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Mr. (Not Quite) Perfect (2013)

by Jessica Hart(Favorite Author)

3.75 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0373207468 (ISBN13: 9780373207466)

languge

English

genre

Romance

publisher

Harlequin KISS

review 1: The perfect boyfriend, it turns out, can fix our cars and dance without looking like a total dork. He looks good and he’ll get rid of that spider in the shower. He’ll sit through a romcom without complaining and be strong enough to literally sweep us off our feet when required.-She leant beseechingly towards him and Max found himself snared in the big eyes. Funny how he had never noticed before how beautiful they were, or how green, the lovely dark mossy green of a secret wood...Secret wood? Max gave himself a mental slap. God, he’d be spouting poetry next!-One moment he was pretending to glower at Allegra, the next his arms were full of her. Beaming, she launched herself at him, pushing him back down onto the sofa cushions as she hugged him. ‘Oh, I love you, Max! ... moreThank you, thank you, thank you!’ she babbled, blizzarding kisses over his face. ‘You won’t regret it, I promise you. I’m going to change your life, and it’s going to be perfect!’-Why was there never a black hole around when you needed to jump into one?-Her mouth dried and all at once she was remembering how she had hugged him in her excitement the night before. She hadn’t thought about it. He was Max, and he’d just agreed to take part in something Allegra knew he was going to hate. Hugging him was the obvious thing to do. But when her arms were around his neck and her lips pressed to his cheek, she had suddenly become aware of how solid he was, how male. How familiar and yet how abruptly strange. The prickle of stubble on his jaw had pressed into her cheek and she’d breathed in the clean masculine smell of him and something had twisted hard and hot in her belly. Something that had felt alarmingly like lust. Which of course it couldn’t have been because, hey, this was Max.-Why did just saying his name suddenly make her feel warm?-To Max’s horror, his body had taken on a mind of its own. Without him even being aware of what he was doing, his arms had clamped round her and for a moment he had held her against him and fought the crazy urge to slide his hands under that skimpy top and roll her beneath him.-‘Relax!’ she said, leaning across the table to slap his hand away from his throat, and the scent of her perfume momentarily clouded Max’s brain.-Darcy was obviously enjoying herself. She threw her head back and laughed her glorious laugh. She propped her chin on her hands and leant forwards, as if the famous cleavage needed attention drawn to it. She flirted with those impossibly long lashes and ran her fingers up and down Max’s arm. Max, unsurprisingly, wasn’t complaining.-‘It’s unmistakably you, but a drawing can’t really capture your charm,’-‘I can’t believe Max here hasn’t been snapped up already, can you?’‘It’s beyond comprehension,’ Allegra agreed, but then made the mistake of glancing at Max. A smile hovered around his mouth and, for no reason she could name, her mouth dried..-He was looking for her. The realisation made her heart give another odd little jump and she was smiling foolishly when his gaze crossed hers, only to stop and swing back and meet her gaze. Their eyes locked with what Allegra could have sworn was an audible click and for a moment it was as if a question trembled in the air between them.-Allegra’s mouth was dry, but she took a deep breath and tried to remember the instructions. She kept her eyes fixed on a spot behind Max’s shoulder, which made it easier not to think about how warm and firm his fingers were, or the way his hand at her waist seemed to be sizzling through her top. Out of the corner of her eye, she could still see the edge of his jaw, rigid with concentration. It was very distracting and she kept forgetting where her feet were supposed to go.-Max was just the right height. Allegra fitted comfortably against him, her eyes level with his jaw, and if she turned her head, she could rest her face into his throat.-But standing so close to him was making her feel a bit light-headed, and she was excruciatingly conscious of her fingertips grazing his forearms with their fine, flat hairs. The air had shortened, making her heart pound ridiculously. She wanted to say something light, something casual to break the atmosphere, but her mind was a blank and she didn’t dare meet Max’s eyes in case...In case what?In case he kissed her. In case she kissed him.Allegra swallowed hard. This was silly. She’d just got over that mad period when she’d been so inexplicably conscious of him. The last few days had been fine, cooking, talking easily, sniping at each other, laughing with each other. They’d dutifully practised the basic waltz step and even seemed to be getting the hang of it. It had been just like the old days.And now he’d put on a new shirt and that awful thump was back in her belly. Allegra didn’t like it one little bit. Clearing her throat, she patted the second sleeve into place and stepped back. ‘There, that’s better,’ she said.-Being so aware of him the whole time made her uncomfortable. It was crazy. It was inappropriate. It didn’t make sense.-She was too aware of Max sitting beside her. He was sensibly strapped in too, and he wasn’t touching her. He wasn’t even close, but that didn’t stop her whole side tingling as if the seat belt had vanished and she had slid across the seat to land against him.-When she had opened the bathroom door and smiled at him, it had been like a punch to his heart. ‘Do I look sufficiently sensible?’ she had asked while he was still struggling for breath, while he was trying to wrench his eyes off the way her dress clung enticingly to her slender body.True, her arms and shoulders were covered but that sheer black stuff was somehow even more tantalising than bare skin would have been. It seemed to beckon him forward to peer closer, hinting at the creamy skin half hidden beneath the gauzy film of black. Between the sheer arms and shoulders and the tight-fitting dress, Max felt as if there were great neon arrows angled at her throat, at her breasts, at the curve of her hips: Look here! Look here!The dress stopped above her knees—Look here!—revealing those killer legs of hers—And here!—ending in absurd shoes that were studded with mock jewels. Her earrings swung and glittered in the light and her hair, twisted up and back more neatly than usual, gleamed.Once the oxygen had rushed back to his head, Max had been able to think of lots of words to describe Allegra right then: sexy, erotic, dazzling, gorgeous... Had he already mentioned sexy? But sensible? Suitable? Max didn’t think so.Now she was adjusting his tie and standing so close her perfume was coiling into his mind, and lust fisted in his belly. For a wild moment the need to touch her was so strong all Max could think about was grabbing her, pushing her up against a wall and putting his hands on her, touching her, feeling her, taking her.-I don’t mind where I am, as long as I’m with Max-He couldn’t resist any longer. He’d forgotten why he needed to, forgotten everything but the need to seal the gap between them. He drew her head towards him—or perhaps she leant closer; Max never knew—and angled his lips against hers, and the taste and the touch of her blew his senses apart so that he could almost have sworn that the restaurant swung wildly around them. She was warm and responsive, pliant against him, and their mouths fitted together as if they were meant for each other. The astonishing rightness of it rose in his chest and surged through him like a tide, blocking out doubts, blocking out reason, blocking out everything that wasn’t Allegra: the scent of her, the feel of her, the sweetness of her. Afterwards, Max calculated that the kiss couldn’t have lasted more than a few seconds, but at the time it seemed to stretch to infinity and beyond. He never knew where he found the strength to pull away, but somehow he had drawn back and was staring into her eyes once more. The lovely green was dark and dazed, and her expression was as stunned as his must have been.-Desperately, Max tried to pull himself together. His blood was pounding, which was crazy. It had just been a kiss, hardly more than a peck on the lips. There was no reason for his heart to be throbbing still like that, for his lungs to have forgotten how to function.-This time there was none of the piercing sweetness she had felt in the restaurant. Instead his kiss was hot and fierce, and Allegra felt need explode inside her, vaporising the last lingering remnants of rational thought. Her mind went dark and she kissed him back, wild with hunger, wanting his hands on her harder, hotter, harder.-‘Friendship isn’t enough on its own, nor is passion. You need both. I told Emma that I’d like to be friends, but I knew that I’d never be happy unless I could be with you.’-Tears were trembling on the end of her lashes and Max tightened his grasp on her fingers, desperate to tell her how he felt before she cried. ‘I missed you as more than a friend, though. I wanted to be able to touch you and feel you...I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that night. It’s never been like that for me before,’ he said honestly. ‘It was as if everything else had been a practice and suddenly with you it was the real thing. Like I’d never understood before that was how it was supposed to be. I can’t explain it. With you, it just felt right...’ He trailed off, seeing the tears spilling down her cheeks. ‘Don’t cry, Legs, please. I just wanted to tell you how I felt.’‘I’m crying because I’m happy,’ she said, trying in vain to blink back the tears. ‘Oh, Max, that was how it was for me too.’The tight band around Max’s chest unlocked and he released her hands to take her face between his palms.‘Allegra,’ he said unevenly, ‘I know I’m stuffy and I can’t dance and I’ve got no dress sense but I love you. That’s why I came back. I had to tell you.’Incredibly, she was smiling still. ‘I love you too,’ she said, sliding her arms around his waist. ‘I’ve missed you so much.’A smile dawned in Max’s eyes as his heart swelled. Tenderly, he grazed her jaw with his thumbs. ‘You love me?’ he repeated, dazed at the wonder of it.‘I do,’ she said and her voice broke. ‘Oh, Max, I do.’ And she clung to him as he kissed her at last, the way he had dreamt of kissing her for so many long and lonely nights, so many bleak days.She kissed him back, a long, sweet kiss edged with the same giddy relief at having been pulled back from an abyss at the last moment. They ran their hands hungrily over each other, a remembered inventory of pleasure. Heedless of the drizzle that was rapidly turning to rain, they forgot the ball, forgot the cold, forgot everything but the dazzling joy of being able to touch each other again, feel each other again.-‘The duke’s just a fantasy, but you’re real.’ She kissed him softly. ‘Maybe you can’t dance, and no, you’re not the sharpest dresser, but you’re perfect for me and I love you just as you are.’-The only thing I’ll regret is not telling you I loved you earlier-
review 2: Oh how I love Modern Tempted books – they’re always so exciting and I’m always surprised by them in such a great way. The BEST thing about them is that you never know what to expect and so it is always a fun ride!Allegra Fielding is a journalist who has just pitched a story to her boss – How to turn a not-so-perfect man into Prince Charming! It’s a fantastic idea…but then she has to deliver on it! With no idea on where to locate and convince a man into a huge makeover, Allegra decides to use Max as her model man. But what happens when she tries to turn him into Mr Perfect? And with Max convinced there’s nothing hotter than a man who is a little rough around the edges, this is going to be an adventure neither will forget…I really enjoyed this book! I especially liked how at first Allegra sees Max just as the answer to her problem of delivering on her article, and how Max didn’t really notice Allegra in the beginning either, as it gave me something to root for. As a result I thoroughly enjoyed their scenes together and seeing how they progressed together throughout the novel.I really LOVED Max! I think one of the things I liked most about him is that he’s a normal guy, he’s your hero who walks the streets and lives a normal life, but at the same time there’s something extra special about him. I loved Max’s personality, he was so lifelike and he jumped from the pages. You just can’t help falling in love with him!I also liked the idea that this was a realistic story that could happen to anyone in real life, it made it extra exciting and will hopefully give faith and hope to other ladies out there that anything can happen and you can fall in love whenever you least expect it! This book left me with such a warm feeling – so buy it, read it and enjoy falling in love with this fantastic story! less

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