Read The Kissing Game for Free Online

here, looking at her,” Leila told Marsh. “You know the way I mean. He was looking at her as if he were wishing she was something he could order from the menu.”
    “So I was watching her.” Simon heard exasperation creep into his voice. “She looks really good tonight. So I find her attractive. I find all women attractive.”
    “No, you don't.”
    “Yes, I do. It's no big deal.”
    “I know how you operate—”
    “I should have gone someplace else—”
    “It starts with a crush, an
attraction—”
    “But my
date
wanted to come here,” Simon finished.
    As if on cue, the woman he'd met an hourearlier out on the resort patio swept into the res taurant.
    She was a knockout. She was wearing a skintight pale pink dress that accentuated her hourglass figure. The dress was outrageously short, and her legs were long and shapely. Her hair was red, and pulled up off her neck in a haphazard fashion that made her look both seductive and innocent.
    “Your date?” Leila repeated with a frown.
    “Here she is.” Simon knew his sister's theory about why he was watching Frankie was shot to hell, and he smiled his triumph. He stood up. “Say hi to Jesse for me.”
    He could feel Leila and Marsh watching him as he crossed the room toward—he couldn't remember his date's name. Damn. He felt a flash of panic. What was wrong with him? He never forgot a name, let alone the name of a beautiful woman.
    Chloe. That was it. Thank God.
    As he offered Chloe his arm, Simon felt yet another pair of eyes upon him. He turned, and sure enough Frankie was watching him, but she quickly looked away.
    What had gone wrong?
    He'd spent most of the afternoon with Frankie down in the real estate office's basement, searching through files and records. At one point he'd been virtually certain that he and Francine Paresky were going to end up in bed together. Tonight. The thought was dizzyingly, heart-poundingly exciting. Frankie in his bed, in his arms.
    For months it had seemed as if his libido were out to lunch, but suddenly, just like that, his body was back on-line, ready to go.
Really
ready to go…
    So what had happened? They'd finished copying and highlighting the rental records. Frankie had flipped through them all but there were too many and it was too late to examine them completely.
    Simon had suggested going out for pizza and Frankie had hesitated just a fraction of a second before accepting.
    It was that—that little bit of hesitation—that made Simon realize this was no flirtatious game. This was real life. Frankie was his friend, not some stranger he could have a brief, passionate affair with.
    She'd practically grown up in his house—the entire Hunt clan taking warmly to the little girl with the southern drawl who lived in a tiny house with her gram. She'd had no parents. Her mom had died and her dad had split. Simon's own mother and father, while not exactly June and Ward Cleaver but damn close, had included Frankie in nearly every family outing. She'd always been around. Simon had assumed she always would be around.
    Unless he did something to drive her away.
    He couldn't play this game. The stakes were too high.
    Of course he was assuming Frankie would even allow herself to be seduced. Just because she hesitated before accepting his dinner invitation didn't mean anything.
    He was reading far too much into it. Three seconds of hesitation didn't necessarily mean that she took the time to imagine going home with him after dinner. It didn't mean that during those few seconds she'd delayed, she'd imagined the two of them,
sans
clothing, locked together in a steamy embrace.
    It was possible that her hesitation wasn't theresult of any extra thought. It was entirely possible that she hadn't spoken right up because she'd burped.
    Besides, it wasn't even dinner—it was pizza, for crying out loud.
    Still, he wasn't sure which he was more afraid of, that Frankie would reject him or that she'd allow herself to be seduced and ruin their