I don't know if it's because I was a Speech & Debate/JSA nerd, or that I grew up wanting to be Clair Huxtable, or maybe I just watched too many old movies when I was younger, but to me, chemistry is about everything that is unsaid when you're bantering back and forth. It's the passion and intelligence behind good conversation. 
 Julie James's Practice Makes Perfect has a lot of passion, a lot of intelligence, and a helluva lot of chemistry. It's a contemporary romance that feels like a throwback to great old movies like His Girl Friday and Woman of the Year. 
 Payton Kendall and JD Jameson are senior litigation associates at a top law firm. They are equally matched, equally paid leads who are fighting for a promotion to partner that only one of them can get but both equally deserve. They've hated each other for 8 years -- 8 long years where they've had to keep tabs on the other for, um, you know, one-upmanship purposes. Yeah, one-upmanship purposes only. When they are brought together to work on a $20 million case, their forced camaraderie in front of the client has them acknowledging the other's competence for the first time. And you know what? Competence is sexy as hell too. Their snappy retorts back and forth for the past 8 years barely masked the tension between these two fierce competitors, but could it be sexual tension? *Dun dun!* 
 I liked Julie James's debut novel, Just the Sexiest Man Alive, but I liked this one even more. The bantering between the leads and their love-hate relationship reminded of the Spencer Tracy-Katharine Hepburn dynamic. The sex was also very PG-13, but that's okay because it's about the buildup before. I'll definitely be reading more of James's books. 
 This book also reminded me of one of my favorite songs, Mind Sex by dead prez: 
 See I ain't got to get in your blouse 
 It's your eye contact, that be getting me aroused 
 When you show me your mind, it make me wanna show you mines 
 Reflecting my light, when it shines, just takin our time 
 Before the night's through, we could get physical too 
 I ain't tryin to say I don't wanna fuck, cause I do 
 But for me boo, makin love is just as much mental 
 I like to know what I'm gettin into 
 We could have mind sex, we ain't got to take our clothes off yet 
 We can burn the incense, and just chat 
 Relax, I got the good vibrations 
 Before we make love let's have a good conversation.