Downhome Darlin' & The Best Man Switch by Victoria Pade Read Free Book Online

imagination with images of what was hidden behind that zipper.
    Then, as if he didn’t have any idea what he was doing to her insides, he bent over and pulled on the socks he’d taken from the drawer.
    Bent over...
    Her hand actually itched to reach out and pat that great derriere again.
    Maybe she was a wilder woman than she realized.
    â€œShoes!” she said to snap herself out of her own reverie as he yanked on a pair of tan snakeskin cowboy boots. “I need my shoes, too.”
    He nodded toward the side of the mattress. “Those I did take off you. They’re over there.”
    Abby nearly ran for them, grateful for something—anything—to do rather than watch him finish dressing as if they’d shared more intimacy than they had.
    â€œReady?” he asked when he was.
    â€œPlease,” she said, knowing it was too polite and kind of a dumb response, but just wanting to escape that room, which seemed to be getting smaller by the minute.
    He held his arm out toward the door, and Abby came close to flying out of it, down the stairs and through the front door, all without so much as a glance at anything in the rest of the house.
    She was in the passenger’s seat of the black convertible parked outside before Cal had made it to the porch steps.
    She tried not to watch him finish the trip she’d taken in such a hurry, but even from the corner of her eye she could see long, muscular legs carrying him down the steps. And when he walked around to the driver’s side, her gaze seemed to stick like glue to that rear end again.
    â€œWhere to?” he asked as he got behind the wheel and started the engine.
    This was how I got into trouble last night, she remembered. But this time she didn’t hesitate to give him directions to the family home she and her sisters shared.
    Then she sank as deeply into the seat as she could so no one in town could readily see her being taken home in the same clothes she’d been wearing the night before, by a gorgeous man who no one would believe had been a gentleman. That kiss notwithstanding.
    â€œAshamed to be seen with me?” he asked, noticing.
    â€œAshamed of myself,” she answered almost under her breath.
    â€œFor cuttin’ loose a little?”
    â€œFor cutting loose way too much.”
    â€œWay too much? Honey, I’ve seen people cut loose a whole lot more than you did last night. Much to my regret.”
    â€œThat you’ve seen other people do worse or that I didn’t do more?”
    He just grinned over at her and left her guessing.
    After a moment he said, “Ask me what I want as payback for behavin’ myself.”
    She was a little afraid to inquire. But she owed him a great deal for not turning the previous evening into the nightmare it might have been had he been another man, so she complied. “What do you want as payback?”
    â€œI want to pick you up tonight about eight and have you show me where around here is the best place to watch the sunset.”
    An involuntary thrill ran through her at the prospect, even as she told herself she’d be better off never seeing him again as she’d promised herself earlier.
    â€œIt looks good from anywhere,” she said in an attempt to resist him. And her own desires.
    â€œBut there’s always a prime place or two to settle in and watch. If you’ve been here your whole life the way you said, you must know where it is. Or were you lyin’ about bein’ ashamed to be seen with me?”
    â€œWill you still behave yourself?” she heard herself ask, hating that she sounded like such a prude. Predictable, provincial and now prudish.
    â€œCan’t make any promises,” he said. “But I’ll try.”
    â€œI don’t know....” She shouldn’t. She really shouldn’t give in to this. To him. To herself.
    â€œI’ll behave myself better if you do this than if you don’t,” he