Dark eyes, dark hair, petite, and always seemingly on the verge of blushing, Sloane De Carlo wasn’t anything like Felicity. Looks or otherwise.

She was quiet, but only in a crowd.

She was curious, even at risk to her comfort zone.

She was a contradiction. Not a fan of attention, and yet she’d published her innermost, secret thoughts for the entire internet to read.

She was sexy as hell, too, and he doubted she even realized it.

Sloane wasn’t like Felicity or anyone he’d dated, pretend or not. She was harder to figure out. Definitely more confusing. An awkward woman who he couldn’t bring himself to dislike, despite her dragging him into chores, gossip, and southern small talk.

And it was only day three of being around her.

“They did not hurt, no,” he said, playing along.

Sloane sighed. “Men. I could write an entire blog post about how distracted you all can get by a tight butt and exposed skin.” Her eyes went to his now-covered chest before zipping back up. There was that blush again. Brady wondered how dark she’d turn if instead of seeing him naked, she felt him.

The thought put a surprising amount of heat in him.

She got off the bed and walked to the door, unaware of his stirring arousal.

“Speaking of pictures, though, you need to post one of us together tonight at the bar. Then I was going to post a picture on my accounts of one of Cassidy’s specialty drinks with a moody filter and a clever caption about the perks of my boyfriend being a bartender. We can see how that works for bringing in any new customers and go from there. Maybe at the very least people will come out to annoy me with a billion questions and a lot of how embarrassing.”

Brady nodded, trying to distract himself from her lips. She shrugged, still unaware.

“We can also use the time to brainstorm what we need to do in real life so we don’t give Carol the satisfaction of bombing all the events we have two weeks to put together. Oh, and maybe we can also get to know each other a bit better.”

She cringed.

That pulled his attention. She explained at his questioning look.

“While I was going through Ms. Peggy’s party supplies, she may have asked me a bunch of questions about you, and, while I distracted her away from most, I may have panicked my way into a lie about you being obsessed with Cher…and having a tattoo of her in a questionable place.”

“What?”

Sloane threw her hands in the air as she walked out of the bedroom.

“When the panic takes hold, it’s fight, flight, or babble, and babble usually wins. So sue me!”

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten