Just Kiss Me by Rachel Gibson

sunglasses, he let his gaze slide to her lips. Damn. He felt like a light switch again, and it didn’t seem to matter that he didn’t want to get turned on.
    “The store should probably have warning in case they want to get security in place first.”
    He looked up into her eyes. The first flicker of desire was snubbed out. Thank God. “I don’t think anyone will recognize you.” If he needed any more proof that she was full of herself, calling a small underwear store and wanting security was it. “Hell, princess, I hardly recognize you and I’ve known you for years.”
    Worry wrinkled her brow. “Are you sure?”
    “I’m sure you’re being paranoid.” He took a few steps down King toward the underwear store but stopped when she didn’t follow. “Isn’t it this way?” He waved in the general direction of Bits of Lace. There was a sports pub near the store and he could grab a beer while he waited.
    “We can’t walk.”
    “It’s only about four or five blocks.”
    “If things get crazy, your car will be too far away.”
    Crazy? It was possible that someone might recognize her, but he seriously doubted people would go crazy. Then he thought of her crazy
Raffle
fans. They were weird. “We’ll drive,” he said, and changed direction toward his truck, even though he did think her pampered ass was overreacting. He doubted her fans knew she was in Charleston, and it was unlikely that someone dressed in some goofy leather and chain-mail costume would pop up in an underwear store.
    Henry drove the few blocks and found a parking space across the street from Bits of Lace. While Vivien shopped for bras, he relaxed at the King Street Grille next door. He picked a table near the front, and at that time of day, the place was empty except for three couples sitting at different tables and a group of young guys at the bar. ESPN offered commentary on the Rangers/Cubs game on the television overhead, and he kicked back and looked at the menu. He couldn’t decide between pork sliders or nachos and ordered both along with a bottle of Palmetto porter. After spending the past hour in a women’s clothing store, sitting on fussy furniture, and flipping thorough chick magazines, watching sports and drinking dark beer felt like coming home after an aggravating trip for an annoying employer. His shoulders relaxed and tension drained from his joints. Sitting in the sports bar instead of standing in a lingerie boutique while Vivien looked at panties felt like a reprieve from a firing squad. From the smart-mouthed girl who’d grown into a beautiful woman, and the troubling reaction that he hadn’t expected and didn’t want.
    The waitress delivered his beer and he took a drink of the stout porter. Instead of sitting in a pub, still troubled by his physical reaction to Vivien, he should be at his shop, working on the cherrywood island or drafting a bid for the new medical complex in North Charleston. No matter the brand of little French blazers his mother had always dressed him in as a child, no matter the exclusive boarding schools or Princeton degree, working with wood was in his DNA. Like his father, Henry loved the smell and touch of wood beneath his hands. Even as a kid, he’d loved crafting something from his imagination.
    He sucked foam from the corner of his mouth and set the glass on the table.
    Henry had always done what had been expected of him. Except for when what was expected had almost killed him. He’d walked away from his white-collar career and never been happier. His mother considered his custom millwork a waste of his education. She didn’t see a journeyman as a proper job for a Whitley-Shuler, and he wasn’t at all surprised that she’d volunteered him to drive Vivien around as if he had nothing better to do. Nor was he surprised that Vivien was pushing and testing his patience just like when she’d been a kid.
    So when Vivien walked through the sports pub’s doors fifteen minutes after he’d ordered a