Anyone But Nick (Anyone But... #3) - Penelope Bloom Page 0,55

indication of what she was thinking. A conservative outfit probably meant she was trying to reestablish the boundary we’d kissed our way through.

I saw her legs first as she came down the stairs to the lounge. They were long, but seeing them come down one step at a time had a seductive, almost hypnotic effect on me. First, there was a black shoe. Then the tanned skin of her leg, followed by another. I could feel my stomach in my throat while I watched more and more leg before finally seeing the hem of her white dress. Midthigh, maybe a little longer, I noted. It was right between conservative and seductive.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs and looked my way. I couldn’t help thinking how badly I wanted to pull her into me and whisper something dark and possessive in her ear—to tell her if she so much as thought about seeing Max again, I’d bend her over my lap and remind her who her boss was.

I could’ve laughed at myself. If she only knew what perverted thoughts were running through my head, she would run.

“If the goal was to wear something I’d want to take off, you succeeded,” I said.

Miranda’s eyes bulged. “What? Is it that bad?”

I laughed. “No, as in—you know what, never mind. I shouldn’t have even said that.”

She looked down at her feet as her cheeks went red. “Yeah, well, it’s not like you could get it off without a pair of scissors, anyway. I think I broke the zipper when I was putting this thing on.”

“Let me see,” I said.

“The zipper?” she asked.

I motioned for her to turn around. The zipper was at her waist, just above the roundness of her ass. I put one hand on her hip and gave the zipper a little tug with the other. It resisted. “Oh damn. It really is stuck pretty good.”

“Nick, I think this probably looks—”

I tugged again, and the zipper jerked down about three inches. Miranda jumped and quickly reached back to zip it up.

When she turned to look at me with bulging, surprised eyes, I had to cover my mouth to stop from laughing.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But, hey, at least you won’t have to ruin a good dress to get it off now. Right?”

She looked around to make sure nobody had seen and then sat down next to me. “So is that how it works with you, Nicholas? One kiss and suddenly you think you can go stripping off my clothes in public?”

I chewed my lip, grinning. “No, but if you keep calling me Nicholas like that? I can’t promise that’s not how it’s going to work.”

“In all seriousness, I kind of need to know where we go from here. I don’t really do improvisation very well.”

“You want me to draw up an agenda for you? Maybe a four-phase plan? Phase one, you aggressively maul me on the bed this morning. Phase two, I return the favor the first chance I get. Phase thr—”

“Not like that,” she said, shaking her head. “What has gotten into you, anyway?”

“I’m done lying to myself. That’s what. No more running from you. No more convincing myself it’d be better for you if I acted like I wasn’t interested. No more excuses.”

She frowned as she studied my face. “There’s a big difference between what feels good and what is good. I know Bark Bites is just the next business in a long line of businesses you’ve turned around, so maybe it’s not that important to you. But to me, this is all I have right now. It matters to me, okay? I mean, how am I supposed to live with myself if I throw away my career because I’m attracted to you?”

“So you are attracted to me,” I said with a smirk.

She glared. “Of course I’m attracted to you. You look like Batman with a side of Clark Kent.”

“Wait, with or without the mask?”

She finally cracked a smile. “Without the mask. I just forgot the guy’s name. The one who is actually Batman.”

“Bruce Wayne?”

“Yeah. Being attracted to you or not isn’t the point, though.”

“I know,” I said. As much as I wanted to talk about something else, I couldn’t ignore the facts. “And I get it. Being with me would call into question everything you’ve ever accomplished in your career, and maybe everything in the future too.”

“Yeah,” she said slowly. “And it’s not only about what everyone else would think. How could I not start to wonder