Game for Anything (3 page)

Questions spun in her head in random order. Why had she waited for a whole year to seduce him? Why had she chosen to do it on a dance floor in front of other people? Why,
why
didn't they go somewhere else fast?

Inching up even higher on her toes, she tightened her arms around his neck and shifted her hips against him. She felt the moan he gave in response in every pore of her body, and felt the hard press of his erection against her stomach. She was trying to get closer still when his hands gripped her wrists. He untangled her
arms from around him, one then the other, and once he'd freed himself, he gently eased her away.

At first she was only aware of the coolness of the air on her skin and a sense of loss. She took a deep breath and found that her lungs were burning. And it didn't help one bit that Tracker was still looking at her as if he wanted nothing more than to devour her. “Why did you stop?”

“Damn it, Princess. Look around you.”

The moment she did, reality flooded in. She'd completely forgotten that they were standing at the edge of the dance platform, barely an arm's length away from gyrating couples.

Someone cleared his throat. “Mind if I cut in?”

I
T TOOK A MINUTE
for the question to register in his mind, and another minute for Tracker to gather enough of his scattered wits to recognize the man who'd spoken: John Landry, the perfect match for Sophie Wainwright.

Yes, I mind.
The words formed in his mind, but he managed to keep them from reaching his lips. He also managed to keep from shoving the man off the platform. Past Landry's shoulder, he could see couples were still dancing, and reality slipped fully into focus. One taste of Sophie and he'd nearly lost all control. He'd nearly taken her right on the dance floor. What had he been thinking?

“Sophie? Are you all right?” Landry asked.

Tracker glanced at her. She looked as shaken as he felt. More than anything, he wanted to reach out, draw her into his arms and just hold her. He might have if Landry hadn't reached out and taken her arm.

“Sophie.” Mac nudged her way past two couples to join them. Giving Landry a quick smile, she said, “I'm so sorry to interrupt, but I need to borrow my maid of honor. Just a little fashion emergency. It won't take long.” She shot an apologetic smile at both John
Landry and Tracker before she grabbed Sophie's hand and drew her off the dance floor.

Lucas was grinning from ear to ear as he joined the two men. “Mac needs a little help with her wardrobe. Shouldn't take long, Landry. Then Sophie will be all yours.”

Over my dead body.
The thought sprang to Tracker's mind before he could stifle it. He hoped to God that he hadn't said it out loud.

“No problem,” John Landry said. “I'll just help myself to a drink.”

Tracker kept his eyes on the man until he was off the dance floor.

“I sense a little hostility in the air,” Lucas said. “Mac and I are happy that Sophie is dating again, but if you've discovered something about Landry I should know…”

Tracker studied his friend, but there wasn't any sign that Lucas had seen him kiss Sophie.
Good,
he told himself. The kiss had been a mistake—one he wasn't going to repeat. “No. Landry's background checks out. There's nothing to show that he's after Sophie's money.”

Jealousy had a bitter, coppery taste, Tracker discovered. Landry was the perfect man for Sophie; he wasn't. That simple fact had been a lot easier to live with before he'd kissed her. Ruthlessly, he shoved the memory aside. “Mac looks fine. What's the emergency?”

Lucas leaned closer. “She has to change because she just popped a button on her skirt. The baby's growing.”

Tracker studied his friend. There was no mistaking the pride in his voice or the joy in his eyes. A stab of envy pierced him. “You hit the jackpot, didn't you?”

“Yeah.” Lucas threw an arm around Tracker's shoulders. “C'mon, let's go into my study for a minute and we can drink to that. Plus, I have a surprise—an old friend you and I haven't seen for a long time.”

 

“T
HERE
, I might look like I'm wearing pajamas, but I feel much better.” Mac pressed her hands against her rounding stomach as she studied herself in the full-length mirror. She'd changed from her two-piece evening gown into a white silk pantsuit in a stretchy fabric.

“You look beautiful,” Sophie said. “And you have no need to worry that your husband is going to develop a wandering eye just because you're having a baby. He's totally besotted with you.”

“It's mutual.” Mac smiled as tears began to fill her eyes. “And I'm not worried. He's throwing this party and taking me back to the island where we spent our honeymoon to let me know that even though I look like a blimp, nothing has changed—he'll be with me forever.”

Sophie felt a knot of envy tighten in her stomach.

“No one has ever done anything like that for me,” Mac continued. “And I have you to thank for it. If you hadn't pushed me into using my research on Lucas last year…”

Taking Tracker's handkerchief from her evening bag, Sophie handed it to Mac. “Yeah, well, my motives were not entirely altruistic.”

Sophie remembered quite clearly how she'd felt at the time, fresh from the humiliation of having her brother and Tracker McBride prove to her that her fiancé was only interested in her money. “I used you. I was more than a little annoyed at Lucas, and I thought having you practice your sexual fantasy research on him would get me out from under his constant surveillance.” Plus, it had given her great pleasure to outwit Tracker McBride.

Mac took Sophie's hands. “You insisted that I use Lucas as a guinea pig to test my research on sexual fantasies because you didn't want me to practice them on a stranger. Not only that, when I wanted to cut and run, you gave me the courage to stick it out. You were my role model. And I owe you for that.”

“That's nonsense,” Sophie said. “You and Lucas were made for each other.”

Mac shook her head. “Being meant for each other isn't enough. Take it from an expert on the subject. I wouldn't be here today if you hadn't nudged me into flying out to that island in your place. The last thing Lucas was looking for was a relationship. And I wasn't even the type he preferred to date. He told me that he'd decided never to marry.” Mac waved a hand. “I wouldn't have all this if you hadn't badgered me until I worked up the courage to tell Lucas just why I was there.”

“Mac, I—” Embarrassed, Sophie tried to pull her hands away, but Mac held tight.

“No. I'm going to finish this. It's my turn to nudge you. I saw you kissing Tracker on the dance floor.”

Everyone must have seen them.
“I…that is, we…”
She hadn't let herself think about the kiss since Mac had led her off the dance floor. When Sophie had started the game, she certainly hadn't expected it to go as far as it had. She'd forgotten everything—the game, her plan, everything but Tracker. “You must be thinking…”

“I'm thinking it's about time you made a move on him.”

Sophie blinked. “Really?”

“Since he's one of the most self-disciplined and self-contained men I've ever met, I think you were wise to take the initiative. I'm dying to know what you did to get him to kiss you.”

Sophie let out a dry laugh. “Would you believe I asked him to play a game of twenty questions, and the penalty for not answering a question was a kiss?”

“What a great idea,” Mac said with delight, reaching for a small notepad on the nightstand. “I don't think I have an example of that in my research. Twenty questions,” she murmured as she scribbled on the pad.

“Yeah, well, you better add a warning that the game is best played in private.”

Mac glanced up. “He's that good a kisser, huh?”

Sophie nodded. “I'm pretty sure some of my brain cells died. I couldn't even feel my legs when I followed you off of the dance floor. And if Tracker hadn't all of a sudden ended it, I would have…” A vivid image of exactly what she might have done formed in her mind. “Mac, you might have had an X-rated incident right in the middle of your anniversary party.”

Mac threw back her head and laughed, and in a moment, Sophie joined her. By the time they could both breathe again, they had settled on the edge of the bed.

“I don't know why I'm laughing,” Sophie said. “Tracker will probably have disappeared again by the time I get back downstairs.”

“I don't think so,” Mac said. “There's something between the two of you. I can see it whenever you're in the same room together.”

“Well, that doesn't happen often. He avoids me like the plague. And when he's forced into my company, he treats me like a kid sister.”

“Not tonight. And he
never
looks at you like a man looks at his sister. Tracker looks at you like he wants to throw you over his shoulder and carry you off somewhere. And he talks about you, you know.”

Sophie met Mac's eyes. “He does?”

She nodded. “He thinks you're one of the bravest women he's ever known. And the smartest.”

Sophie knew that Tracker was a frequent visitor at Mac and Lucas's house in Georgetown, but he never visited when she was there.

“I've seen the way you look at him, too,” Mac said. “After that kiss, you can't tell me you're not interested in him, or that you don't lust after him, at least.”

Sophie drew in a deep breath. “To tell you the truth, I've been toying with the idea of having an affair with him. But he's so…intimidating. I think I have a plan—but then he looks at me and my brains cells start to leak. I'm going to need more than a game of twenty questions with penalties.”

Mac beamed a smile at her as she rose and moved to her dresser. “I have just the thing. In fact, I put some items together as a little first-anniversary gift, bride to maid of honor. I was going to give this to you anyway, since you've started dating again. But I'm much more comfortable knowing that you'll use them on Tracker. He has a weakness for games—especially games of chance.”

“He does?” Sophie looked curiously at the small bag Mac was lifting off the dresser.

Nodding, she sat back down on the bed and reached into the bag. “I was thinking of Tracker when I selected these items. Must have been ESP or something. There, I've got it.” She held out a coin to Sophie.

“A quarter?”

“A two-headed quarter. I had a few good times using it with Lucas—until he figured it out.”

Sophie took the coin and examined it. Her mind was already racing with ideas as she glanced back at Mac. “You are a continual surprise to me.”

Mac beamed a smile at her as she pulled out a giant-size pair of dice. “Lucas says the same thing.”

Sophie stared at the dice. Instead of numbers, there were words printed on the sides. One die named actions: stroke, lick, kiss. The other named body parts: back, neck, breasts.

“They're a lot of fun,” Mac said.

Sophie turned the stuffed dice over in her hands. “Any way you roll them, it looks like a win-win situation to me. Where did you get them?”

“My friend in Paris told me about this great Web site.” She drew a final item out of the bag.

“A deck of cards?” Sophie asked.

“They
look
like playing cards,” Mac said as she fanned them open. “But they're really coupons.”

Sophie drew one. “‘This card entitles you to a
quickie
on demand. You name the time and place.'”

“You give it to the person and it's up to them to decide where and when to demand the quickie. I pick riskier places than Lucas does. It throws him off balance.”

Sophie grinned. “You're so good for him, Mac.”

“You'll be good for Tracker, too. He's lonely.”

She'd never thought of Tracker as having any vulnerabilities.

“He probably needs a little encouragement. Lucas did. And some of these little toys get amazing results.”

Sophie picked up the final item that Mac took out of the bag, a black velvet ribbon, and drew it through her fingers. “What kind of game do you play with this?”

Mac tilted her head to one side. “Bondage comes to mind, but there's a tag with an interesting suggestion.”

Sophie glanced at the tag and saw that it even included a diagram with what she suspected was a highly inventive Kama Sutra position. The man was seated, the woman was on his lap—backward—and the ribbon was looped around his… Tilting the card sideways, Sophie narrowed her eyes. Yep, the ribbon was looped around exactly what she'd thought. “Are you sure this is anatomically possible?”

Mac cleared her throat. “Not from personal experience. I think you have to have great powers of concentration to actually… My advice would be to improvise.”

Sophie glanced around the bed at the sex toys that Mac had taken out of the gift bag. “I'm getting that message loud and clear.”

“Tracker would be a safe person to try these out on.”

Safe.
Yes. In spite of his air of mystery and danger, she'd never felt safer than when Tracker had held her in his arms that very first day in Lucas's office. Right after she'd punched her brother.

“Go for it, Sophie.”

 

“T
RACKER
, I'd like you to meet Carter Mitchell,” Lucas said as he closed the French doors leading to the patio, and strode into his office. “He's one of the two men Sophie brought this evening.”

Tracker recognized the name. Carter Mitchell was the manager of the art gallery next door to Sophie's shop. Since Mitchell's relationship with Sophie had been strictly business, Tracker had had one of his men run a routine check. Now Tracker caught something familiar in the way Mitchell moved as he rose from his chair. The face was familiar, too. Although it was leaner now and harder, there were still traces of the baby-faced twenty-two-year-old he and Lucas had worked with on their last mission six years ago.

“Chance?” he said, narrowing his eyes as he took in the Italian designer suit, the slim gold bracelet he wore on one wrist and the diamond earring in his left ear. Chance had been the only name he'd known this man by when they'd worked together. They'd called him that because there wasn't a chance that he wouldn't take.

“Yeah.” He stepped toward Tracker and extended
his hand. “I figured I'd have to come clean the moment I walked through that door with Sophie. The name's Carter Mitchell now.”

Lucas moved to stand behind his desk. “Seems our old friend Chance is working undercover and he wants to make sure we don't spoil things for him.”

There was a steeliness in Lucas's voice that had Tracker withdrawing his hand from Chance's grasp.

“He took me aside and asked me not to give away his cover,” Lucas said. Then he turned to Chance. “Now, I want an uncut, uncensored version of who you're working for, and if my sister is involved.”