The Love Wager by Lynn Painter

            He sighed.

            “Think about it. If you start wondering if you have feelings for me, you can just say ‘I might feel something’ and we’ll flip it right back before it becomes a thing. It’ll be like tapping out.”

            Too late to fucking tap out, he thought, so he said, “It’s a terrible idea, Hal.”

            A flicker of something crossed over her face—hurt?—but just like that, her smile was back in place. “Can I ask you a serious question, then?”

            God, he wanted to kiss her so badly. He looked at her mouth and said, “Sure.”

            “Are you worried about me, or you? Because I am absolutely positive I will not catch feelings for you. A thousand percent. So . . . are you afraid of falling for me?”

            He ground his teeth together so hard that his jaw felt like it might break, but he managed to give her a smile. “Fuck, no.”

            Her chin raised. “So why not, then?”

            Jack’s chest burned as he looked at her fierce, ornery face as she promised to never fall in love with him. He shrugged and said the truth.

            “Because it’s too good with us for it not to become a habit.”

            She wrinkled her forehead. “I don’t—”

            “How much do you remember about that night, Hal? For real.”





Hallie


            Shit.

            She’d been casual about the hotel night since it’d happened because she’d been mortified by her poor decisions. She’d teasingly acted like she only had fleeting memories because it was easier to blow the whole thing off, but the truth was that she remembered all of it.

            Every. Single. Hot. Minute.

            She cleared her throat and said, “Um . . . all of it?”

            “Wait.” His eyebrows went straight up. “What?”

            She bit down on her lip and nodded.

            “You lying little shit,” he said, laughing, tugging on a strand of her hair. “Well, then you have to know what I mean.”

            She did. She knew exactly what he meant. But she wanted him so badly that she said, “I don’t, actually.”

            His eyes narrowed, calling her bluff without saying a word.

            “What?” she said.

            “Okay. Y’know what we’re going to do instead of having sex tonight?”

            She rolled her eyes. “Sleep, like sex-hating losers?”

            He moved his face a little closer and nipped at her chin, then pulled back. “We’re going to talk about that night. In great detail.”

            “Why would we do that?” She watched her hand as it reached out, seemingly of its own accord, and wove its way into his hair.

            “Because when we’re done, you’ll concede my point that if we sleep together again, we’ll start sleeping together all the time until we die.”

            “Cocky much?”

            He put a finger over her lips and said, “It all started in the kitchen. You remember? You were sitting on the counter and you said ‘My lips are cold from the Rumple Minze,’ and I said—”

            “ ‘Let me warm them up.’ ” She remembered his charming grin. “And then you said, ‘God, please.’ ”

            His lips slid into a flirty half smile. “Instead of answering, you climbed onto my lap.”

            Hallie’s cheeks warmed as she thought about that moment, about how charmed she’d been by Jack. “I did.”

            “Swear to God, I nearly lost it right there,” he said, looking sexy and sweet all at the same time with his head on the fluffy pillow. “You were so fucking hilarious, but then you pulled some wizard shit and turned into a damned seductress.”