Terms of Surrender. Leslie Kelly

I’m not some perv. They’re not hanging from my rearview mirror or anything. I put them right back where I found them. In case you, uh…have need of them.”

      “Believe me, I usually do.” She sighed heavily. “I know you won’t get this—no guy would—but I just couldn’t deal with a bunch of he-man jerks staring at my butt today.”

      He’d been staring at her butt today. But he didn’t think it wise to point that out. And he wasn’t a he-man. Plus, he wasn’t entirely sure what going bare-ass naked beneath her skirt had to do with it. Men stared. Period.

      “And panty lines would have just begged to be stared at,” she continued, quickly explaining her thinking on the whole nylons-smoothing-things-out theory.

      Which, frankly, was just bullshit. Men definitely didn’t need panty lines acting as little arrows to guide the eye to the perfect female posterior. Maybe other chicks would notice and care. If he did see them, a guy wouldn’t be thinking about anything except pulling those elastic panty lines down. Preferably with his teeth.

      “I’m afraid ass-appreciation is just part of our genetic code,” he admitted. “Like flicking other naked guys with towels in the locker room, and our inability to ask for directions when we’re lost.”

      “Yeah, what’s with that?”

      He shrugged. “It’s a mystery.”

      “And one I’m not sure I want to solve.”

      “Some things you’re better off not knowing.”

      “Like men shouldn’t really want to understand why women go to the bathroom together?”

      He leaned closer, lowering his voice conspiratorially. “It’s all prearranged, right? So you can compare notes on the guys you’re with, and escape together out the window if they suck, right?”

      “Busted.”

      Nodding, he said, “So I guess that means you’re in trouble today, since you’re flying without a wingman when we go out for lunch.”

      She smiled up at him, her eyes gleaming in anticipation. “You mean on your boat?”

      Growing still, Danny eyed her steadily, liking the idea, but also knowing she’d hesitated earlier because she’d been unsure. “We don’t have to.”

      She glanced outside at the beautiful late afternoon sky. “I’d love to.” Then she looked down at herself and sighed. “But unfortunately, I’m not exactly dressed for it. My only spare clothes are, well, you know…”

      Yeah. He knew. Her spare clothes were in her glove compartment and just the thought of her in nothing but them was enough to send an extra pint of blood toward his cock. Of course, knowing she was currently without them was doing a damn fine job of that already.

      “How about this,” he said, “it’s only three-thirty, hours until sunset. You go to the nearest store and grab a cheap pair of jeans, I’ll go take a shower. We can meet again at that Irish pub on West Street in exactly forty-five minutes. We’ll get to know each other. Then, if you’d like, we’ll go to the marina and take the boat out for a little while.”

      She nibbled her bottom lip between her teeth. “You’re sure? I mean, you didn’t rescind your invitation earlier because you’d changed your mind and don’t want to, right? Did I back you into a corner on this?”

      He held his arms up, gesturing to the wide-open space of the garage bay that surrounded them. “No corners. No arm-twisting.” Then, stepping closer—close enough that his boot-covered feet nearly touched the pointy tips of her sexy shoes, hiding what were rumored to be magnificent feet, he added, “Let’s just go for it and see what happens, okay?”

      “There’s that it again,” she mumbled.

      “What?”

      Shaking her head, she stared up at him, those big blue eyes softening. Her lips parted and she drew a slow, audible breath over them, as if she realized he was talking about going for a lot more than lunch.

      He didn’t mean sex. At least, not right away. What he wanted to go for was a chance. Just an opportunity.

      They’d clicked on sight. Now he wanted to know if that click could ignite something even more than a spark of sexual attraction.

      A kiss would be a good start. One slow, deep, wet kiss, just to see what happened.

      He wanted that—at least that—before this day was out. And if the kiss was as good as he suspected it could be, well, then they’d just have to see what happened.

      “Okay,” she finally said. “I think we’ve got a date.”