The Bluff (Love Stories in Sheet Cake, Texas, #2)

by Emma St. Clair

everything. You’re the living embodiment of a fictional bad boy, ready to steal hearts and make ovaries explode.”

Hearing Winnie say she isn’t interested leaves me feeling scraped out and hollow

instead of relieved. I remind myself that I’m not interested in Winnie. There is attraction, yes. A grudging admiration. But she burrows under my skin like a tick, and that’s not the quality I’m looking for in a woman.

“I’ve heard if you make eye contact with a clown while they honk their nose, they can steal your soul.” His immediate expression is horror, but it slips into an angry mask when he realizes I’m barely holding it together. He gives me a nudge with his shoulder, and I nudge him right back, a little harder. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe, Jamie.”

“I’m sure she could handle you on her own. But that doesn’t mean she should have to. Leave.” If I liked the way James stepped in to physically protect me, I love his verbal defense even more. I have a theory. It’s that every woman has two fantasies—one where she’s rescued by a dashing hero, and one where she doesn’t need a hero at all and rescues herself. James just delivered

“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about kissing your smart mouth.” Well, then. “You say the sweetest things,” I say before fusing my smart mouth to his again.