Free When in Paris... (Language of Love) by Beverley Kendall Page A

inscrutable.
    In an apparent game of tit-for-tat, he turns to leave. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black,” he mutters, speaking low enough that I have to strain my ears to make out what he said. But I can and I do.
    Now I’m the one grabbing him by the arm and it’s one-hundred-percent-solid muscle that my hand can’t even span halfway, which means I physically cannot stop him from leaving.
    “What exactly does that mean? Are you calling me a hypocrite?”
    He halts mid-stride and looks down at my hand on his arm the same way I’d just done. His mouth tightens as he raises his eyes to meet mine. “If the shoe fits.” Again his gaze drops to my breasts.
    It takes several seconds before I finally, finally comprehend what is going on. If it wasn’t so utterly insulting and erroneous, it would have been laugh-out-loud funny. Right now, I’m so not in the mood to laugh.
    “Oh. My. God. You think I have implants.” And to think I’d been a little turned on when he’d been staring at my breasts. The whole time he’d probably been wondering how much they cost and if they feel the same as real ones.
    “Hey, what you do with your body is your business.”
    When it looks like he’s going to turn away again, my hand tightens on his biceps.
    Ever so slowly, he turns around and regards me. I drop my hand from the warm flesh of his muscled arm.
    “You’re right, it’s no one’s business, but just so you know these,” I gesture pointedly at my breasts with both index fingers, “are real. I never got implants despite rumors to the contrary.”
    Later on, when I’m away from this Twilight Zone experience, I’ll be mortified at what I’ve done. But in the here and now, I’ll be damned if I’m going to let him walk away thinking my boobs are fake.
    It’s funny, in high school I’d been pretty good at ostensibly shrugging off the rumor. I couldn’t care less about it now. However, the thought of Zach believing it turns me certifiable because when his gaze drops to my breasts for the third time, I do something the sane, logical Olivia would never do.
    Never do.
    I grab both his hands and press them against my breasts.
    For what feels like the longest seconds of my life, his hands—large hands—are palming me. I register their heat through the fine wool of my lilac sweater. What also registers is how much I like the contact.
    As quickly as I put his hands there, I jerk them away and take a halting step back. My breathing is reedy pants of air. I don’t want to look at him, not when sanity has returned and my face is scorching hot. But I do. I look up at him, directly in the eye.
    I almost sag in relief when I discover that Zach isn’t looking at me like I’ve just sprouted two heads. But my relief is short-lived because the way he is looking at me makes my stomach clench and a hot rush of desire courses through me.
    Glittering awareness sparks in his eyes. So sexy and hot it’s hard for my rubbery legs to hold me up. Then his eyes get that sleepy look, stealing much-needed air from my lungs.
    “How long you been wanting to do that?” he asks, his voice low and husky. He knows. He so knows.
    Four years.
    “I d-didn’t want to—I mean, I don’t know why—I did it because you make me so mad.” My mind is as jumbled as my words. I hate that being this near him makes me feel out of control and so completely out of my depth.
    His response is a throaty chuckle and I seriously think dying of embarrassment would be preferable to facing him right now. Forest fires have nothing on the blaze burning my face.
    I hadn’t come here for this, to dredge up all the implants crap. And I don’t know what to do or what to say. But I know I have to soldier through this some way. “Sophomore year, Ralph Buckley shot up four inches over the summer and no one said a word. When I-I came back—” I’m so embarrassed, I can’t get the rest of the words out.
    “Olivia.” He steps closer, bringing our bodies