One Little Kiss (Smart Cupid) Read online

  She lurched away from the door, vodka messing with her equilibrium, the screen banging behind her as she raced to catch him. “If I could just ask a couple of questions—off the record.”

  “What part of no interview do you not understand?” He yanked her duffle with its neon pink Smart Cupid tags from the underside of the plane, slung it across his shoulder, and stalked over to a truck parked at the edge of the airfield.

  Kate stopped, a small voice inside her whispering, Give the guy a break. He’s not interested in being the bachelor. Just forget the interview and hunker down with some Ho Hos, a couple magazines, and a bottle of Chardonnay. But a second voice, a louder, drunken voice said, Let this sucker off the hook and you’re going home with no interview and no shot at Cosmo. A blonde, brokenhearted failure.

  The drunken voice won.

  She rushed forward on her damaged heel. “Being a hunk for Smart Cupid is a once in—”

  “A lifetime opportunity.” He tossed the bag into the bed of the pickup and secured it under the tarp. “I’ve heard the company line, Miss Bell.”

  “So why not grab the brass balls? Or, ring. I mean—grab the brass ring.” Damn, that didn’t sound right. She pressed a palm to her forehead and tried to organize her thoughts.

  He yanked at the overlong curls at the back of his neck. “Despite what your boss may have told you, I’m not interested in love.”

  Hold everything. Not interested in love? He was the expert. Her heart kicked in its reflexive response. “Everyone’s interested in love.”

  “Not everyone.” The truck’s tailgate slammed into place. “Definitely not me.”

  Kate stared back at him, her thoughts all jumbled together from the martinis…and the flying…and the hurricane. “Look, don’t take this the wrong way, but maybe love’s not the problem. I mean, I know you’re the authority on the subject…”

  “Ex-authority on the subject.” He fished his keys from the pocket of his chinos and let the beep of his auto-starter punctuate his words.

  “…but maybe you’ve been looking in all the wrong places.”

  He cocked a dark eyebrow. “There are right places?”

  Like she needed his sarcasm right now. Where were all the good guys? The romantic ones who climbed fire escapes, flowers at the ready. “You just haven’t found The One.”

  “Right. The One.” That muscle in his jaw ticked again, all cynical and derisive. “Sounds like three martinis talking.” He opened the passenger door and waved her inside.

  “No, no, no, definitely not the martinis talking,” Kate said, depositing her butt inside the front cab. “Okay, maybe they’re talking a little. But they’re talking sense.” He moved to shut the door, and she stopped it with her kitten heel. “Can I tell you something?”

  “Can I stop you?”

  She scooted to the edge of the leather seat. “Here’s the deal. I suck at dating.”

  His head fell forward on a sigh. “Please get in the truck.”

  Balancing her hands on his shoulders, she continued, “Seriously. I do. All kinds of dating. My one and only blind date actually had a warrant out for his arrest. Halfway through dinner, the police dragged him from our table in the back of this little Thai place in Queens. I spent the rest of the night scouring line-ups downtown.”

  His eyes snapped to hers. “Jesus—really?”

  Kate nodded. “Another guy I’d been dating for about a month left me in the middle of a movie. Went to get popcorn. Disappeared.” She blew at her open palm. “Like David Copperfield. In a puff of smoke.”

  “You have to be kidding.”

  A definitive shake of her head. “Not kidding here, Jake. We’re talkin’ blockbuster dating issues. So I get the whole ‘love’s not for me’ attitude. Easier to take a pass than commit to another round of love and face inevitable heartbreak. Trust me. I. Am. Down. With. That.” Her voice dipped to a whisper. “But—and this is what I wanted to tell you.” She shifted closer. “This morning? My most recent company-line package smashed my heart. Smashed it. Like, with a ball-peen hammer.” She leaned out of the truck a little farther, her body swinging from the cherry-red door. “But even I know love is out there. And you—you’re the expert.”

  “Ex-expert.”

  She placed a hand over her heart. “And I—I am the new Kate.”

  “That’s terrific. Now can ‘the new Kate’ please get in the truck?”

  “No. This is important.” She shook her head and tried to focus on what he needed to know, but—wow—last martini was really kicking in, or maybe it was the tumble, or the prospect of being stranded, but keeping her thoughts together was tough. “Listen, Jake, you’re the guy who wrote the book on great sex. You should be looking for The One, too. Because great sex is part of that package…that whole star-spangled, bells ringing, love-forever package.” And her super-sized heart needed that package. The romance, the proposal on bended knee, the everlasting declaration of love. All of it. “I thought my ex was The One, but obviously I was wrong, because The One ponies up the great sex.”

  “Really need you to get back in the truck now.”

  “Truth be told, my ex wasn’t all that and a bag of chips on the old sex-o-meter.” She crooked her index finger, and he leaned in. “If you know what I mean.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Think you might want to change the subject?”

  “No, Jake, what I want is the chips.” Her elbow slipped a few inches down the open door. “Can you tell me where to find The One and some crazy hot chips?”

  His hand gripped the doorframe. “Yeah, those martinis are definitely talking.”

  She tilted closer. “Don’t you think I deserve the chips?”

  Please say yes.

  It wasn’t just a sales pitch. She needed to believe it.

  He stabbed at his glasses. “Am I really qualified to answer that question?”

  “Hell, yes, I deserve the chips.” Her fist flew into the air, Norma Rae–style. “All women deserve the chips. We all deserve the freaking chips.”

  “Chips for all. That is extremely democratic. Now let’s get you back into the truck.” He settled her inside the cab, came around, and climbed in the driver’s side.

  Kate snuggled back against the red leather interior. “Did I tell you I don’t like flying?”

  “You did.”

  “And that I might have had a martini or three?”

  “You mentioned it, yes.” He reached across for her seatbelt and clicked it into place. He was a nice guy. He smelled nice, too. Like the deepest blue ocean and fresh salty air.

  She closed her eyes and breathed in his scent as her voice drifted away. “Normally, I’m a one martini girl. Two is my night-on-the-town absolute max, but flying a six-seater equipped for an unexpected water landing into the eye of a freaking hurricane scared the hell out of me.”

  The engine roared into life. “No need to worry now, we’re ahead of the weather.”

  Such a nice, reassuring thing to say. Jake Wright is nice guy. She opened her eyes to sneak a peek as he navigated his F-150 across the narrow runway like a pro. Nice hands. Nice driving skills. Maybe he’d be willing to talk about those skills in the impromptu interview. On the QT. A behind-the-closed-doors-of-an-F-series conversation. Play it cool. No mention of love or matchmaking or Smart Cupid.

  “So, off the record—”

  “One night, no interview.” His gaze never left the road.

  Kate wrinkled her nose. Back to his one night, no interview thing. How could he be so cranky when he was driving a limited edition Super Cab with a six-liter engine?

  Well, cranky or not, she refused to give up. Everything was on the line for her, and with just twenty-four hours to score the interview, she planned to make the most of every second.

  Take that, Mr. Wright. Mr. Ex-Sex Factor.

  She sat up in the comfy seat, opened her tote, and pushed aside two self-help books, her tablet, several highlighters, her phone, keys to her walk-up, the undershirt, and a
contractor’s license her father had mailed to her last week. When she reached the bottom, she pulled out her voice recorder, pressed the red button, and pointed it in his direction.

  Let him try to get her on the next available weather-cleared flight back to Manhattan. This interview was her first real chance to prove she was more than just a pretty girl from Arcadia, and she was going to make it a big, fat, sexy success. Hurricane or no hurricane.

  Besides, if Jake was honestly through with love, he was in serious trouble—the kind of trouble she knew something about.

  Chapter Three

  Jake took a sharp right onto the narrow road that led to his cliffside home. Below them, Dante circled offshore, landfall still hours away. Plenty of time to get inside and figure out what the hell he was going to do with Kate Bell until he could hustle her off his island.

  “So, which is it—boxers or briefs?”

  Jesus. His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he drove alongside the stone coral wall surrounding the property. Does she really expect me to answer?

  She thrust her recording device toward him, all blond ambition. “Boxers or briefs?”

  Apparently she does. “Don’t you think that’s a little on the personal side?”

  Kate released a heavy sigh he interpreted as annoyance. “So much makes sense now.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” He pulled up to the gate and punched his code into the electronic system.

  “The bad attitude. The unwillingness to be interviewed.” She looked back at the tablet screen, her forehead wrinkled. “Definitely a briefs guy.”

  With his grip fixed on the wheel, he drove through the open gates and parked next to his workshop. “I do not wear briefs.”

  “Fine—no briefs.”

  “No briefs.” He yanked at his cowlick. Glanced in the rearview. Shook his head.

  With his unkempt hair and oversized clothing, he was a perfect facsimile of the brainy middle school kid he’d been, ignored by cheerleaders, reviled by jocks. It was a beautiful thing, or rather, a not-so-beautiful, thing. He’d liked that kid, the young pre-celebrity, unpackaged version of Jake Wright. That kid had dreamed about a woman like the one leaning across the console. The man he’d become turned to look at her, noticing how her jacket had slipped from her shoulder to reveal a silky, camisole-type thing, lacy, probably silk, definitely sexy.

  Oh, she was something, all right. Soft green eyes, lit from within and sweet, like an updated 1950s film cutie with a dash of serious sex appeal—a blonde Natalie Wood—all soft curves and sweet Midwestern attitude. A mantrap waiting to happen. Not the tough-talking, flirtatious New Yorker he’d expected, but a definite mantrap. A real pleasure for the eyes. Unlike her persistence, which was decidedly unpleasant.

  “So you sport the other ones, those cute…you know…” she said, tapping the side of her tablet, “those cute…briefy boxery kind.”

  Briefy boxery kind? Seriously? Hell, next she’d be asking what size jock strap he wore. He slammed the truck into park. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to answer that question.”

  “Ooh-kay, then.” She typed into an app on her tablet. COMMANDO.

  Jake slipped the keys from the ignition, stared out the windshield, and tried to not to lose his shit. “No, I do not go commando, I’m not interested in love, matchmaking, or being paraded around Smart Cupid’s website, wearing a pair of star-spangled boxer shorts. Period. End.”

  There was a short pause. “Well, if you don’t answer…”

  “Fine.” He banged his palms against the steering wheel. “Boxer briefs. Or briefy boxers. Whatever you called them. Jesus, who cares what type of underwear a guy owns?”

  She typed boxer briefs, then backspaced over it and re-typed commando. “I liked you better when you were au naturel.”

  “I was never au naturel.” He spared a quick, irritated glance at her phone. “You can’t answer the questions for me. Seriously, what kind of journalist are you?” The drunken kind. The cute kind. The kind who is messing with my peaceful existence.

  She let out an exasperated sigh. “The kind who needs answers. Give me something.”

  “Fine.” He gritted his teeth. Literally gritted his teeth. “I prefer Coke to Pepsi.”

  She batted her pretty eyelashes. “And do you prefer brunettes to redheads?”

  “No, actually, I like blondes.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Blonde was not an option.”

  “You wanted to know, Miss Bell.”

  Her eyes narrowed further, although he hadn’t believed further narrowing was possible. “Please, please, call me Kate.” She jabbed at the application window multiple times. “Kate, Kate, Kate. Honestly, if we’re going to be sharing your blonde, Coca-Cola fantasies, a first-name basis seems appropriate.”

  He kept his hands safely on the wheel. “Except we’re not going to be sharing my blonde, Coca-Cola fantasies. Not that I have any blonde, Coca-Cola fantasies, but if I did, we wouldn’t be sharing them. Once the storm passes, I’m booking you a flight straight back to Manhattan.”

  She stared up at him from beneath those lashes, undeterred. “Sexting—twenty-first century turn-on or new-fangled invitation to trouble?”

  His forehead dropped to the steering wheel. She was relentless. “No comment.”

  “Not commenting isn’t an option. The women of Smart Cupid want to know details about the bachelor. Secret fantasies. Preferences.”

  A low growl formed in the back of this throat. Typical. His ex-wife had exhibited preferences. She’d preferred his literary agent. No wonder he hadn’t written a book in three years. “Smart Cupid can kiss my—”

  “All I want to do is ask you a few questions. Once I get your basic stats, likes and dislikes, we can move on to examining your expertise. You have so much advice to offer Smart Cupid’s readers on building strong, lovable relationships—”

  “Strong love relationships.”

  “Yes, exactly.” She stabbed at the air. “Strong love relationships. By a factor of sex.”

  Man, she was tipsy. Bold, too, referencing the title of his book, but also determined, accident-prone, funny, and completely adorable. Insanely adorable.

  He cracked a self-mocking smile. Minus the vodka, exactly his type—when he used to have a type. He hadn’t had any type for a year, eighteen months. Shoving the unwelcome knowledge out of his mind, he threw open the door of the truck and climbed out. “No interview. One night.”

  “But—”

  He closed the door on her protest. One minute of peace, that’s all he wanted, one minute to regroup and get a hold of his thoughts.

  At the back of the truck, he untied the tarp and hoisted her bag out of the flatbed. A pink duffle bag. Honestly, what kind of woman carried a pink duffle? He slung the damn thing over his shoulder and walked around the truck, intent on keeping himself together until she was safely on a plane back to Manhattan, but as he reached the passenger side, his gaze locked onto a feminine set of legs dangling outside the door.

  Damn—seriously? She leaned forward, and his attention shifted north from her slim ankles to her rockin’ curves and the inlet of her waist. Framed by the red door, all rounded and sweet-looking, blonde curls tumbling over her shoulders, she was exactly his type. He pressed his glasses against the bridge of his nose. Oh yeah, Miss Ohio could definitely break me.

  He leaned in to pull an extra flashlight from the glove box. She smelled good, too, an optimistic blend of liquid soap and cherry blossoms. The last thing he needed was optimism. Between her true confessions about chips and sex-o-meters, and her off-the-charts commando commentary, he was already fighting a headache. Her brand of optimism was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Better to deal with reality. His ex-wife had taught him that. Then again, she’d never smelled like cherry blossoms. Man, he loved cherry blossoms. He dug through his pockets for the keys.

  Good thing he was famous for his self-control. But watching her climb from the passenger seat, noting how the movement cau
sed her skirt to ride a bit higher up on her thighs, an unexpected hit of desire shot through his veins. The hell with the keys. The hell with the hurricane.

  Dammit, what was wrong with him? He slammed the brakes on his thoughts. No matter how enjoyable it was to look at Kate Bell, he was in a definite look—don’t touch—situation.

  Thunder rumbled overhead, and as raindrops started to fall, she dashed toward the wraparound porch. He followed behind her, moving through the rain, the gravel driveway crunching beneath his feet. She waited as he unlocked the door, leaning her curves against a latticed railing dripping with bougainvillea, the flowers bending in the wind. Her body swayed along with the bright blooms. And if the leaning was amazing, the sway was fantastic.

  With more effort than he cared to admit, Jake pulled his gaze away from her tipsy, seductive form and opened the heavy door of his gray saltbox bungalow. His home was one of the original houses on the island, and he’d restored it piece by piece with found wood and vintage hardware, everything from the widow’s walk to the wide-plank floors that led to the French doors and out the stone steps to Lovers Beach.

  Jake flipped the wall switch. Light flooded the hard slate tile of the entry. Still had power, which was a good sign. He glanced around as he always did and felt the familiar contentment at the center of his soul. He loved this place, hidden from the rest of the island. Maybe the only place he felt at home now. And Kate Bell, well…she swayed into the place as if she and his bungalow formed a perfect match.

  He watched her take in the dark floors, the peaked, turreted ceilings, and the oversized stone fireplace. Built along the cliff, the place could seem as much a fortress as a bungalow.

  “Interesting place,” she said.

  Jake set down her overstuffed bag, took off his glasses, and wiped the rain from the lenses with the hem of his shirt. “Thanks, I still have some work to do.”

  It’d been a long time since he’d invited a woman into his bed, or rather, his home, and suddenly, the place felt significantly smaller. And much less empty.