One side of his mouth hitches up. “I’ve wanted to touch this little cleft in your chin since the minute I first laid eyes on you,” he says, his voice low and intense.
I take a deep breath. My flesh feels hot under his fingertip.
His hand migrates to my cheek. He pulls me toward him.
I stiffen, halting my forward progress. “What’d you ask for in your application, Josh?” I whisper.
He leans back sharply. “Seriously?”
I nod.
“Fuck. You’re the most stubborn woman in the entire fucking world.”
I shrug. “I warned you. I only get more determined.”
The bartender puts our drinks in front of us and Josh raises his shot glass.
“To you, Kat. May you soon realize the folly of your ways and stop being so fucking stubborn.”
“Thank you, Josh. And to you, as well.” I raise my glass. “May you soon realize I never back down so you might as well give me what I want now so we can move quickly to the inevitable conclusion of this ridiculous showdown.”
We clink our shots and down them.
“You don’t really give a shit what’s in my application, do you?” he asks. “You just wannawin.”
“Sure, I care. I’m absolutely dying to know. And now that you’re being so secretive about it, I wanna know even more.” I wag my finger at him. “You should have used reverse psychology on me, Josh. I might have dropped the whole thing if you hadn’t been so freaking weird about it.”
He scowls. “I’m not being weird about it. It’s just... notrelevant.”
I exhale. “What if sleeping with you means waking up in a dog collar, chained to a donkey? That seems like something I should know.”
A wide grin spreads across his face.
“Why are you smiling like that?”
“Because you just tacitly admitted you want to sleep with me. Otherwise you wouldn’t care if I like donkeys and dog collars.”
I scowl at him. “Okay, how about this? I don’t need to see the actual application. Just tell me verbally what you said in it. That’s my final offer.”
“Oh, that’s your ‘final offer,’ huh? You think you’re running this negotiation?” He takes a long sip of his drink. “Nope. I don’t negotiate with terrorists. Ever.”
I throw up my hands. “You’re really frustrating, you know that? The harder you fight me on it, the more I wanna know.”
“And you gotta know before you’ll evenkissme now? Not just before youfuckme?”
“Correct. The stakes have officially risen.”
He exhales with exasperation. “Lame. Just one kiss, Kat. You don’t need an application to give me a simple kiss.”
“It won’t be a simple kiss.”
“It won’t be a simple kiss,” he concedes, nodding. “That’s true. Because after one kiss, you’re gonna wanna fuck me.” He grins. “You won’t be able to control yourself.”
I roll my eyes, though he’s undoubtedly right: if I kiss this man, it’s gonna take a grand total of forty-three seconds before I jump his bones. I know it as surely as I know my own name.
“Your demand is patently unfair, you know,” he continues. “Becauseyoudon’t have an application to give tome. You’re asking me to bare my perverted soul to you without getting anything in return. Sex doesn’t count because you want it as much as I do.”
“Fine, then. I’ll lay my perverted soul bare to you, too. I’ve got nothing to hide. Ask me anything you want—right here and now.”
