NICE GIRL TO LOVE (THE COMPLETE THREE-BOOK COLLECTION)(13)

After a long, heavy silence, Connor eventually looked up at her again with a speculative glance. “Hey, what about Skylar’s third birthday party?” he asked, his tone now several tons lighter. “The pool party?” His eyes made a slow pass over her, the return trip back up lingering in places that made her think of sexy supervillains with flame-throwing gazes. “You in a swimsuit? There is just no way I could’ve seen that and not remembered.” If it was possible, his hot look scorched ten degrees higher when it settled back on her eyes.

Luckily, the very vivid memory of that party was funny enough to prevent her from succumbing to a heat stroke. “I think you had your hands full that day.”

He looked genuinely puzzled by that.

“Oh, to be an archived entry in your little black book,” she tsked. “Or should I say entries.”

Slow understanding dawned in his eyes. “Shit, I’d completely forgotten.”

“Yup, you made that admission a few times that day.” And the resulting reality show worthy catfight at the pool had been colossal.

He cringed. “To be fair, I didn’t actually invite either of those women to that party.” His tone turned innocent. “Just like I didn’t invite the woman I was dating at the time, either.”

Shaking her head, she began setting the food on the coffee table. “No wonder you have the reputation you do.”

“I don’t have a reputation.” He brought over the steak and their beer, correcting her with a grin, “I earned it.”

Abby burst out laughing. “You’re kind of an ass, you know that, right?” The rest of her laughs got lodged in her throat when she turned and practically ran right into him.

Holy swizzle sticks, did he have to be so masculine?

“But you like me anyway,” he prodded in that low, melting Vegas hypnotist voice, leaning in without any regard for her personal space. “Despite my ass-likeness.”

So close. He was so close she could bury her face against his neck if she wanted. Breathe him in whether she wanted to or not. “No,” she lied, backing up a step since it was clear he had no intention of doing so. Yep, an ass for sure.

One she wanted to rub up against like a cat finding her purr.

She took another ginormous step back.

He followed, invading her sanity even more than before. “No? So what do I have to do to try and change that?”

Christ, he wasn’t even trying yet? “Alright, alright, so I like you. Why wouldn’t I? We’re friends, right?” It’d do a world of good to remind herself, too. With a big, friendly smile, she sidestepped him and gestured back over to the coffee table. “C’mon, let’s eat. Sit. The food’s getting cold.”

At first, she felt a twinge of disappointment when he conceded and reluctantly backed away…until she heard his husky, murmured caveat, “Fifteen more minutes, Abby.”

The time remaining in their friend truce.

She held strong, refusing to let her imagination run with what exactly the man could do in fifteen minutes otherwise.

But then he had to go and tuck a throw pillow behind her as she sat down, fluff it for her to make sure she was comfortable. Not to win points. Rather, just because he was that guy.

The unconsciously sweet bad boy.

Now why’d she insist on this truce again?




CONNOR COULDN’T BELIEVE he was sitting on a living room floor eating dinner with Abby. He hadn’t done something like this since college. It was…nice. “So besides hiding from me, what were you doing in the library today?”

She gave him a shy smile. “One of my dissertation research questions focuses on the swinging pendulum of business and technical writing instruction throughout history. While my literature review is heavy on collegiate instruction, particularly after the technology boom, my archival research has unearthed some marked cases in high school settings through the early 1900s. To contrast these findings with the present, I’ve been collecting data from school resources all across Arizona.”

She was speaking so fast now, it was kind of adorable. “I’ve found old educational materials that show teaching variations of technical and business writing strikingly similar to current trends, though it’s rarely identified as such, and almost never referenced in scholarly articles. Furthermore, each instance that has had an impact on the pedagogical foundation of today’s technical writing landscape correlates directly to societal going-ons at the time.”

Oh yeah, she was an academic alright, through and through. He grinned at the pink in her cheeks. Not quite the type of passion he’d been hoping to inspire in her, but moving just the same.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when she didn’t continue; she’d been on such a roll.

She gnawed on her lip. “Sorry, I know this all sounds boring and nerdy to…well, any normal person. You’ve actually lasted longer than most of my friends and family. Their eyes would’ve been glazed over by my second sentence.”

The way she smiled at him—like he was a foot taller than he’d been a minute ago filled him with an inordinate amount of pleasure. “On the contrary, a lot of what you said was pretty thought-provoking.” He gave her a reassuring grin. “Don’t get me wrong, some of your explanations did bear an uncanny resemblance to the college lectures I used to somehow take notes in without any conscious brain involvement,” he teased, “but your passion kept me engaged in everything you were saying. It’s obvious you’re a good teacher.”