Read House of Payne: Rude for Free Online Page A

myself.”
    “Only now do I begin to see where I went wrong in letting you in this morning. Apparently I’m slow on the uptake.” When he didn’t immediately answer, grinning as he worked his phone, she wondered if he’d notice if she simply left the table and hailed a cab. “Please tell me you’re not actually sending that out.”
    “Hell yes, I’m sending it out. And I’ll bet you the first round at a titty bar of your choosing that your phone’s about to blow up with all your sisters wanting to know if I’ve kidnapped you.”
    “God help me.” Their drinks came, and she grabbed up her Bellini like it was a lifeline. No doubt she’d need something a lot stronger than peach schnapps and champagne to get through the meal, but it would have to do. “That’s a first round that’s never going to happen, since I never plan on going to a titty bar.”
    “They’re a lot more fun than you think.”
    “For a guy . You probably haven’t noticed, but I don’t have a penis.”
    “Oh, I’ve noticed. You’re one of the hottest women who’s ever graced my world or any other, so if you had a penis I’d be pretty damn disappointed.”
    In the time it took a heart to beat, a thousand possible answers crashed through her brain, almost all of them flirtatious and therefore not even remotely appropriate. They couldn’t be, because she would never—repeat, never —flirt with her former foster brother.
    “I don’t grace your world,” she said flatly. “And you sure as hell don’t grace mine. Unless you count knowing each other’s names as gracing .”
    “That’s a good point.”
    “Thank you.”
    “So we need to do something about that.”
    Wait, what? “Do something?”
    “Yeah. Let’s get to know more than each other’s names.”
    Another heartbeat of time passed, but this time her brain refused to offer up any responses, flirtatious or otherwise. It just sat there, stunned and twitching. “Um…”
    “It’s not that impossible to imagine, is it?” Smirking as though her deer-caught-in-the-headlights reaction amused him, he took his espresso by the saucer and held it in one huge mitt and lifted the small cup to his mouth with the other. “You’re close to everyone else in the family, right? Why not me?”
    “Because you’re Rude .” Duh.
    “You tagged me with that name a thousand lifetimes ago, Sassy.”
    “What does that have to do with anything?”
    “You avoid family get-togethers whenever you know I’m going to be there, but what you don’t know is that you’re avoiding a kid who’s been gone a long, long time. If you’d stop avoiding me, you’d see that.”
    “The thing is, I’m cool with avoiding you. I like avoiding you. I’ll be happy to avoid you for the rest of my days. It’s not even that difficult.”
    “She says as she sits right across a dinky table from me.”
    Shit.
    Point to him.
    “And fair warning,” he went on when it became apparent she couldn’t rebut the reality of where her butt was parked. “It’s going to be a lot more difficult for you to avoid me from this point on.”
    That didn’t sound good. “Why is that?”
    “Because I’m not going to let you get away with it.” And, as he calmly sipped his espresso, the top of his foot slid against her ankle and oh, so gently up her calf.
    She almost lap-dropped her Bellini.
    “Are you high ?” Frantically she scooted her legs back, but he was right. The table was dinky. “Does concentrated caffeine in a cup make you loco?”
    “What’s so loco about a man being straight with a woman? I thought that you would appreciate that kind of thing, since you like to be upfront yourself.”
    “I appreciate it when it comes from anyone but you . With you it’s obviously just a game where I don’t know the rules, so you know what? I’m not playing.” With a huff, she leaned forward to put her untouched drink down. In a move so fast she didn’t see it coming, he also moved to put his saucer and cup