say that last part. Besides, there’s one more reason I don’t have time for Pippa Grandon.”
“Why is that?” He studied her face so intensely, she had to look away.
“If I did this project for Pippa, I’d be putting in long hours every day for months and months until it’s finished. There’d be no time for . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say us because she had no idea if he was having the kinds of feelings for her that she was having for him.
He leaned closer. “No time for what?”
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, braved it. “You.”
“Me?” His face lit up.
“You,” she confirmed, feeling dizzy at her courage.
“Gia.” His voice was husky. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve been waiting to hear you say that?”
“Really?” Her voice was squeaky.
“I’ve always thought you were amazing.” He scooted closer.
She caught her breath.
“I missed you so much while you were in Japan that I signed up for the Habitat for Humanity Disaster Response program. Then you came home just after I left. Bad timing, again. First, you were too young for me and then when you were old enough, I had a girlfriend and you had a boyfriend. Then you went off to college. We’ve never been in sync.”
“Until now,” she whispered.
“Until now,” he confirmed.
“When I saw you again . . .” He sounded breathless now. “I didn’t realize just how much I missed you. The sound of your voice. The sparkle in your eyes. I’ve missed hanging out with you and flying kites, watching movies, and having long talks on your back porch.”
“I’ve missed you, too, Mike.”
It was true. He was such a good family friend, but the way he was looking at her, the way her insides quivered, told her things were changing between them.
Rapidly.
Mike, the good ol’ boy next door, was now the hottie she didn’t want to keep her hands off of.
“Gia,” he murmured and reached out to cup her cheek with his palm.
“Mike.”
He hooked her chin between his finger and thumb, tilted her face up, and pinned her with his gaze, then her pretend fiancé lowered his head and kissed her.
And rocked Gia’s world completely off its axis.
His previous kiss had been hot, but this kiss was so much more. His lips were sweet, sweeter than before. He tasted like the richest chocolate ever created. Wow, what a ride. All this time she could have been kissing him like this. The things they had missed out on!
It was wild. It was beautiful. It was overwhelming.
Gia sank against him and opened her mouth wider.
Mike kissed her as if there were no future, no past. As if he’d been waiting his whole life to kiss her. As if she were the only woman in the whole wide world.
Mike suddenly pulled back. “I don’t . . . This is too fast.” Mike hopped up off the couch, jammed his hands in his pockets, and stepped back. He did not meet her gaze.
“We are engaged,” she said lightly.
“It’s not real.”
“The engagement isn’t real, but my feelings sure are.”
“This complicates things,” he said.
“Only if we let it.”
“I just wanted . . . Aww, hell.” He shoved both hands through his thick, wavy hair, temporarily plowing down that cowlick.
“What is it?” she asked, alarmed that she’d upset him.
“I didn’t want you to throw away the opportunity of working with Pippa Grandon simply because you think you have to be the peacekeeper between your sisters.”
Wow. She fingered her lips.
“I kissed you as a wake-up call for you to stop pleasing other people and start pleasing yourself but . . . now . . .”
“Now?”
“I’m the one who woke up.”
“What does that mean?” She sank her top teeth into her bottom lip.
“My head is spinning, Short Stack.”
“Mine too.”
“It’s not my place to tell you what to do. I don’t get to weigh in. This is your decision, your life.”
“No, no, I want to hear what you have to say.”
“Gia, remember when you were about five and I taught you how to fly a kite and you said I was magical and you wanted to marry me?”
“Oh, my gosh.” She pressed her palm over her mouth, giggled. “I’d forgotten all about that.”
Mike’s eyes glittered. “I didn’t.”
Whew. Okay. The kiss was over-the-top magnificent, but this was disorienting. Seeing her friend and neighbor through a different lens. Her body was heating up in ways it had never heated before.
He was not the boy next door. He was a full-grown man.