Free The Geek Girl and the Scandalous Earl by Gina Lamm Page A

lips. “It’s not been…so bad…”
    Lord help her, she wanted to kiss him again. He was so near now, only inches from her. It wouldn’t take much—a quick lean forward, and their lips would be touching. Their mouths would connect, and she could let her tongue trace the fullness of his lower lip…
    The scrabbling of claws on gravel should have warned her, but she was a bit too preoccupied with imagining kissing Mike to notice.
    “Baron, no!”
    Paws landed in her middle, knocking the little bit of oxygen she could breathe with those stays out of her. Overbalanced, she tipped over the back of the bench with a squeak. Her slippers stuck straight up in the air, and she landed solidly on her back in the dirt. The greyhound tangled in her petticoats and began a merciless attack on her face with his tongue.
    “Baron,” the earl barked in a stern voice. “To me!”
    After one last lick, Baron trotted away.
    The dirt beneath her was cool and damp. She stared up at the branches of the tree, wondering how in the hell she was going to get up without embarrassing the shit out of herself. It was really too late, though.
    “Miss Marten, I do apologize for Baron’s exuberance. He is still young, you see, and rather excitable.” Mike reached down and scooped her from the ground like she weighed no more than a doll. Her arms wound around his neck as he carried her back around the bench.
    It was the adrenaline from the fall that made her heart beat that fast. It was only thankfulness that made her want to kiss Mike even more now than she had moments ago. But as he let her legs descend and her slippered toes touched the gravel, she couldn’t convince her arms to release their hold around his neck.
    “Are you quite well?” he asked her softly. Concern raised his brows as he looked into her eyes.
    “I’m fine,” she whispered. Kiss me, she begged him in her head. Come on, Mike, please.
    Two seconds, three, and she thought her subliminal message might have worked. He leaned down ever so slightly, narrowing the gap between them. One heartbeat, two, and she let her eyes start to slide closed. He was going to do it. He was going to kiss her…
    And then he stepped away from her, gently breaking her hold on him.
    “Please excuse me, Miss Marten.” He bowed, and with a command to Baron, they left her, Mike speaking to the dog in a soft voice the whole way.
    She stood alone in the path, dress damp and dirty, arms empty and cold, and rejected for the second time in two days. When was she going to learn? Mike had no interest in her. Honestly, when he was being his normal, arrogant, jackass self, she didn’t have any interest in him. So why’d she keep trying to kiss him?
    She half ran back up the path toward the house. She couldn’t get back home fast enough. It was time to fail some lady lessons.
    ***
    Jamie thought Mrs. Knightsbridge was going to pass out when she saw the state of the dress Jamie wore. The housekeeper’s normally cheerful, round face elongated with horror.
    “Miss Jamie, whatever have you done?”
    Jamie threw her hand up and continued up the stairs. “It was another accident with that crazy dog. I’m going up to change.”
    Mrs. K followed Jamie to the Lemon Room, clucking like a ticked-off chicken. She fussed over Jamie, dressing her as if she couldn’t fend for herself, and redoing her hair. After checking to make sure the housekeeper’s ferocious hairpinning hadn’t drawn blood, Jamie followed her back down the stairs into what she called the drawing room.
    When Jamie had sat through calculus classes in college, she’d thought nothing could be more boring. Nothing could suck the life out of her more than staring at Professor Clark doodling on the whiteboard with that strange combo of letters and numbers that made absolutely zero sense to her. At least in college she could sit in the back of the class and scribble song lyrics in her notebook.
    Jamie was Mrs. Knightsbridge’s only student, and “What