The Girl He'd Overlooked Read Free Page A

to reach him. The first taste of his cool mouth sent a charge of adrenaline racing through her body and with a soft moan she kissed him harder, reached up to wind her arms around his neck as her body curved against his.
    Her breasts were aching, her heart was beating like a drum. Every nerve in her body was alive with sensations she had never felt with anyone in her life before. Every kiss she had ever shared with other boys was drowned out by the scorching heat of this kiss. She felt his response as he kissed her back and that response was enough for her to take his hand and guide it underneath the loose shirt, up to the lacy bra that she had worn especially.
    She was so lost in the moment that it was a few seconds before she realised that he was gently but firmly detaching himself from her and it was a few more seconds beforeit sank in that this was not a gesture preparatory to taking her upstairs. This much-longed-for evening was not going to end in her bedroom, making love while candles flickered in the background. She had agonised over her choice of linen, ditching her usual flowery bedcovers for something plain instead. He wasn’t going to see any of it.
    ‘Jennifer…’
    Unable to bear the gentleness in his voice, she spun around with her arms tightly clasped around her body.
    ‘I’m sorry. Please go.’
    ‘We need to talk about what… what happened just then.’
    ‘No. We don’t.’ She refused to look up as he circled round to face her. She kept her eyes pinned to his shoes while her body went hot and cold with mortification. She was no longer a sexy woman on a date with the guy for whom she had spent years nursing an inexhaustible infatuation. She bitterly wallowed in the reality that she was an awkward and not particularly attractive woman in a stupid, newly purchased outfit who had just made a complete fool of herself.
    ‘Look at me, Jen. Please.’
    ‘I got the wrong end of the stick, James, and I apologise. I thought… I don’t know what I thought…’
    ‘You’re embarrassed and I understand that but—’
    ‘Don’t say any more!’
    ‘I have to. We’re friends. If we leave this to fester, things will never be the same between us again. I enjoy your company. I wouldn’t want to lose what we have. For God’s sake, Jennifer, at least
look at me
!’
    She looked up at him and for the first time the sight of him didn’t thrill her.
    ‘Don’t beat yourself up, Jen. I kissed you back and for that I apologise. I shouldn’t have.’
    But he had and she knew why. What man wouldn’t succumb
to a woman who flung herself at him? It was telling that he had come to his senses in a matter of seconds. Even with everything on offer, she hadn’t been able to tempt him.
    ‘You’re young. You’re about to embark on the biggest adventure of your life—’
    ‘Oh, spare me the pity talk,’ Jennifer muttered.
    ‘I’m not
pitying you
.’ He stuck his hands in the pockets of his trousers and shook his head in frustration.
    ‘Yes, you are! I’ve been a complete idiot and I’ve put us both in an awkward position and none of it is your fault! Okay, so when you asked me out to dinner tonight, I thought it was more than just two friends having a meal. I fooled myself into believing that you might have begun to see me as a woman instead of the girl next door! Instead of the clumsy, ungainly, unappealing, borderline unattractive girl next door.’
    ‘Don’t put yourself down. I don’t like it.’
    ‘I’m not putting myself down.’ She managed to meet his eyes without flinching although it cost her every ounce of will power. ‘I’m being honest. I’ve had a crush on you—’
    ‘And there’s nothing wrong with that…’
    ‘You knew.’
    ‘It was endearing.’
    ‘Well, a pleasant distraction from when your pocket-sized blonde bombshells were being too demanding, at any rate.’
    ‘You had a schoolgirl crush and there’s nothing sinful about that,’ James told her with such sincerity that