His Not-So-Blushing Bride. Fiona Brand

the sunny blond to a deep gold, and he wore what she assumed were his workout clothes, shorts and a Southern Methodist University football T-shirt. “I didn’t know how late you’d sleep. I tried to be quiet. Did I wake you?”

      “You didn’t. I always sleep in when I work the evening shift at the shelter. I hope I didn’t make too much noise when I came in.”

      “Nah.” He shrugged. “We’ll learn each other’s schedules soon enough I guess.”

      “About that.”

      She rose, shook the cramps out of her knees—how long had she been sitting there?—and crossed to the matching leather couch at a right angle to the one cradling entirely too much of Lucas’s long, tanned and well-toned legs. “I appreciate the effort you put into making all this possible. I want to do my part, so I found a questionnaire online that the immigration office uses to validate green card marriages. Here’s a copy for you, to help us learn more about each other.” He was staring at her as if she’d turned into a bug splattered on his windshield. “You know, so we can make everyone believe we’re in love.”

      “That’s how you plan to pretend we’re a real couple? Memorize the brand of shaving cream I use?”

      “It’s good enough for the immigration department,” she countered. “There are lots of other questions in here besides brand names. Like, which side of the bed does your spouse sleep on? Where did you meet? You’re the one who pointed out I haven’t got a clue how to be married. This is my contribution. How did you think we would go about it?”

      His eyes roamed over the list and narrowed. “A long conversation over dinner, along with a good bottle of wine. The way people do when they’re dating.”

      “We’re not dating, Wheeler.” Dating. Something else she had no idea how to do. If she’d had a normal high school experience, maybe that wouldn’t be the case. “And we don’t have that kind of time. Your parents’ party is tonight.”

      “Yeah, but they’re not going to ask questions like which side of the bed you sleep on.”

      “No. They’ll ask questions like how we met.” She stabbed the paper. “Or what made us decide to get married so quickly. Or where we plan to go on our honeymoon. Look at the questionnaire. It’s all there.”

      “This is too much like school,” he grumbled and swept a lock of hair off his forehead. “Is there going to be a written exam with an essay question? What happens if I don’t pass?”

      “My grandfather gets suspicious. Then I don’t get my money. Women don’t get a place to escape from the evil they live with. You don’t get the Manzanares contract.” She rattled the printed pages. “Pick a question.”

      “Can I at least take a shower before spilling my guts?”

      “Only if you answer number eighteen.”

      He glanced at the paper and stood, clearly about to scram as soon as he recited the response. “‘What do the two of you have in common?’” Eyebrows raised, he met her gaze. Then he sat back down. “This is going to take hours.”

      “I tried to tell you.”

      For the rest of the day, in between Lucas’s shower, lunch, grocery shopping and an unfinished argument over what Cia proposed to wear to dinner, they shot questions back and forth. He even followed her to her room, refusing to give her a minute alone.

      Exhausted, Cia dropped onto her bed and flung a hand over her eyes. “This is a disaster.”

      Lucas rooted around in her closet, looking for an unfrumpy dress. So far, he’d discarded her three best dresses from Macy’s, which he refused to acknowledge were practical, and was working up to insulting the more casual ones in the back.

      “I agree. Your wardrobe is a cardigan away from an episode of Grandmas Gone Mild.” Lucas emerged from her closet, shaking his head. “We gotta fix that.”

      “Nowhere in our agreement did it say I was required to dress like a bimbo. You are not allowed to buy me clothes. Period.” Knowing him, he’d burn her old outfits, and then what would she wear to the shelter? BCBG and Prada to work with poverty-stricken women? “That’s not the disaster.”

      “You dressing like something other than a matronly librarian is for my benefit, not yours. What could possibly be more of a disaster than your closet?”

      It was disconcerting to have that much Lucas in her bedroom, amid her familiar mission-style furniture, which was decorating an unfamiliar house. An unfamiliar house they would share for a long six months. “Do you realize we have nothing in common other than both being born in Texas and both holding a business degree from SMU?”

      He leaned his jean-clad rear on her dresser, and Dios en las alturas, the things acid-washed denim did to his thighs. Not noticing, she chanted silently. Not noticing at all.

      But therein lay the problem. It was impossible not to notice Lucas. He lit up the room—a golden searchlight stabbing the black sky, drawing her eye and piquing her curiosity.

      “What about bourbon?” he asked. “You drink that.”

      “Three things in common, then. Three. Why didn’t I look for someone who at least knows how to spell hip-hop?”

      His nose wrinkled. “Because. That’s not important. Marriages aren’t built on what you have in common. It’s about not being able to live without each other.”

      First clothes. Then declarations à la Romeo and Juliet. “Are you sure you’re not gay?”

      “Would you like to come over here and test me? Now, darlin’, that’s the kind of exam I can get on board with.” His electric gaze traveled over her body sprawled out on the bed, and she resisted the intense urge to dive under the covers. To hide from that sexy grin.

      “Save it for tonight, Wheeler. Go away so I can get dressed.”

      “No can do. You’ve maligned my orientation, and I’m not having it.” He advanced on her, and a dangerous edge sprang into his expression. “There must be a suitable way to convince you. Shall I make your ears bleed with a range of baseball statistics? Rattle off a bunch of technical specs for the home theater system in the media room down the hall? Hmm. No, none of that stuff is specific to straight men. Only one way to go on this one.”

      In an effortless move, he tumbled onto the bed, wrapped her up in his arms and rolled, tangling their legs and binding her to his hard body. Heat engulfed her, and that unique, woodsy Lucas scent swirled through her head in a drugging vortex.

      When his lips grazed the hollow beneath her ear, she gasped for air as the world ignited around her.

      Lucas’s fingers threaded through her hair, and his mouth burned down her throat. The impressive evidence of his orientation pressed against her thigh, and she went liquid.

      The plan to ignore her feminine parts for the next six months melted faster than ice in the blazing sun.

      This wasn’t supposed to be happening, this flood of need for a man who did this for sport. She was smarter than that.

      He hadn’t even kissed her yet.

      “Stop,” she choked out before surrender became inevitable.

      No doubt he could make her body sing like a soprano with little effort. But intimacy at that level was never going to happen for her. Not with anybody. She’d learned her lesson the hard way in college, and it still stung.

      He took one look at her face and swore, then rolled away to stare at the ceiling. “I’m sorry. That was juvenile, even for me. Please, let’s pretend I’m not such a jerk.”

      She jumped off the bed and backed away from the slightly rumpled and wholly inviting male lying in it. “It’s not a big deal. I know you were only messing around.”

      “It is a big deal. You’re skittish