Free To Win Her Trust by Mackenzie Crowne Page A

simply didn’t want to. Not when just thinking it made every fantasy he’d built around seducing the little blonde shrivel and die.
    Fuck, bad analogy. He shifted uncomfortably. “This isn’t going to work. You’re a beautiful woman, but…”
    “But what?”
    “I don’t…despoil virgins.”
    She had the audacity to laugh, and her sunny humor was so completely seductive he couldn’t help his smile—until her cool fingers patted his cheek.
    “There. That wasn’t so hard. Was it?”
    He retreated a step. The hand he scraped over his jaw shook, and he quickly dropped his arm to his side. “You’re not thinking clearly. You teased me about being a gigolo the other day, and you weren’t far from the truth. I’ve been with a lot of women. Enough to know a woman like you needs a different kind of man.”
    She crossed her arms, but the shadow of a smile remained in her eyes. “Is that why you tracked me down and showed up at my door?” Her brow puckered. “How did you track me down?”
    Oh, no. They weren’t going there. “My point is, you need a man who’s in it for the long haul. That’s not me.”
    “I guess you didn’t hear my first stipulation. I’m not interested in long term.”
    Tuck scoffed. “You say that now.”
    “Yes, I do say that now because it’s the truth.” The sneer curling CC’s lips surprised him. “Long term is for suckers. Consider yourself a means to an end, if that helps. I know exactly who and what you are, Kevin Tucker. My father and you could compare notes, so you’ll have to believe me when I say you’re exactly what I need. You’re charming”—she ran her gaze down his body and up again—”okay on the eyes, and you don’t know the meaning of permanent.”
    Put that way, he sounded like the gigolo she’d called him. He’d never been anyone’s means to an end before and wasn’t sure he liked it. And yet, she still wanted him for her wacky experiment? She watched him in silence, but he didn’t have a clue what to say. She sighed, dropping her arms to prop her hands on her hips.
    “You’re getting all worked up over nothing. I’m relieved to hear you don’t despoil virgins .” Her teeth flashed in a cheeky grin. “That sounds like a line from Gone With the Wind, by the way, but if you’d let me finish, you’d know I don’t plan to sleep with you.”
    He forgot all about his intention to walk away. “Maybe you should tell me exactly what it is you’re proposing, because I’m not following you. What do you mean you don’t plan to sleep with me?”
    “No offense, but if I ever do decide to sleep with a man, I won’t choose the type of man who disappears before the sheets have even cooled.”
    As insults went, her barb hit its mark. So he’d slept with a lot of women. Big deal. The type of woman he spent time with understood the arrangement was temporary going in. Unfortunately, being a virgin—he fought a shudder—Little Miss Sunshine wasn’t his typical type. She wouldn’t understand the finer points of dating in the new millennium. “Is that so?”
    She sighed. “I’m being honest. If Ronald had been agreeable, I’d be having this same conversation with him. I realize most men expect some physical contact with the women they date. I expect kissing and maybe some petting, but the relationship I’m after will be platonic.”
    He cocked a brow. “Sorry, sunshine, but the kissing and petting you mentioned disqualifies what you’re describing as a truly platonic relationship.”
    She cleared her throat. “Fine, semi-platonic. My point is, I don’t need to sleep with you, or any man, to test my theory.”
    He shook his head. Dating wasn’t the only place she lacked experience. She didn’t have a clue when it came to what men expected in even the briefest of relationships.
    She shrugged, obviously taking his head shake as a final refusal. “If you can’t or won’t help me, it’s no skin off my nose. There are millions of men in the city.