LITMIR.BIZ

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stared into his face, her lips slightly pursed, eyeing him as if to see how far she could push.

      Then she pushed.

      “You can pick me up this Saturday morning at nine. Our date will last until Sunday night at six. Bring something casual, something dressy, and at least two spare pairs of shoes in case you…step in something.”

      It was Sean’s turn to drop his jaw in shock. “Wha…”

      She tilted her head back, challenge shining from those baby blues, dripping off her posture, and ringing clearly in her voice. “You said I could choose. And I have. We’re going to my parents’ farm for the weekend.”

      Her smile wicked, she concluded, “Hope you like big families…And cows.”

      “HE’LL NEVER GO through with it. He’ll find a reason and bow out,” Annie mumbled as she and Tara made their way out of the hotel, heading for the nearby parking garage and Annie’s minivan—the spit-up and apple juice stained one that she used to transport kids to various field trips. The one somebody like Sean Murphy wouldn’t be caught decapitated in, much less alive and a willing passenger.

      Tara didn’t seem to even hear her. “Are his eyes really that violet-blue shade from the picture? They’re not, like, colored contacts, right?”

      “Did you hear what I said?” Annie snapped. Her friend had been jabbering nonstop for five minutes, ever since Annie had strode out of the cocktail party, leaving a bemused-looking Sean Murphy behind her. Tara had been full of questions about the man’s looks. Heaven help Annie if she let it slip that he’d actually kissed her. Twice.

      Such a simple, normal thing, to kiss a man. And yet Sean’s kisses had been a complicated mess of pleasure and confusion and yearning and surprise.

      His mouth was as fabulous as the rest of him. Any woman with an ounce of estrogen would want a much deeper taste.

      She doubted, however, that she was going to get it. Not after the way she’d responded, practically backing him into a corner to get what she wanted—his company at her parents’ farm this weekend.

      “Does he smell good? Guys like that usually smell good. Not like actors. They only smell like sweat, coffee and cigarettes.”

      Annie merely grunted. How could Tara continue to yank her chain—which she was, with these intentionally ridiculous questions—when Annie was so anxious?

      She still couldn’t believe the way it had gone down. She’d practically ordered a stranger to spend a weekend with a bunch of other strangers at a real farm a few hours outside of the city. Even more shocking, he hadn’t laughed in her face or run in the opposite direction.

      Sure, one of his brows had shot up somewhere in the vicinity of his black hairline, and he’d been speechless for a few moments. Then, with a twinkle in those beautiful blue eyes—yes, they were really that amazing violet-blue reflected in the picture—he’d simply murmured, “Very well,” taken the business card she offered him and bid her goodnight.

      As if it was all set. Easy breezy.

      And completely freaking insane.

      “He’ll stand me up.”

      “Could you tell if that tux was designer-made? It sure looked like it from the back of the room.”

      “He’s booking a trip to Siberia as we speak.”

      “He’s tall, right? He looked tall.”

      “Rather than giving me the rest of this week to prepare myself to show up alone, he’s going to leave me hanging—hoping—then stand me up on Saturday. I’ll be brain-dead from stressing out about it and won’t be able to invent a single excuse, like that my guy is on a top secret military mission to Hungary or something.”

      “Are we at war with Hungary?”

      “I hate that you’re laughing at me,” Annie said, shooting Tara a glare, fully aware that her friend had been tormenting her intentionally.

      Tara finally grinned and stopped harassing her. “For heaven’s sake, will you stop it already? He said he’d be there. He’ll be there. Why would he stand you up?”

      “Oh, I dunno. Maybe because he looks like he’s never heard the word farm in his life and doesn’t have a clue that the filet mignon he enjoyed for dinner last night once wore a cowbell?”

      Tara, the vegetarian—this month—threw a hand up in protest and made a retching sound.

      “Sorry.”

      Reaching the garage, they got on the elevator to go up to the fourth level. As they ascended, Annie continued to imagine all the excuses Sean Murphy would make for not showing up. She couldn’t think of a single reason he would show—despite how nice his kisses had been. And despite those sensual words and his even more sensual expression when he’d talked about their chemistry. She was almost swearing by the time they reached level two.

      “I should have just seduced him. Got a night of good sex out of it, rather than expecting him to come meet the family.”

      “Heck, yes!”

      Annie glared at her friend. “Do I look that easy?”

      “No, you don’t look it, but for a man like that, honey, the Pope’s mama would be easy.”

      “I blew it,” Annie murmured, not wanting to get into a how-sexy-he-is conversation with Tara, knowing it would surely lead to an oh-the-man-has-a-great-kiss conversation, which she really didn’t want to have right now.

      Those two kisses belonged to her and her alone.

      Tara put a hand on her arm, lightly. “Stop, Annie. He doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’d go back on his word.”

      “Neither did Blake.”

      If Tara’s green eyes could have spewed flames at will, they would have been firing at the very mention of Annie’s ex’s name. “I have never even met this auction guy, but I’m insulted on his behalf that you’d even consider comparing him with that lying, cheating, womanizing slime bucket.”

      Sighing in remorse, Annie nodded. “You’re right. Sean seemed like a decent guy.” An incredibly handsome—almost magnetic—decent guy. And, judging from his bio, a heroic one, too. He was a paramedic. Saving people’s lives—not trying to recklessly destroy them, as Blake had done to her.

      Frankly, the man seemed like no one she’d ever known. “I shouldn’t cast judgments. Maybe I’m just borrowing trouble.”

      “I’m sure you are. Now, tell me everything else about him.” Tara wasn’t teasing this time. She wanted the scoop.

      “You saw him.”

      “From a distance. They wouldn’t let us losers enter the cocktail party.” Tara wrinkled her nose. “Junior League Nazis.”

      “Well, he is tall.”

      “Figured that much, honey. Give me something good.”

      “He’s got a pierced ear and it’s totally sexy.” Even though she’d never imagined one would be.

      Tara shrugged, unimpressed. Then again, she didn’t read romance novels like Annie did, so she probably wouldn’t get the instant gold-earring-long-black-hair pirate fantasy that had immediately gone through Annie’s mind when she’d seen him up close.

      “More.”

      “He has an amazing voice.”

      “Throaty? Like, talk-dirty-to-me voice?”

      She shook her head as they exited the elevator and approached her minivan, parked halfway down the center aisle on this almost-deserted level. Annie tugged her small evening bag tighter against her side, sweeping a thorough, assessing stare around the shadowy recesses

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