Those damn piercing hazel eyes. I look down at the blanket, picking at a frayed bit of yarn. “It might . . . be up there.”

When he doesn’t say anything, I glance up at him under my lashes and find him grinning at me.

“Oh, shut up, prancer,” I mutter.

He wolfs down the bite of ice cream, smacking his lips. “For the record, it might’ve been up there for me, too.”

I’m startled and commence blinking rapidly like a crazed owl. “Really?”

“Really.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

“Am I?” He takes another bite of ice cream, smiling around the spoon.

I flop backward onto the cushions and pull the blanket up over my face.

I hear a chuckle, low and pleased. “I’m tellin’ the truth, lass. You’re a champion kisser. Very fine. And not fine the way you Yanks use it—fine as in excellent.”

I flip the edge of the blanket down and peer at him.

“I don’t mean to make it sound like I don’t have anything else I could teach you,” he says casually, licking the spoon. He glances sideways at me. “For Michael, of course.”

I chew the inside of my lip. “Like what?”

“You want a list?”

Now I’m indignant. “A list? There’s that much to improve on? I thought you said it was fine as in excellent!”

He lifts a shoulder, nonchalant as can be. I’d like to smash my pillow into his face, but that would probably send the bowl of ice cream flying. His stupid face isn’t worth a wasted bowl of ice cream.

I sigh and sit up, pulling my legs off his lap. “Okay. Hit me. And don’t leave anything out. I want to hear the whole ugly truth.”

He looks at the ceiling, lightly tapping the spoon against the side of the bowl. “It’s not really one of those things you can talk someone through.”

Getting more and more worried, I furrow my brow. “So how am I supposed to improve?”

He turns his gaze to me. His expression is solemn and regretful, like a doctor about to inform me of the inoperable tumor in my brain. “Practice.”

Without waiting for a response, he scoops me more ice cream and holds it to my lips. Then he watches with his wolfish eyes as I suck the spoon into my mouth and swallow.

After I work up the nerve, I venture, “So you’re saying . . . you want to kiss me again.”

“I wanna help you get your heart’s desire, lass,” he counters briskly. “Which is Michael, right?”

Those wolfish eyes again. I’m getting confused. “Um. Yes. It’s . . . Michael.”

His eyes flash, but he nods, apparently satisfied he’s made his point. “Right. Think of it as trainin’. Like if you were gonna run a marathon, you wouldn’t just run twenty-odd miles in one go. You’d work up to it a bit at a time. Day after day, week after week, a wee bit at a time, until you’re in prime shape for the big event.”

When I sit in silence for too long, just looking at him, Cam shakes his head.

“You’re right. It’s a bad idea. You’ll get all attached, and it’ll be funny between us. You’ll be heartsick. I’ll be uncomfortable. You don’t know this, but it’s not easy for me to break a lass’s heart. I can only stand so much beggin’—”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, McGregor!”

He looks taken aback at hearing me curse. “I’m just tryin’ to spare you a broken heart, lassie. I’m agreein’ with you, it’s a terrible idea.”

“I’m not going to fall in love with you, McGregor. Not from kissing you or from anything else.”

Unmoved by my outburst, he casually consumes more ice cream while looking at me from the corner of his eye. “Oh, aye, now I remember. You said I’m not your type.”

“Exactly.” I say it emphatically, unsure if it’s him I’m trying to convince or myself.

Cam nods. “Exactly. So then there’s no problem.”

I sigh, remove my glasses, and scrub my hands over my face. I go into the kitchen, run the tap, splash water on my face, dry it with a dish towel. Then I put my glasses back on, turn, and look at McGregor on my sofa with his feet up on my coffee table, eating ice cream like he’s on friggin’ vacation at a seaside resort, and sigh again.

“Fine. But this is purely . . . educational. And I don’t want to talk about it after tonight. Deal?”

Cam doesn’t even turn around when he shrugs. “Whatever you say, lass. I’m just here to help.”

It’s the nonchalance in his aspect and voice, the total indifference, that finally convinces me. “Okay. Let’s do this.”

“Sure.” He doesn’t budge from the sofa.

“Are you coming in here or what?”

“I’m comfortable right where I am.”

“Oh. Um. Okay.” I return to the living room and perch on the edge of the sofa with my hands folded between my thighs. I never know what to do with my hands when kissing a man, so it’s safer to have them trapped.

Cam says, “Well, hop on, then.”

“What?”

He gestures to his lap with the spoon.

“Dude! No way! I’m not straddling you!”

He smirks. “Afraid you’ll get too hot and bothered and rip my shirt off, lass?”

“This is ridiculous.”

“Oh, so you’re worried I’ll get aroused.”

Visions of his monster manhood swim into my brain. I sputter, “W-what? No! Geez!”

“Good, because I won’t. Stop stallin’. I’ve gotta get to bed soon. I’m meetin’ someone for a run early in the mornin’.”

I’m irrationally hurt, both by the implication I’m not boner worthy and that he’s made plans to work out with someone other than me. “Who?”

Cam inspects my expression with one corner of his mouth quirked, a strange look of satisfaction in his gaze. “You.”

“Oh. Right. I mean . . . I know.”

The other corner of his mouth lifts, and now he’s smiling at me. “You’re adorable when you’re jealous.”

I gasp, loudly and with vigor. “I am not jealous!”

Cam leans forward, sets the bowl of ice cream on the coffee table, grasps my upper arms, and drags me onto his lap, where I gasp again, because how could I not?

It isn’t every day a girl gets to straddle Godzilla.

Cam says gruffly, “Good. It’s sorted. You’re not jealous, I’m not your type, and you don’t have eyes for anyone but pretty boy Michael. Now quit yammerin’, woman, because I’ve got other plans for that mouth.”

And oh God, does he.

He takes my mouth almost angrily, one hand around the back of my neck and the other curled around my upper arm, his lips hot and demanding. When his tongue breaches my lips and touches mine, a shudder of electricity runs through me, like I’ve stepped on a live wire.

My hands flattened over his broad chest, I shove him away. “Wait!”

He stares at me with a hard jaw, breathing erratically. “What?”

I remove my glasses and set them on the cushion beside us.

This time he comes at me slower. More deliberately, more controlled. He slides his hands into my hair and bends me to him, hesitating with a hair’s breadth of space between our mouths.

“Remember to breathe,” he whispers.