the truth.”

“The truth?” The vein in his jaw twitched as he stalked toward where she stood with her back to the windows, annoyance as plain on his face as the dusting of pale freckles across his shoulders. “That I’m just arm candy?”

It came out more like a curse than a question—as if it was the last thing he wanted to be, which it probably was. Who wanted to be her arm candy? Definitely not someone like him.

She didn’t mean to take a step back, but there was a dangerous heat swirling in his eyes, turning them a darker shade of blue that kicked her heart rate up and turned her mouth dry. “That this is a pity date.”

His gaze dipped to her mouth and then lower to her sleep tank top and shorts, which more than covered everything plus some—and had cats on them—but her PJs seemed to shrink under the intensity of his focus. “I wouldn’t call it that.”

Oh, she knew what he was doing. The man flirted as easily as he laced up his shoes, but that didn’t mean she was going to fall for it. “Look, I’m a big girl, I can take calling things as they are. I’m not ashamed of my size. I would, however, be very embarrassed if it got out I had to bring a fake date to anything, much less my high school reunion, okay?”

Taking another step nearer, he stood so close that while they weren’t touching, they might as well have been. Her heart rammed against her ribs, and a riot of excited butterflies zoomed around her belly. She could just picture how she must look to him—a flushed plus-sized woman in cat pajamas. Her inner sarcasm bitch declared it totally sexy.

One side of his mouth curled up, and he raised his one arm, putting his palm against the glass behind her. Then, with deliberate slowness, he did the same with the other arm, effectively bracketing her with his sinewy arms. His pecs were at eye level, and that was very not fair, so she looked up and up some more to his face. The man was too tall, too big, too overwhelming for his own good. It wasn’t that she was trapped. Far from it. Her mutinous body didn’t want to move an inch. It wanted more. It wanted to feel him pressed against her, his mouth molded to hers, and his hands everywhere.

“Maybe you noticed,” he said, his voice holding none of the humor his one-sided smile denoted. Instead it was hot, hungry, needy in a way she could identify with all too well. “I’m not exactly small, either, and a pity date this is not.”

The rough edge in his words did floppy-floppy things to her insides as she wet her lips in anticipation. No! Not anticipation. Because they were dry. That was all. “What is it, then?”

His jaw tightened, and his gaze jerked away from her mouth. “A lesson in frustration.”

She flinched. It couldn’t be helped. Sure, she wasn’t his type, he wasn’t hers, and he was on a sex suspension, but still—ow. “That bad, huh?”

“You have no idea.” He shook his head as if he was trying to grasp it himself and let his arms drop before taking a step back.

Annoyance—and to be honest, a little embarrassment at how badly she wanted that kiss he obviously had no interest in giving—snapped her spine straight. Well fuck you very much, Frankie Hartigan. So she wasn’t like her underwear model mom or the other women she’d seen him cuddled up with on every day that ended in Y. Too fucking bad.

“Well, I’m sorry it’s so difficult for you,” she said, not giving two shits about the peevish tone of her voice. “But this whole thing was your idea.”

The bastard didn’t even look the least bit sheepish about being such an ass. “I don’t know what I’m doing right now, and being with you isn’t making it easier.”

Boo-fucking-hoo, Mr. Big Boy Firefighter. “This trip was your idea.”

“I’m not talking about the damn trip.” He ground out the words. “I’m talking about the fact that I’m here with you”—he waved a hand toward her, gesturing at her tank top and sleep shorts—“like this.”

Like this?

Like.

This.

She glanced down at her pajamas. They weren’t her normal late-night-with-a-guy nightie and panties, but why in the hell would they be? She was in her dad’s house with a guy who she didn’t have even a sliver of a chance with even if she wanted to—which she didn’t.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she asked, her defensiveness getting in the driver’s seat and flooring the gas. “These are my I-don’t-give-a-damn jammies. They aren’t about you. Not everything is about you, Frankie Hartigan. Just because you’re having pussy withdrawal and you don’t like me in cat-themed PJ’s or whatever—” She took a deep, calming breath. It wasn’t his fault he wasn’t attracted to her. She sighed. “I am who I am, Frankie. That’s not going to change.”

Frankie’s expression gave off the impression that she was talking a different language—one he’d never even heard of before. Her foot slid off the metaphorical gas pedal. She searched his face for any hint of disgust or censure and found none. The buzzing in her ears quieted, and the heat that had rushed up from her toes cooled until it was just a pool of clammy regret in the center of her palms. She’d totally overreacted, brought her own baggage and had laid it at his Frankie’s feet. Here was the guy who’d given up a week of his life to be her fake date for her high school reunion. And she was pissed because he hadn’t wanted to kiss her as much as she wanted him.

Shit.

Her friend Gina was right. She really needed a filter.

“I’m sorry. For everything,” she said quickly.

Slipping around him before she could say anything else stupid, she hustled out of his room, down the stairs, through the small hall that connected the guest suite to the kitchen and to her own childhood bedroom, trying her best to outrun the embarrassment burning her cheeks.

It didn’t work. It never did.

Of course, she might get lucky and the house could get hit with a meteor tonight. Or aliens could invade. Or, you know, Godzilla could attack. All were preferable at the moment to the sun rising on a new day that would involve sitting across the kitchen table from Frankie Hartigan.

Chapter Eight

The next morning, Frankie set his bowl of cereal on the small kitchen table and sat down across from Tom. Lucy was nowhere to be found. She’d come into his room last night in that form-fitting tank top and short shorts, and his brain had taken a distant second place to his cock. All he’d wanted to do was everything, and he couldn’t. The fact that he’d reacted that way to Lucy was just one more mark against his ability to think about a woman without his dick getting involved.

She’d made some ludicrous comments about him not liking cats or something. Honestly, it’d been hard to follow what she was saying over the sound of his heartbeat hammering in his chest. He’d focused all his attention on willing his little head not to make his attraction to her known. It wasn’t like she’d given him any signals she was into him, either. Jesus. Get a grip, Frankie.

Before Shannon had dropped her little truth bomb, if she’d given him the slightest green light, he would have just fucked Lucy six ways to Sunday, gotten her out of his system, and moved on. Now, instead of waking up with a sexy woman and breakfast in bed, he was pouring almond milk into his organic, multigrain cornflakes. His dick and his stomach were very disappointed with the entire situation.