Free Best Man for Hire (Entangled Lovestruck) (Front and Center) by Tawna Fenske Page A

on his ass.
    “You want a merit badge, huh?”
    “Or something else.”
    She smiled. “The fact that your fly is already undone should facilitate the something else .”
    He looked down, appalled to realize she wasn’t kidding. “What the hell?”
    “Sorry, my fault.” She grinned, not looking all that sorry. “I’m the one who unzipped it. I noticed when you started up the tree, but I didn’t want to distract you.”
    Grant fumbled with the zipper, then stopped. “I don’t suppose leaving it undone would be effective foreplay?”
    Anna laughed. “I do want to get your pants off, but maybe not for that reason. Cat bites are vicious. You seriously need to have that looked at. Are you current on all your shots?”
    “I can’t vouch for Rumpymuffle, but the Marines keep me pretty up-to-date on my physical,” he said. “Of course, it might not hurt to have you check it out.”
    She grinned and took a step back. “Tempting though that is, don’t you think this is a bad idea?”
    “Not particularly.”
    “The photography thing,” she said, licking her lips. “If we might be working together, hooking up could make things awkward.”
    “Photography,” he repeated, a little thrown to realize he’d completely forgotten the reason he’d invited her over.
    Well, one of the reasons.
    “I haven’t even gotten to see your photos yet, but I’m sure they’re amazing,” she said. “Pretty much everything you do is flawless.”
    There was a slight edge to her voice now, a sound he hadn’t heard before when she was purring in his ear. Grant studied her, trying to understand the sudden change.
    “Why do you say that like it’s a bad thing?”
    “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.” She shook her head. “God, I sound like such a bitch. I guess I’m just a little discombobulated by you.”
    “Is discombobulated the same as turned on?”
    She laughed, but the laughter didn’t quite reach her eyes. “You’re a little hard to believe, you know?”
    Grant felt something sharp lodge in his throat. He tried to swallow it down, keeping his expression impassive. “What do you mean?”
    “I just can’t believe it—you cook, you read, you renovate homes, you do phenomenal woodwork, you serve your country, you donate to charity, you leap tall palm trees in a single bound to rescue a helpless animal and help an old lady. Is there anything you’re not perfect at?”
    Grant blinked, trying to decide if she was paying him a compliment or accusing him of something awful. Of what?
    Trying too hard.
    Being a complete and utter fraud.
    Failing to make up for what you did.
    He took a breath and folded his arms over his chest. No. She couldn’t know any of that.
    “I have a bite mark on my ass cheek and claw marks in my thigh,” he said slowly. “If that’s your idea of perfection, I hate to see what screwing up looks like.”
    She shook her head and smiled a little sadly. “Seriously, you’re kind of unreal. Name one thing you’re bad at. I’ll bet you can’t do it.”
    Grant froze, her words hitting him harder than she probably realized. He could think of a lot of things. So many failures, one in particular—
    “I’m stubborn as hell,” he blurted. “I have a terrible sense of fashion and home decor, so my sister helps me choose all my clothes and my dishes. I’m an obnoxious neat freak. I care too much what other people think of me—to a crippling degree, actually. I know absolutely nothing about wine, and can’t distinguish between a two-dollar bottle of rotgut and an eight hundred dollar Pinot Noir. I am a hopeless procrastinator and overly ambitious, which can be a deadly combination at times.”
    He stopped, having run out of breath. She was staring at him with an expression he couldn’t read, and Grant felt his heart stop.
    At last, she smiled. “That’s quite a list. I take it back. You really are a horrible person.”
    “You don’t know the half of it.”
    His words hung there between