Perfect 10. Erin McCarthy

or the app would have recommended I see you again.”

      She wasn’t trying to be suggestive. She really wasn’t. But the words just sort of hung in the air between them for a long, painful pause and she refused to be the one to speak first, because she would apologize or embarrass herself by sounding needy.

      Finally, Drew said, “But an eight out of ten for kissing? I don’t know. I thought we had a ten going on.”

      Interesting. And arousing. Katrina tried to play it cool, which was hard to do when her entire sexual history had been posted online and when he was wearing a kilt. But she gave it her best shot. “You misread. It was definitely listed as a ten.”

      “Let’s find out for sure,” he said.

      Then he closed the gap between them and kissed her.

      Chapter Three

      Drew knew full well Trina had listed their kiss as a ten. He’d taken a screenshot of his entry in her little BootyBook post before she’d taken it down. It was a good thing he got alerts on his phone or he might not have seen it before she yanked it, but it had so clearly been a mistake that he’d known it would disappear as soon as she realized it. He’d wanted the opportunity to read what she’d written about him a little more closely.

      Which he had. Repeatedly. The kiss had been listed as a ten, but claiming it was only an eight was as good of an excuse as any to get his mouth on hers again. That night, the one and only time he’d been that close to her, he’d been drunk on vodka, and he wanted to repeat the experience sober. See if it was really as amazing as he remembered.

      Trina was short, with lush lips, bangin’ curves and soulful dark eyes that widened when she realized what he was about to do. Her mouth drifted open and she went up on her tiptoes. Clearly she wasn’t going to stop him. In fact, her body leaned toward him, and when he dropped his head and covered her lips with his, she gave a little sigh of pleasure that kicked him in the gut and groin.

      Damn.

      She tasted like wine and willingness and it took him about two seconds to decide he wasn’t going to leave it at a teasing kiss. Not the way she was responding, not the way she felt. He teased his tongue inside to slide across hers, and was forced to grip the back of her head to hold them steady when she rocked against him. A simple kiss became full-on making out, mouths moving eagerly, tongues tangling, breath anxious as they tasted each other. Her fingers squeezed his waist and he realized that, without a shadow of a doubt, the kissing was definitely as hot as he remembered it being.

      Vodka hadn’t conned him.

      Maybe it was because he knew her so well as a person or maybe it was just the unexplainable randomness of chemistry, but they could write a make-out manual, they were so in tune with each other.

      Finally she broke off the kiss, gasping for air, staring up at him as though she wasn’t sure what to say.

      “Ten?” he asked, curious what she would say. Hell, maybe she had been still drunk when she’d updated her BootyBook post-sex. Maybe she wasn’t feeling it this time around, and he was projecting his own desire onto her or some such crap like that. Though he would bet his favorite guitar she had. He just wanted to hear her say it.

      “I’m not sure your ego needs any more stroking today.”

      He could think of something better than his ego he could stroke, but he wasn’t about to push his luck. He’d fucked up last time. He’d rushed off out of her apartment before she’d been awake because he hadn’t known what to say. It had been a dick move. A complete and total dick move that he still couldn’t think back on without mentally wincing.

      But he hadn’t expected it to go down the way it had. Hadn’t expected her to be willing to get naked with him. They’d been friends, just friends, for so long, he’d never seen it coming. He’d always known he wasn’t good enough for her, the struggling sometimes-musician, mostly bartender, and it had felt wrong to take advantage of her drunkenness. But he’d done it anyway.

      It had ruined their friendship. She’d been weird, he’d been embarrassed and plagued with guilt. Unable to see her without picturing her naked and fantasizing about his cock buried inside her. So there it went. A four-year friendship straight down the crapper because he couldn’t keep it in his jeans when slinging back vodka. So lame. Utterly asshole lame.