acting is being aware of what your body is feeling and right now my body was all sorts of on fire.
“Hi. I’m um…I’m…muffins…” I could hear myself speaking but was unable to control what was coming out of my mouth. “I’m, um here to drop…for the…bake sale.” I stumbled over my words as I lifted the basket filled with bready treats. It hadn’t been pretty but I’d managed to get out the pertinent information.
I couldn’t read his expression as he stared at me. I wasn’t sure if he was suffering from the same affliction I was and couldn’t speak or if I just hadn’t made enough sense for him to respond.
Taking a deep breath, I tried again. “My grandma asked me to drop these off for the bake sale. I know I’m a little late, but—”
“You’re not late. You’re early.”
“Oh…okay…” Gam must have got the time wrong. “How early am I?”
“About a week.”
Nothing about this morning was making sense. So it didn’t surprise me that his response wouldn’t either. “Excuse me?”
“The bake sale is next week.”
I was sure I must’ve heard him wrong. Which would make sense because my entire body was short circuiting. He was too sexy to have a conversation with. Simple as that. I wasn’t sure how other people did it, but I was finding it nearly impossible. All I could think about was how badly I wanted to kiss him. My lips were even tingling.
Stop it, I reprimanded myself.
Kissing a stranger is the last thing I needed right now. My brain knew that. My hormones had another take on it. They were convinced it was exactly what I needed right now. I was leaning toward my hormones being right.
Chapter 10
Beau
“It’s better to arrive late than ugly.”
~ Barbara-Jean Nelson
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I hadn’t stopped thinking about her and now she was here. At the fire station. With muffins.
And somehow, someway she looked even more beautiful, even sexier than she had the day before. My eyes drifted down to her soft lips and my body tensed with awareness of how they had felt against mine. My mouth still tingled with a phantom kiss.
“I’m a week early?” She looked genuinely confused.
“Yeah, the bake sale is next weekend. And it’s on Saturday. Not Sunday.”
“Are you sure?”
I pointed to the flyer hanging on the brick wall beside the bay door. She took several steps and read it. I took the opportunity to study her.
It was easier than trying to speak over the arousal that I was choking on. Less than twenty-four hours ago, we’d shared the most spectacular kiss that was somehow intimate despite the fact that it had occurred in a room filled with over a hundred people. And then she’d showed up with muffins this morning for a bake sale that was next weekend and hadn’t said anything about the kiss. If it was any woman other than Sasha, I would say she was playing a game. But I just didn’t get that vibe from her. It was just a gut feeling, but I honestly believed she didn’t remember the kiss we’d shared.
But she’s an actress, the tiny voice in the back of my head piped up.
I knew that, but there was something so innocent about her. Her hair was pulled up today, and it gave her an even younger appearance. I’d done a little googling last night after our lip-lock and found out that Sasha was twenty-nine years old. That bit of information served to help me feel like less of a creep. Since I’d hit thirty a few years ago, I’d had a strict Under 25 rule. As in, I didn’t date anyone under twenty-five. If a person couldn’t legally rent a car in their own name, then I wasn’t interested.
I’d been worried that I’d broken that rule last night.
I hadn’t. As I studied her now, I realized that it was her round face that gave her such a youthful appearance. Her large eyes and full lips only added to the effect. It wasn’t just her appearance that had made me think she was young. I knew she’d been a working actress from the time she was eighteen. I’d only gotten a taste of the industry, granted mine was music, but I couldn’t imagine how anyone could be in it, especially as long as she’d been, and not be jaded.
And maybe she was. Maybe she was just that good of an actress. If that was the case, she sure had me fooled. There