she said as he released her, feeling herself blush as she remembered her and Garrett’s stolen kiss. “I know you might not understand this. But I love your brother so much, I—”
“Since freaking when, Molls? He’s always annoyed the crap out of both of us.”
She stiffened defensively. “True, okay. But that was when he was so rigid, you know. Before.”
“Before what?”
“Before...before I realized that he...” Wants me. Before he said the things he said to me when he kissed me. Her stomach wrenched at the painful memory. Anxiously, she pushed her red tresses back behind her shoulders and tried again. “I—I really can’t explain it, but something has monumentally changed. And I just know he loves me back, I just know it in my soul, Julian—please don’t laugh.”
She couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eyes for some inexplicable reason, so she spun around and slumped down on the leather sofa. The silence ticked by, and within seconds, she became aware of some extremely strange vibes coming from the vicinity of where Julian stood.
The laugh that broke the silence was worst of all. It was anything but mirthful. “I can’t freaking believe this.”
Molly held her breath and peered up at him, finding that a harsh frown had settled on his strong, tanned face. She had never seen Julian truly mad, but if that black scowl was a good indicator, he was getting there, and fast.
Her stomach clenched when she once again took a peek at his flat, muscled navel, the dark V dipping into those superloose drawstring pants and leading into— Okay, enough of that. She had to focus on getting Garrett. Now.
“Julian...” She really had to say something. Sighing, she signaled at that perfectly tanned, perfectly perfect torso. “Look. While we discuss this, can you put on one of your remaining shirts? The chest and the six-pack and all that you’ve got going on are just... Let’s just say it makes me want to go take a peek at Garrett.”
Julian scoffed and flexed seriously impressive biceps. “You know damned well my brother doesn’t have these guns.”
“He does, too.”
He flexed his other biceps. “I may be his baby brother, but I can take the guy down in five seconds flat with these.”
“Oh, puleeze. The only thing you’re probably better at doing than him is screwing around—and you deserve that after saying I look like I live in a blender.”
“Ahh. So once again, you missed the part where I said you were pretty.” Julian fell down on a chair and for a long moment, they sat there, both staring pensively into space.
When he at last spoke, Molly was relieved to hear that his voice had regained its usual playful note. “Yeah. You’re right. I am better at screwing around than both my brothers put together. Not that Landon would ever look at another woman now that he’s married.”
He leaned back and watched her with the beginnings of a smile that carried a hint of danger while he linked his hands behind his head in a deceptively relaxed pose.
“So let’s screw around with Garrett. Why not? He’s always been ridiculously protective of you and Kate. He’d go Donkey Kong if he ever found out you were dating someone. Especially someone with a bad reputation. You don’t even really have to date the guy, just make him agree to play your doting lover for a while, ask him to be convincing enough to yank ole Garrett’s chain.”
Delighted that Julian was at last addressing her predicament, Molly almost jumped out of her seat and found herself clapping twice. “Yes! Yes! He sounds charming. But the question is, do I actually know such a man?”
Julian’s smile was perfectly wolfish. “Baby, you’re looking right at him.”
* * *
His words appeared to strike Molly like an electric shock, and Julian wondered if that was a good thing, a bad thing or totally irrelevant to his newly hatched plan.
“Excuse me?” She jerked upright on his couch and gripped the leather cushions with such force that it looked as if she was on a roller-coaster ride. “I’m sure I heard wrong. Did you just offer to be my boyfriend or something?”
“Or something,” Julian agreed, his lips curling upward.
He knew he looked calm. Collected. But inside his head, the wheels were turning with particularly inspiring ideas. Ideas he might later regret. But they were still damned good.
“Wh-what do you mean ‘or something’?” she asked him.
Julian could hardly get over how adorable she looked sitting there, shocked and disbelieving as if she’d just won the Megabucks.
Her eyes were just so wide and so damned blue you’d have to be made of freaking stone not to be willing to move mountains for her. Honestly, he’d never seen such expressive, genuinely innocent eyes in his life. It was a guarantee that Molly would lose every poker game she ever played, her expressions were so real and so clear. Hell, just the way she looked at him with those eyes made him feel like some sort of superhero. Not even his own mother gazed at him like Molly did.
With an amused smile, one he sometimes found himself wearing when he was with her, he explained, “‘Or something’ means I don’t have girlfriends, Molly. I have lovers. And I’d be happy to pretend to be yours.”
He’d meant to emphasize the word pretend, but somehow when he spoke, the only word he seemed to be able to emphasize was yours.
Because obviously he would only ever do this kind of stuff for Molly.
“You’re kidding me, Jules,” she said as she somberly scanned his face. She was not even moving, had practically become a statue on the couch.
He might have laughed at that, except to his own disbelief and amazement, he was dead serious. Dead. As heck. Serious. And now he needed to know if she was, too. “I may like to kid around, Molls, but I wouldn’t kid you with this.”
“So you’re prepared to pretend to be in love with me?”
He nodded, and his hands itched to wipe away a green smudge of paint from her forehead and a red one from her cheek. “I figure I’ve probably done worse, Moo. Like that girl who just left...not really prime in the head, if you get me.”
He tapped his forehead, but she wasn’t even paying attention.
As though in a trance, Molly rose to her feet, all five feet of chaotic red hair and heavy turquoise necklaces and creamy paint-streaked skin, her eyes shining as his proposal finally seemed to dawn on her. “And Garrett will see us together and be madly jealous! Oh, my God, yes, yes, this is brilliant, Julian! How long do you think it will take to get him to realize he loves me? A couple of days? A week?”
Julian stared at her in silence. She really sounded...enamored. Didn’t she?
He thought about it for a bit, and with each passing second, he grew more and more baffled. Suddenly all he wanted was for somebody to please tell him what in the hell was going on here. Was this some sort of lame-ass joke? Molly? Dreaming about his older brother? For real?
If the ten-year
