He pushed the drink toward her on its coaster.

"Ooh, with a sword and a cherry and everything. This is the cla.s.siest drink ever."

"It's called a Jack Rogers."

She took a sip. "This has alcohol in it?"

"Whiskey, c.o.ke, and grenadine."

"It's delicious. How many of these would I have to drink to get tipsy?"

He c.o.c.ked his head. "Two, maybe? You're a little thing, and you've got no tolerance. Three would get you plastered, I bet."

"I want to try that sometime. Getting plastered. I could drink three of these, and then you could take me home and we could play pirate."

"Pirate?"

"It's the tiny swords. They make me think of swashbuckling."

Another grin, this one a little dirtier. "I have a sword," he said. "But it's not tiny."

"I remember."

"If you want to swashbuckle again, I'm game."

"Was that some kind of romantic declaration, disguised as a filthy pirate s.e.x offer?"

Their eyes met. His smirk faded, and his hand covered hers on the table. His palm felt clammy, the way it had in the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"Yes," he said.

"Maybe you should go ahead and declare it. So I don't get my hopes up and start thinking this is a date, if you meant it as an entree to my ... you know. Booty."

"I want your booty, Amber."

She laughed nervously. "I know you want my booty, you pervert. I'm asking if you want anything else."

"I do. I want to see where this goes between us."

She nibbled a cherry off her tiny sword.

It wasn't I love you and I want you to bear my children.

It wasn't even I'm feeling reckless and full of despair because I'm head over heels for you.

It was pretty tepid, as declarations went.

Not good enough.

"You're going to have to do better than that," she said. "I cried for more than an hour on Sat.u.r.day morning, and I ate a lot of ice cream with my mom. She doesn't like you very much, by the way. She says you need to grovel."

And Amber was being flirtatious and silly, because she was afraid of what he would say if they had a real conversation. She was afraid of what she would feel if he took her hope away.

He seemed to know it. He lifted her hand off the table and clasped it between his. "Amber? Look at me."

His brows were drawn together, which probably would have scared some people off, but his eyes were Tony's eyes, and his hands were Tony's hands. All of him so dear and familiar to her, even though she hadn't known him for very long.

"I'm sorry," he said. "You know I tried to warn you off, in the bas.e.m.e.nt, because I'm not ... I haven't been the best bet."

"I think you're a good bet."

"I know you think so, honey." He sighed. "I want to be able to promise you that everything's going to work out perfect. I want to say I can give you forever, and a little house with a fence and babies and all that stuff you deserve, if you even decide you want it from me somewhere down the line. But I can't promise, Amber. I can't know."

"n.o.body can."

"I know. That's what I'm saying. And for as long as I can remember, that was enough to make me say, f.u.c.k it, it's not worth it.' I don't do risks. I don't take risks anymore, not ever, but I took one with you, and it scared the s.h.i.t out of me, because it made me want to take a hundred more. Big risks."

The hope bubble got bigger, expanding until it filled her chest and made her eyes tear up. "What kind of big risks?"

"Like the kind where you move in with me, or I move in with you, and you mix all our videos together so we can't tell whose are whose."

"Mine will be the chick flicks."

She needed to stop being frivolous, but she was so happy and so scared, she couldn't figure out how. He meant it. He was going to try. For her.

"Like the kind of risk where you sleep with me every night, and I get used to holding you close and leaving the light off, and I tell you all kinds of stuff I never told anybody else."

"You already told me about the spiders."

A hint of a smile, and then his brows drew together again. "Like the kind of risk where I might fall in love with you."

She made a noise. Kind of a gasping, inelegant noise, and Tony grimaced.

"It's okay," she said. "You haven't shocked me. Or, okay, maybe you did a little bit, but it's only because you're doing such an excellent job with the groveling."

"I want you, Amber. Bad. Not just your booty. I want to have breakfast with you in the morning. I have this fantasy of you cooking me eggs and bacon in that pink robe."

"That's a very male fantasy. Do you also get a b.l.o.w. .j.o.b?"

"Not in that one. We just talk and eat breakfast."

"I like that. Can I tell you one of mine?"

A little smile. "Anytime."

"I have this fantasy of taking you to my parents' for dinner and introducing you to everybody as my boyfriend."

She waited for him to turn white or gulp or run away, but he didn't do any of those things. He stroked his thumb over the back of her hand. "I'd be okay with that."

"Good. Don't worry, I didn't want to do it tonight. Tonight, I was hoping for more debauchery."

"There you go again with the big words."

She leaned close, so they were just a few inches apart, and whispered, "It means f.u.c.king.' "

"I know what it means."

His hands clamped around her waist, and he pulled her out of her chair and into his lap.

"In public, Tony?"

"This is a bar. All kinds of debauched s.h.i.t goes down here."

When he kissed her, her whole body filled up with light, and she threw her arms around his neck. She wanted to cry, so she kissed him back, and she did cry, a little.

He wiped the tears off her cheeks with the flat of his hand, somehow managing to look both alarmed by her womanly display of sentiment and deeply fond of her.

"You're really sweet," she said.

"Don't tell anybody."

She smiled and leaned her head against his shoulder.

"So am I forgiven?" he asked.

"Yes. This time. Don't run away from me again, though. I probably gained two pounds from all the ice cream."

"I'll help you work them off."

She kissed him on the cheek. "That sounds like fun."

"You want to come over to my house sometime?" he asked. "I've got a bigger bed than you, and it's not gonna bang into the wall when we make love."

"We're going to make love?"

"We might have to start, in a week or two. If we got bored with all the f.u.c.king."

"Just so long as you don't forget to f.u.c.k me sometimes. You know, for variety's sake."

He chuckled and buried his face against her neck. When he exhaled, his breath came out ragged, as though he'd dredged it up from the very bottom of his soul. Some of the tension drained out of him, the muscles of his thighs and his arm relaxing around her.

Amber held the back of his head, stroking her fingers through his hair. His palm drifted along her spine, up and down in a slow, soothing caress that felt like s.e.x without the s.e.x.

She thought it must be intimacy.

He raised his head and met her eyes. "I'll do the best I can."

She recognized the declaration for what it was-Tony's vow. Or, if not a vow, the closest thing to it he could manage. A commitment to see what happened, and an acknowledgment that they both already knew what was going to happen. Because it was already happening.

"Me, too."

For a long moment, he just looked at her, and she looked back at him, and everything felt exactly the way it was supposed to feel.

His lips curved into a smile. "I'm glad I got stuck in the bas.e.m.e.nt with you, bunny."

She smiled back. "So am I. But you've got to stop calling me-"

He cut her off with a kiss, and his mouth was so warm and soft and amazing, she let the bunny thing slide. Just this once.

Author's Note

How to Misbehave is the first in a series of novels and novellas about the Clark siblings-Amber, Caleb, and Katie-and their adventures finding love in sleepy little Camelot, Ohio.

I didn't set out to write this series. It just sort of happened. One day, I was musing about how cute Justin Timberlake is and how much I would like it if he mowed my lawn shirtless, as one does. The next thing I knew, I found myself plotting a novel about a pop star who visits his twin sister in the small college town where she lives and ends up having an affair with the woman who lives next door.

Now, don't get too excited. I didn't actually write that book. I thought I would, and I started working out the subplot for it. The Timberlake-ish hero has a sister, see, and the sister falls in love with the security guard who gets a.s.signed to her when her idiot brother's affair lands the town of Camelot on the front pages. I loved this idea! I got so excited about it, I sat down and wrote a few scenes for the subplot, and the next thing I knew, Ellen and Caleb had hijacked the entire book. The result is Along Came Trouble-Caleb Clark's story, due out in March 2013.

While I was writing Caleb's book, I gave him two sisters, one of whom shared his house and turned out to be a lot more interesting than I had antic.i.p.ated. One thing led to another, and suddenly Katie had a love interest, a big secret, and a book of her own on the horizon. Katie's story, Flirting with Disaster, comes out in June.

Amber and Tony actually came last. Because-world's-most-obvious spoiler alert!-they are already married when the action of Along Came Trouble takes place, I decided I wanted to go back in time and tell their "how Amber met Tony" story. Thus, How to Misbehave.

I hope you get as big a kick out of reading these Camelot stories as I did writing them!

Acknowledgments.

This would be an entirely different story if it weren't for Serena Bell-and not a better one. Despite being in the middle of a cross-country move, she acted as a sounding board, cheerleader, and teller of hard truths during the weeks I was writing How to Misbehave. I think she might actually love Tony and Amber more than I do, which is saying something. Thanks, Serena. My life is richer and my stories better because of you.

I'm also grateful for the enthusiasm and critical eyes of Anna Cowan, Del Dryden, Jill Sorenson, and Meg Maguire, all of whom read the ma.n.u.script and offered suggestions. You guys rock. My agent, Emily Sylvan Kim, told me how much she adored this novella just when I needed to hear it. She has a talent for that. My editors at Random House, Sue Grimshaw and Angela Polidoro, did their usual marvelous job of polishing up the prose and suggesting improvements. They also made me very happy by not cutting any of the c.o.c.k jokes. Love those two.

Giant smooches, finally, to my fans. I'm lucky to be able to do what I love every day, and it couldn't happen without you. Thank you from the bottom of my sappy little heart.

Photo: Mark Anderson/STUN Photography Ruthie Knox graduated from Grinnell College as an English and history double major and went on to earn a Ph.D. in modern British history that she's put to remarkably little use. She debuted as a romance novelist with Ride with Me-probably the only existing cross-country bicycling love story yet to be penned-and followed it up with About Last Night, which features a sizzling British banker hero with the unlikely name of Neville. Her idea of a Christmas story, Room at the Inn, is included in the Naughty and Nice anthology. She moonlights as a mother, Tweets incessantly, and bakes a mean focaccia.