Girl Least Likely to Marry by Amy Andrews Page B

hot gaze made her want to do a lot of
things she hadn’t done.
    ‘We’ll call you when we’re done,’ Marnie said.
    Cassie nodded. She stood awkwardly for a moment or two,
conscious of all eyes on her, then bade them goodbye.
    The four remaining occupants of the table watched her walk
away. Tuck shuddered as her shapeless shirt hung like a bag on her frame.
    ‘Now, why would a woman want to hide such a damn fine figure?’
he asked as he turned back to face the table.
    Three sets of female eyes were trained firmly upon him and he
shifted uncomfortably. He was a man used to female attention—but not like
this.
    ‘What?’ he said warily.
    ‘Don’t play with her, Tuck,’ Reese warned. ‘She’s not like your
other women.’
    Tuck kind of liked that the most about Cassie, but he cocked an
eyebrow and tried to look a little insulted. ‘My other women?’
    ‘You know what I mean,’ Reese said reproachfully. ‘She’s not a
player.’
    ‘She’s pretty sheltered,’ Marnie added.
    Tuck looked at Cassie’s three musketeers. ‘She’s a big girl.
Surely she can look after herself?’
    ‘She’s not experienced with guys like you,’ Gina explained.
    ‘Guys like me?’
    Gina shot him a silky smile. ‘Man-whore guys.’
    Tuck faked a hurt look and shot it his cousin’s way. ‘Reese,
honey, your friends are being mean to me.’
    Reese snorted. ‘Tuck. Listen to me. I know your career ending
in injury the way it did was hard, and that you’ve been a little aimless since
your divorce and have been…enjoying the spoils of being God’s gift to women…but
I’m asking you to not choose Cassie as your next
form of denial.’
    It was Tuck’s turn to snort. His career ending, his impulsive
marriage crumbling, his infertility—all had been body-blows over the last couple
of years. Separately they would have been challenging to any man’s ego, but
together they’d been an enormous whammy. So what if he’d been trying to prove he
was still the man?
    But Reese was right, Cassie wasn’t his type. He dated women who
knew the ropes. And he didn’t need a PhD in relationships to know that Cassie
did not.
    He put up his hands in surrender. ‘Okay. I won’t go near her. I
promise.’
    Reese patted his hand. ‘Atta-boy.’

    By ten o’clock Cassie was ready to weep with
frustration. She’d achieved exactly nothing all day. Instead of auroras and how
they affected weather patterns on Jupiter she’d doodled Tuck’s name on a writing
pad all day. Every web search she’d conducted, every paper she’d picked up,
every image she’d looked at, Tuck and his smell and his accent and his lazy grin
had hijacked her thoughts.
    Her whole body ached with trying to deny the surge of hormones
that had her in their thrall. Two cold showers hadn’t helped—she still felt hot
and feverish, as if she was craving a drug. She’d tried to work through it, she
really had, but everything got back to Tuck.
    One night—that was all she had to do. She just had to get
through this night and then she’d be gone in the morning, and far away from him
and his pheromones, and she could get her brain back. Her focus.
    She stared at her door for the thousandth time. Just through it
and across the hallway was the cause of all her angst. Cassie took a step
towards it. No! She forced herself to stop, turn
around. She snatched up the phone instead and dialled Gina.
    ‘I need you to talk me off the ledge.’
    ‘Well, hello to you too,’ Gina said.
    ‘I mean it. I can’t stop thinking about him.’
    ‘If you rang me to talk you out of it, you rang the wrong
friend—should have chosen Marnie. I absolutely think you should go for it.’
    Cassie gripped the phone. Suddenly she was ready for hormones and libido to trump brainpower. ‘Tell me more
about your theory.’
    ‘What…the bonk Tuck theory?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘It’s simple, really. You’re the one who’s always telling us
we’re biological creatures at heart, with primal needs,