Page 16 of Take Me Tender

“Insulting me won’t get you out of explaining why the hell you stood me up,” she said.

“You shouldn’t have tricked me into agreeing to escort you in the first place,” he retorted.

She slammed her arms over her chest, doing even more for it than that previous deep breath. Gabe—God, the guy must be a saint—didn’t take the bait this time. His gaze remained trained on her flushed face.

“What’s your excuse?” she asked. “Drunk again? If so, you shouldn’t have gotten behind the wheel, Gabe.”

“I’m not drunk. You want to smell my breath?” He leaned forward.

She shoved him away with the flat of her hand. “Talk about tricks. I’m on to you and your mints.” Her shoulders drooped and she looked away, then back again, to focus somewhere on the other man’s collarbone. “You shouldn’t drink and drive, Gabe.” Her voice was just a notch above a whisper. “Please, please, don’t.”

Uh-oh. This didn’t sound good.

But then that thought skittered away as Jay noted the bleak look that overtook Gabe’s usually noncommittal expression. “Cassandra…” He cupped her chin in his hand to bring her eyes level with his. “I might be on self-destruct, but I don’t plan on taking anyone else with me.”

The air between them filled with tension, and Jay was forced to look away, as if they’d suddenly stripped in front of him. And there, in his direct line of vision, stood Nikki, presenting the sleek line of her back to the crowd as she stood alone, observing the ocean through the glass.

She had every right to be as angry with him as Cassandra was with Gabe, he realized. Sure, he’d brought her to the party, but then he’d promptly dropped her.

Before he had a second thought, he was standing beside Nikki. “Okay, I’m sorry,” he said. “I wouldn’t blame you for being mad that I abandoned you.”

Her eyebrows rose as she turned her head toward him. “I’m not mad at you.”

“I left you alone.”

“I’m perfectly fine alone.” She seemed sincere.

Which made him want to gnash his teeth. “I don’t believe it. No woman is this easy. You can’t possibly be that undemanding.”

She blinked at him, her two-colored eyes unbalancing him as they so often did. “I’m that undemanding.” A cat’s smile curled the corners of her lips. “Or then there’s the other explanation—that I’m just not that into you.”

Leaning toward him, she lowered her voice to a whisper. “And you know which one’s closer to the truth, handsome, and also exactly why.”

It was their game. The one she didn’t realize he knew they were playing. But that was good. That meant he had control as the rule maker, as the master of what was happening between them.

Which was nothing, of course. He was sworn off women. And she was so against getting involved with him that she was willing to fake liking girls to avoid it.

So why did that annoy him so much? Hef Junior should be able to handle this better.

But now he only wanted to handle her. There was a dance floor set up in one corner of the deck. Couples were swaying to the band’s California cliché of a tune. But a lousy cover of the Beach Boys’ “In My Room” was fine for what he was after.

His hand circled Nikki’s wrist. She glanced down at his fingers, up at his face.

“Shanna’s here,” he said. No, she wasn’t. “Let’s dance.”

He hadn’t completely lost his wits, however. Though he took her in his arms, he didn’t bring her too close. Her hand was passive in his, the skin cool at the middle of her bare back.

“I saw you talking to Cassandra and Gabe,” she said.

“Yeah.” There was enough room for a stout fence to be built between them, and it allowed him a view of the fine skin over the swell of her breasts. He remembered the hard outline of her nipples at his front door that morning and then again when he’d kissed her on the stairs. And as if she remembered, too, he glanced down to watch them harden once again.

Christ, did women know how the sight of that affected a man?

She cleared her throat. “Getting cold out here.”

He looked up. Her face was flushed and as he watched, she licked her bottom lip. Just as he’d done on the stairs. He’d licked it, bit it, savored its pillow softness before sliding his tongue into her mouth.

Without thinking, he pressed against her back to draw her closer against him. Through their clothes, his cock brushed the tautness of her belly. Her breath hitched in her throat and her bi-colored eyes darted to his.

“There’s a woman over your left shoulder,” he said, to prove that despite being horny as hell he could play the game, too. “Black hair, brown eyes.” Nikki stumbled as he swung her around.

“See her there now, the one in the blue dress?”

“Um, sure.”

“She looks like your type.”

Nikki tripped again.

“I can introduce you,” he said, smiling to himself. This was how he’d regain the upper hand with her. If she’d admit it was him and not other women that revved her engines, then he could back away, satisfied. “Want me to?”

“Well, uh…I don’t know.”

He couldn’t swallow his smile now. Goading her felt good, and any minute now she’d give up the game and leave him the clear-cut winner. “Don’t be shy. I’ll be happy to help you make the first move—as long as you give me a blow-by-blow of the private ones.”

She made a choked sound.

“Can you blame me? All that talk of strap-on sex has me firecracker-hot.”

He swung Nikki around again, glad to see that the stranger in the blue dress wasn’t blowing his story by cuddling up to some guy. Another turn, and Nikki was facing her potential date once more. “What do you say? Shall we dance her way?”

Surely she wouldn’t take the charade that far. He held his breath in anticipation of her confession and his freedom from her unprecedented hold over him.

“Jay…I don’t know. To be honest…”

Yeah. Honesty. Finally.

A line drew itself between her brows. She frowned and it was that adorable, heterosexual frown of hers that he couldn’t resist. He started to lean down to take a nip out of that pouting bottom lip.

Then her eyes widened and her mouth moved into a bright, anticipatory smile. “Oh, Jay. I was going to say no, but now…well, now, how can I? You big meanie, teasing me like that. You should have told me from the start.”

His shuffling feet slowed. “Told you what?”

“That right over my shoulder is my deepest, darkest fantasy come true.”

He knew he was walking right into it. He felt the blood rush to his face as he repeated, “Fantasy?” and this time she took the lead and swung him around.

“You should have told me from the start there’s two of them—that they’re identical twins!”

Seven

I don’t know what sex appeal is. I don’t think you can have sex appeal knowingly. The people who seduce me personally are the people who seem not to know they’re seductive, and not to know they have sex appeal.

—OMAR SHARIF, ACTOR

Nikki felt Jay’s hand close tightly over hers. “That’s it,” he said, and dragged her off the dance floor. “I’m done here.”

Her knee protested as she pulled back to halt his movement. “What’s wrong?”

“I told you earlier tonight this wasn’t going to work, Nikki.” He kept tugging her toward the doorway leading into the restaurant.

“I wore pink,” she said, struggling to stay calm. “I told people we’re dating. I’ve done my part, Jay.”

“Played a part, you mean,” he muttered.

“But that’s what you wanted.” She knew her voice was reedy with dismay, and she hated having to beg him, but she was getting very close to it. There were bills to pay, a car to feed, a knee to nurture. “And you like my cooking, you can’t deny that.”

“Your cooking rocks.” He continued onward, and too soon they were standing beside the valet’s stand, waiting for his car to be brought around.

“You haven’t experienced all I have to offer yet,” she said.

He turned his head to stare her down. “I’m quite aware of that, cookie.”

“Listen to me. Stuffed hamburgers. My famous margarita muffins. What I can do with a pork tenderloin has been known to make grown men weep.”

“I’m not much of a crier.”

“Me neither. See? We have so much in common. And I can be, uh, nicer. Is that what you want?”

I can be whatever you want. Her younger voice, slurred by booze and by loneliness. I can be whatever you want, I’ll do whatever you want. Just don’t leave me alone.

Nikki shoved the memory underground, where it belonged. She wasn’t fifteen. She wasn’t that desperate.

Not quite yet, anyway. She cleared her throat as a little white sports car pulled up to the curb. “Jay?”

“You know what I want, Nikki? I want—” He broke off as his beautiful, Botoxed neighbor emerged from the driver’s side. “Oh. Shanna.”

The other woman gave Jay a tentative smile, her gaze darting to Nikki and then back again. “You’re leaving already? I was hoping to run into you here, Jay. I could come over tomorrow, I suppose, or if you have a moment now…”

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