Mr. Perfect Read online

  “Good. I’d hate to disturb … what’s his name? BooBoo? What the hell kind of name for a cat is BooBoo?”

  “Don’t blame me; blame my mother.”

  “A cat should have a name it can live up to. Naming him BooBoo is like naming your son Alice. BooBoo shoulda been named Tiger, or Romeo—”

  Jaine shook her head. “Romeo’s out.”

  “You mean he’s—?”

  She nodded.

  “In that case, I guess BooBoo’s a pretty good name for him, though BooHoo would be more appropriate.”

  She had to hold her ribs really, really tight to keep from bursting into more laughter. “You’re such a guy.”

  “What the hell did you want me to be, a ballerina?”

  No, she didn’t want him to be anything except what he was. No one else had ever made excitement fizz along her veins like champagne, and that was quite an achievement, considering that a week ago they hadn’t exchanged anything except insults. Only two days had passed since their first kiss, two days that had seemed like an eternity because there hadn’t been any more kisses until she grabbed his ears at the supermarket and pulled him down to her level.

  “How’s your egg?” he asked, lids heavy over his dark eyes, and she knew his thoughts weren’t far from hers.

  “History,” she replied.

  “Then let’s go to bed.”

  “You think all you have to do is say, ‘Let’s go to bed,’ and I’ll fall over on my back?” she asked indignantly.

  “No, I hoped I’d have a chance to do a bit more than that before you fell over on your back.”

  “I’m not falling anywhere.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m having my period.” Funny, she couldn’t remember ever saying that to a man before, especially without even a twinge of self-consciousness.

  His brows snapped down. “You’re what?” he asked in growing anger.

  “Having my period. Menstruating. Maybe you’ve heard about it. It’s when—”

  “I have two sisters; I think I know a little about periods. And one of the things I know is that the egg is fertile roughly in the middle of the cycle, not close to the end!”

  Busted. Jaine pursed her lips. “Okay so I lied. There’s always a slight chance the timing is off, and I wasn’t willing to take that chance, all right?”

  It evidently wasn’t all right. “You stopped me,” he groaned, closing his eyes as if he were in acute pain. “I was damn near dying, and you stopped me.”

  “You make it sound on a level with treason.”

  He opened his eyes, glaring at her. “What about now?”

  He was about as romantic as a rock, she thought, so why was she so turned on? “Your idea of foreplay is probably ‘You awake?’” she grumbled.

  He made an impatient gesture. “What about now?”

  “No.”

  “Jeez!” He leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes again. “What’s wrong with now?”

  “I told you, I’m having my period.”

  “So?”

  “So … no.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want to!” she yelled. “Give me a break!”

  He sighed. “I get it. PMS.”

  “PMS is before, you idiot.”

  “That’s what you say. Ask any man and you’ll hear a different story.”

  “Like they’re experts,” she scoffed.

  “Honey, the only experts in PMS are men. That’s why men are so good at fighting wars; they learned Escape and Evade at home.”

  She thought about throwing a frying pan at him, but BooBoo was in the line of fire, and anyway, she would have to find a frying pan first.

  He grinned at the expression on her face. “Know why PMS is called PMS?”

  “Don’t you dare,” she threatened. “Only women can tell PMS jokes.”

  “Because ‘mad cow disease’ was already taken.”

  Forget the frying pan. She looked around for a knife. “Get out of my house.”

  He put BooBoo on the floor and stood up, evidently ready to Escape and Evade. “Settle down,” he said, putting the chair between them.

  “Settle down, my ass! Damn it, where’s my butcher knife?” She looked around in frustration. If she had only lived here longer, she would know where she had put everything!

  He came out from behind the chair, around the table, and had a firm grip on both her wrists before she could remember which drawer held her cutting knives. “You owe me fifty cents,” he said, grinning down at her as he pulled her against him.

  “Don’t hold your breath! I told you I wouldn’t pay when it’s your fault.” She blew her bangs out of her eyes so she could glare at him more effectively.

  He bent his head and kissed her.

  Time stood still again. He must have released her wrists, because her arms slid around his neck. His mouth was hot and hungry, and he kissed the way no man should kiss and still be allowed to run free. His scent was as warm and musky as sex, filling her lungs, permeating her skin. He put one big hand on her bottom and lifted her off her feet, aligning their bodies more completely, groin to groin.

  The long skirt hampered her, preventing her from wrapping her legs around him. Jaine arched in frustration, almost ready to cry. “We can’t,” she whispered when he raised his mouth a fraction of an inch.

  “We can do other things,” he murmured in reply, sitting down with her across his lap, tilted back across his supporting arm. Deftly he slipped his hand inside the scooped neckline of her sweater.

  She closed her eyes in delight as his rough palm scraped over her nipple. He exhaled, a long, sighing sound; then it was as if they both held their breath as his hand shaped itself over her breast, learning her size and softness, the texture of her skin.

  In silence he withdrew his hand and pulled the sweater off over her head, then deftly unclipped her bra and pushed it off her shoulders to fall to the floor.

  She lay half-naked across his lap, her breath coming fast and shallow as she watched him looking at her. She knew her own breasts, but what were they like from a man’s point of view? They weren’t big, but were firm and upright. Her nipples were small and pinkish-brown, velvety soft and delicate compared to the rough fingertip he used to lightly circle one, making the aureole pucker even more tightly.

  Pleasure speared through her, making her clench her legs tightly together to contain it.

  He lifted her, arching her even more across his arm, and bent his head to her breasts.

  He was gentle, totally without haste. She was stunned by his caution now, given his rapacious kisses. He nuzzled his face against the underside of her breasts, kissing the curves, licking gently at her nipples until they were reddened and so tight they couldn’t possibly get any tighter. When he finally began sucking her with slow, firm pressure, she was so ready it was as if he had touched her with a live wire. She couldn’t control her body, couldn’t stop herself from arching wildly in his arms; her heart was thundering, her pulse racing so fast she was dizzy.

  She was helpless; she would have done virtually anything he wanted. When he stopped, it was by his own willpower, not hers. She could feel him shaking, his strong, powerful body quaking against her as if he were chilled, though his skin was hot to the touch. He sat her upright and pressed his forehead to hers, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands roughly stroking her hips, her bare back.

  “If I ever get inside you,” he said in a strained tone, “I’ll last, like, two seconds. Maybe.”

  She was crazy. She had to be, because two seconds of Sam sounded better than anything else she could bring to mind right now. She stared at him with glazed eyes and ripe, swollen mouth. She wanted those two seconds. She wanted them bad.

  He looked down at her breasts and made a sound halfway between a whine and a groan. Muttering a curse, he leaned down and snagged her sweater from the floor, pressing it to her chest. “Maybe you’d better put this back on.”

  “Mayb