Barking Up the Wrong Tree by Jenn McKinlay

Author:Jenn McKinlay
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-09-26T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

“No, we don’t,” she argued.

“Clearly, we do,” he said. He let go of her sleeve and grabbed her coat by the collar, holding it open for her. She slipped into it, then he spun her around and pushed aside her clumsy fingers so that he could fasten it for her. “It was the kiss, wasn’t it? It freaked you out.”

“I don’t get freaked out,” she lied.

He gave her a look that clearly said bullshit, although he was polite enough not to say it.

“All right, maybe I’m a tiny bit concerned about being ‘friends’ with a man who kisses me like that when I say his name,” she said. There. It felt better to put it back on him. This was his fault, after all. No man had ever gotten her so worked up.

“Oh, you can say my name,” he said. “Go ahead, I promise I won’t jump you.”

Carly stared at him for a moment. Then she cautiously said, “James?”

He didn’t flicker so much as an eyelash.

“See?” he asked. “I’m fine. But if you say my name like you’re about to debauch and defile me or want me to do the same to you, then you’re going to get kissed . . . thoroughly.”

There was a buzzing in Carly’s ears and she was pretty sure she had forgotten how to breathe. She blinked.

“Why?” she asked.

“Because you have always affected me that way,” he said. His gaze was steady on hers.

“Always?” she asked. She tried to make light of the intensity of the moment. “You make it sound as if I’ve known you longer than mere days.”

“You have,” he said. He lowered his eyes and gazed at her from beneath his thick black eyelashes. “You just don’t remember me.”

“What?” She felt alarm bells clanging in her head. Had she slept with James before and not remembered? She glanced at him. No, that wasn’t possible. There was no way she’d forget a man like James.

“It’s true,” he said. “You and I met when I was visiting my cousin at college, oh, about eleven years ago.”

Carly did a quick mental scan. Eleven years ago she’d been getting her undergrad in business at Columbia in New York City. It was also when she’d had her first and only boyfriend, or as she liked to think of it, her life lesson in why she’d never date again.

“Why didn’t you mention this when I met you that first day in the park?” she asked.

“I wasn’t sure,” he said. “You looked familiar, but I didn’t put it together until after I was leaving your house the morning after and saw the name DeCusati on the mailbox. Then it all started coming back to me.”

“And you didn’t say anything?”

“Well, you’d made it pretty clear that we were dusted and done,” he said. “I wasn’t sure I’d be able to convince you to see me again even as a friend.”

Carly was having a hard time breathing; she was sweaty and shaky, sort of like a panic attack but more like a bout of hysteria.

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