Page 43 of Keeping Mr. Right Now
“Trying to figure you out. I like trying to make sense of people. That’s the one thing I do miss about my research.”
He put his hands on the surfboard, just above her arms, their faces mere inches apart. “You want to figure me out?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why?”
“Who wouldn’t want to? You’re…you’re lots of things. All good.”
“I’m not all good, Sophie.” Hell, he was maybe half good. “And you’d be smart to keep your distance from me.”
“What if I don’t want to?” Her blush spread down the pretty column of her neck.
“Then you might have to do some very bad things to completelyfigure me out.” He should be the one walking away, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.
Her breath caught. “Maybe I will.”
Best “maybe” he’d ever heard. As he spent more time with her and she came out of her shell, he didn’t know whether to take what he wanted with increasing need or wait for her to give him a glaring signal.
“Zane?” a woman said from over his shoulder.
He twisted to one side. Two bikini-clad women flashed their bright white teeth and thrust out their chests. The standard pose that once upon a time would’ve had his interest.
But this morning, not even a speck of curiosity filled him as he let go of the board and did a one-eighty. “Hey there.”
“We were hoping for an autograph,” the one on the left said.
“Sure.”
They took a few sidesteps and glanced Sophie’s way. They each did a little hair flip and tilted their heads. Zane tossed Sophie an apologetic look, but he didn’t think she caught it. Instead, she’d shrunk behind the surfboard.
“Pen?” He didn’t even try to hide the annoyance in his voice. These two women were trying to show Sophie up and it pissed him off.
“Right here.” One of them handed over a pink Sharpie, oblivious to his irritation.
He silently cursed his motto of never turning down an autograph request. Given they wore nothing but two small scraps of material, they probably wanted him to sign their chests. He’d done it too many times to count, but not anymore.
The girl doing all the talking brushed the swell of her breast like it had dust on it or something and pulled her shoulder back to give him access.
“Sigs go on the arms now, ladies.”
“Aww,” the woman said. “What if I say pretty please?”
“New policy. So, your arm?” He put out his hand. One woman, then the other, gave him access to her forearm and he quickly signed. He handed back the pen. “Have a good one,” he said and turned his back. They mumbled something but left.
“If that was for my benefit, you didn’t need to do that,” Sophie said to the sand.
Zane moved the board to the side and, with a gentle touch, lifted her chin. Eyes that held so much real, authentic emotion tangled with his, and a tremble charged through him. Jesus Christ. That had never happened before. “Do what exactly?”
“Pretend you didn’t want to sign, uh, somewhere else.”
“I didn’t.”
She took a deep, pull-herself-together breath. He’d seen his sister do it yesterday when they said good-bye.
“I wasn’t pretending anything there.” He smoothed his thumb across her chin. “Those girls—”
“Were gorgeous, Zane, and pretty much offering themselves up. Heck, I almost wanted to signmyname.”
