Girl Gear 1: All Tied Up (12 page)

Macy sipped, sipped again, then quit pretending she hadn’t been needing a drink since ten o’clock yesterday morning to calm the nerves that still sparked and burned every time she remembered the feel of Leo buried in her body.

She set her half-empty bottle on the counter behind her, braced the heels of both palms on the countertop edge. “Things like this don’t happen to me, Lauren. When it comes to guys, you know? This is like a pure beefcake fantasy. Like taking a shower with Ben Affleck or Mark Wahlberg or Heath Ledger.”

Lauren finished a sip of her own drink. “Leo Redding’s just a man, Macy. He’s no better or different than anyone else. Except maybe in his own mind.”

A week ago, Macy would have agreed. Especially that Leo held himself in high regard. But until she’d had him underfoot and done her best to return the favor, she’d only seen the starch in his collar and the “Esquire” at the end of his name.

He was no more just a man than she was just a woman. “No. He is different. And, in a lot of ways that matter to me, he is better. And you can get your mind out of the gutter, because I’m not talking about being better in bed.”

“So?” Lauren’s comeback held less confusion than
curiosity. “Yes, he’s gorgeous and sexy, but so is Anton. So is Eric. So is Ray. There are a dozen gorgeous, sexy men out there.”

Macy wasn’t even sure she could explain. Or if any explanation would make sense. “Okay. For one thing, he gets my jokes. He doesn’t laugh, but he gets them. And he comes right back with his own.”

“Okay, gorgeous, sexy and funny.”

“Actually, he’s not that funny. At least he’s more funny sarcastic than funny ‘ha-ha.’ It’s an intelligent humor. A bit dry, a bit wry…”

“That’s still not doing it for me, Mace. You’ve gone how long between men? I want to know why Leo?”

“Why Anton?”

“Now
that
was love at first sight. Which I don’t think is the case with you and the lawyer.”

“Love? Leo? Screw you for even saying, even thinking, that word.”

“Then tell me what it is you’re thinking because, I’ve got to be honest, Mace.” Lauren shook her head. “I’ve thought about the two of you. A lot. Especially after the last game night and the way you two were all over each other during that kiss.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. Not what I’m thinking or what I’m doing or what I’m feeling. Nothing.” Her shoulders drooped as the exhaustion she’d held at bay took over. “All I know is that he makes me ache. My body and my brain.”

“You said he gets your jokes but doesn’t laugh.”

Macy nodded.

“Okay, then. Does he make
you
laugh?”

“What?”

“Does Leo Redding make you laugh?”

She had to stop and think. She pulled out a chair from
the breakfast nook table and sat, stunned less by the admission she was about to make and more by the implication. “No. He doesn’t. And I haven’t even noticed enough to care.”

“Don’t get me wrong here. I can’t think of anybody Leo Redding could use in his life more than you. But for him not to make you laugh when your number one goal in life is to have fun…” Lauren let the thought trail away.

“That’s just the thing that’s so confusing, Lauren. I am having fun.”

“Leo Redding has to rank at the bottom of any fun-guy chart ever put together. Every time you’ve dumped a guy, it’s been because he bored you silly.”

“Leo definitely doesn’t bore me silly. Unless you mean bore, as in…oh, I don’t know.” Macy couldn’t help herself. “Drill?”

Lauren rolled her eyes. “I meant bore as in dud. Not bore as in…”

“Thud?” Macy suggested in all innocence.

“Thud, huh?” Lauren sipped her wine cooler, studied Macy over the end of the bottle. “Is that like a sound? Or an action?”

“Or maybe the sound of the action? Like in a really bad porn movie.” Macy went into an orgasmic display of moans and heavy breathing.

Lauren choked on her drink and poured the remainder down the drain. “Eww. Way too much information. Look. I have an idea.”

“I can hardly wait,” Macy muttered.

“Since he doesn’t make you laugh, but you are having fun, in an admittedly warped and twisted sort of way—” Lauren stuck out her tongue in answer to Macy doing the same “—why don’t you go out there and demon
strate what it means to party? See if he’s capable of showing you a good time in public.

“Because, no matter how much fun you say you’re having now, Macy Webb, you’re not going to keep having fun in any relationship—sexual, platonic, whatever—where there are issues about you taking this kid-at-heart thing to the extreme. I know that. You know that. And Leo Redding, especially, needs to know that.”

Macy shook her head, because that was what frightened her most. Facing him again. Hearing that they’d made a mistake. She didn’t have stars in her eyes. She didn’t think she and Leo were headed for Eric’s dreaded matrimonial bliss. But she didn’t want to hear that they’d made a mistake.

“That would mean I’d have to talk to him. Acknowledge his presence. Maybe even look him in the eye.”

“Oh, you don’t want to talk to him, but you’ll shower with him. That makes no sense whatsoever.” Lauren grabbed Macy by the elbow, pulled her up out of her chair.

“Now. It’s time to face the music. Let’s see if you two can have as much fun with your clothes on as you seem to be having with your clothes off.”

B
Y THE TIME
L
AUREN
and Macy joined the group—a group that seemed to Leo to be the same bunch to have witnessed him fall prey to Macy’s Spin the Webb—the public housewarming was over and the private party was on.

A flick of a switch dimmed the overhead lighting, leaving the room awash in Mardi Gras flashes of yellow, green and royal blue, the light thrown by paper lanterns cleverly suspended from beams crisscrossing the room’s high ceiling.

The music was loud, a blend of sexy Latin pop and funky Brazilian bossa nova that added its own electronic spice to the fiery drinks and appetizers. The evening’s main courses offered a flavorful Asian flair to the multicultural experience.

Anton mixed margaritas by the gallon to wash down the fire of the jalapen˜o hors d’oeuvres. Whether stuffed with cheese and crab meat, or breaded and fried, the peppers packed an eye-watering, throat-scorching punch. Leo stopped after three.

He stopped, as well, after three margaritas. The drinks gave him a nice buzz without making him stupid. At least not stupid enough to find a secluded corner and drag Macy away from the party and into the dark.

He wanted to lift her skirt, to see what she’d chosen to wear beneath. He wanted to measure the heat of her skin. To gauge her reaction to the boldness of his touch, because he still wasn’t certain that what had happened between them had burned with the heat he remembered.

Tonight they’d wound up seated at the far end of the long dinner table. She sat across from him, but had managed to avoid eye contact through most of the meal. The main conversation was to her right, to his left, which gave her plenty of reason to keep her gaze averted.

Not that she needed more reason to ignore him than what they’d done thirty-six hours ago in the shower. And then again on his bed. Because after the fact—after the act—they hadn’t spoken except to mumble niceties and dress in their respective rooms for their respective days.

He hadn’t seen her since except to watch her while she slept, until he couldn’t take any more of her undersea world of Jacques Cousteau. Avoiding her hadn’t been intentional. But neither had time and space put what had happened into any sort of logical perspective.

He wasn’t the love ’em and leave ’em type. True, he was more into conquest than into commitment, but the women he dated knew that going in. His relationship policy, whether short-term or long, had always been to make sure he and his partner were on the same page.

He and Macy hadn’t even opened the covers of the book.

They’d just fucked.

“Whoa, Chloe, baby! Pour that hot stuff this way!”

Eric Haydon’s rowdy shout brought Leo out of his musings. He glanced toward the big room’s fireplace, crafted from the belly of an old woodstove, to see Chloe and Lauren dancing in front of it. A dance that set the bump and grind tone for the rest of the party.

The inviting crook of Lauren’s finger was all the encouragement Anton needed. He slipped out from behind the bar and in between the two women, who writhed and popped to the hot salsa music, arms overhead, hips grinding, heads thrown back, hair whipping as they moved.

Chloe blew a kiss Eric’s way. He bailed out of his chair to join the other three, spinning Chloe away from the ménage à trois and into their own private party. Ray took over bartending duties, pouring straight tequila shots, while Jess made like a sideshow knife-thrower and quartered the last of the limes. He tossed a requested wedge to Melanie.

She caught it, squeezed the juice into her Corona longneck. Then she and Sydney upped the revelry, whooping and hollering, banging beer bottles and mugs on the table, egging on the four dirty dancers and the dynamic duo tending the bar.

Macy, Leo watched surreptitiously. She had yet to say much of anything, but he didn’t doubt for a minute that
she was having a good time. Her entire upper body rock ’n rolled to the beat of the music and the rhythm of the dance. Her smile was infectious and he caught the disease.

Caught himself starting to relax.

This was so unlike him, this casual partying, this giving it up for fun. This total inability to stay focused on the game. Macy made it too easy to forget that he was here for the win and the win only. He had to remember that his involvement with this group was of a limited duration. One month. The length of Macy’s gIRL gAMES scavenger hunt and no longer.

The same should they continue their affair. He could afford a short-term diversion. He’d enjoy her company, take pleasure in her body as long as the arrangement suited both their needs. His were suited perfectly. Hers hadn’t yet been established. He’d see that they were tonight.

The more he thought about it, the more he liked that plan. Yeah. He liked it a lot. An affair he could definitely handle. That Macy was as willing as she was, as talented as she was…a man would be out of his mind to say no. But he’d be a fool to consider any sort of long-term investment in a woman, any woman, whose approach to life was more sophomoric than strategic.

Macy’s sudden and animated cry of, “Go Lauren!” brought Leo’s head back up in time to catch Anton working to pull a wedge of lime from between Lauren’s lips with his teeth. Lauren refused to let go, earning her cheers from the women, earning Anton a ribbing from the men.

He hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her tight to his body, using his tongue where his teeth had failed and prying loose the lime. By this time Lauren
wasn’t putting up much of a fight; was, in fact, doing what she could to ditch the wedge, making Anton’s win all the sweeter. Leo had yet to meet a man who didn’t savor a woman’s surrender.

And then there was Eric, never willing to be outdone. He grabbed a shot glass from Jess in one hand and Chloe by the wrist with the other. “C’mon, woman. Let’s show these yahoos how a real tequila kiss is done.”

Chloe speared her own wedge of lime from the bowl on the bar and gave Eric the full evil-eye treatment. “I’m only letting you get away with that woman remark because my payback is going to bring you to your knees.”

“Give it your best shot, baby.” His grin was wide as he leaned into Chloe’s space. But he didn’t lean too far, considering Chloe still held the lime on the end of Jess’s paring knife.

The four supporting females called encouragement to Chloe, Melanie taking an empty longneck bottle in each hand and pounding a punctuating beat. “Payback! Payback! Payback!”

“Eric Haydon, you are in such deep shit. You are not going to know what hit you.” This from Lauren, who stood encircled in Anton’s arms, snuggling back into his chest now that they’d traded in their public exhibition for the intimate embrace.

Even normally serene Sydney leaned an elbow on Ray Coffey’s shoulder and blew an ear-splitting rah-rah whistle. Having hung up his bartending apron and returned to the woman who’d held his attention most of the evening, Ray tugged his earlobe and shook off the deafening aftereffects.

Watching as Eric circled Chloe like Sylvester the Cat preparing to pounce and devour a tiny, defenseless
Tweety, Macy was the last to give a shout, clapping as she added her chant to Melanie’s. “Chlo-e! Chlo-e! Chlo-e!”

As if Chloe needed any more encouragement. She’d already lowered both spaghetti straps of a black velvet top, a top held in place by nothing but full feminine curves and a whole lotta luck. And now she fluffed her powder puff hair and cocked a hip in a show of Mae West attitude.

Leo sat back in his chair, crossed his arms and extended his legs. His foot bumped Macy’s. He left it in place. He wasn’t surprised when she did the same. But then she pressed her bare sole to his bare ankle. On purpose. And Leo felt the evening’s first true stirrings of intrigue.

Anton jacked up the volume until tambourines and maracas rattled the windows and walls. Chloe trailed the lime across the tip of her tongue and her lips, rubbed it over Eric’s mouth, then squeezed the wedge against her chest, trickling droplets of juice into her cleavage.

Staring at the wet and tempting trail, Eric remained unmoving and at a loss for words. A rare thing, even Leo had to admit, but it didn’t last for long. Seconds later, Eric let loose a wild animal howl, baying toward the ceiling and the full moon beyond.

Leo’s pulse ripped like an unexpected shot through his veins. He felt the urge to echo the primal sound. Because, as Chloe sprinkled salt over the damp trail of skin, as Eric smacked his lips and rubbed his hands together, as Leo wrapped his hand around—he swore—his last margarita of the night, Macy’s toes begin a slow crawl up his leg.

He tensed, then forced himself to relax, not wanting to make a move that would dissuade her exploration,
wanting to see what she had on her mind, if he’d read her right. Later tonight they’d be taking the time with one another’s bodies they’d not been able to take in the shower or in his bed.