Girl Gear 3: Bound to Happen (4 page)

"Uh, Poe, what facts are you talking about?" Kinsey asked, prodding Jess's rib cage with her elbow and glaring when he leaned over and started breathing heavily into her ear. "Enough of that, mister. If I need heating up, I'll let you know."

Jess laughed.
Sydney
laughed. Even Poe laughed, this time leaning between Kinsey and Anton, giving Anton a dose of Doug's medicine while stacking the used dinner plates.

"The facts as I see them are that we're in the tropics, on a gorgeous island, surrounded by sand and surf, an incredible moonrise, a soft ocean breeze. And we're staring at each other and a table of dirty dishes when we could be having a lot of extracurricular fun."

With that, Poe headed for the kitchen—a huge open-air affair separated from the main dining area by a wide serving bar—leaving the others speechless, but only for a second or two, then everyone started talking at once.

"Extracurricular works for me," Jess said, leaning in closer toward Kinsey again, nuzzling his face against her bare shoulder and making whimpering puppy-dog sounds.

Wearing a bright-red tank top with her khaki drawstring shorts, Kinsey patted his head accordingly. Then she threaded her fingers into his hair and used the hold to pull his head from her shoulder. Her smile was a show of bared teeth. "What part of 'enough' don't you understand?"

Jess sighed and slumped in his chair. "Does that mean extracurricular is out of the question?"

Eyes rolling, Kinsey could only shake her head. "You're hopeless and I give up."

Doug, being a guy, was more in tune with Jess's plight and told him so. "What it means, buddy, is that you'll have to take matters into your own hands."

A round of groans and cries of "Gross!
Eww
! Yuck!" went up from the women. Ray found himself chuckling under his breath. Then he found himself glancing at
Sydney
… and found her gaze focused on him. Not on Doug or on Kinsey or on Jess. Not even on Poe, whom Ray could hear rummaging around behind him in the kitchen cabinets.

No,
Sydney
was concentrating solely on him. And doing so with a look that wasn't the least bit shy or evasive. He would've said she was flirting, but her expression was hardly that simple. What he saw in her eyes was more of an invitation, a sultry temptation to join her in sin. Her blue eyes sparkled, her wide mouth offered him a private smile that spoke of the intimacies they'd shared long ago.

He wanted to ask her what she wanted, what she was trying to say. He wanted to growl his frustration with this vacation that was becoming too crowded. But he had too much of an audience, and before he could get to his feet and pull
Sydney
along with him out onto the veranda, Poe returned from the kitchen.

Her rummaging had produced a serving tray bearing eight highball glasses, a decanter of bourbon, another of water and a bucket of ice. Standing behind the chair she'd occupied earlier, she set the tray in the center of the table.

"Now," she said, continuing the conversation she'd dropped like a bomb. "Since none of us are sleeping together, let's get drunk and talk about sex."

2

«
^
»

"
Y
OU HAVE GOT
to be kidding." Lauren pulled her feet up onto her chair and wrapped her arms around her knees defensively.

"Not at all, sweetie. In fact, I'm dead serious." Poe tugged the stopper from the whiskey decanter and set it on the tray. And then she cast a wicked look around the table, teasing her dinner companions with a sinister gleam in her almond-shaped eyes.

Ever since Poe had made her observation of the room's sexual tension,
Sydney
had been waiting for the other shoe to drop. After all, she'd been warned earlier out on the veranda—a warning left wide-open, giving Poe plenty of leeway and absolutely no boundaries.

And so
Sydney
wasn't a bit surprised when Poe finally grinned and said, "Truth or dare."

Stunned silence greeted Poe's announcement.
Sydney
knew that, given another second, the gang would come around. But she wasn't going to wait that long. She was more than ready to get started, more than ready for fun. And, so, with a mental
Here goes nothing,
she reached for a glass. "I'm game."

Lauren gave an audible gasp. "You can't mean that."

"I can mean it. I do mean it."
Sydney
tossed ice cubes into her glass and poured the bourbon. She looked down the length of the table, silently daring Lauren to say another word. "This is my vacation and I want to have fun."

"Truth or dare is fun?" Lauren asked, anyway, a brow raised.

"The right mood, the right company."
Sydney
lifted her shoulders, lifted her drink, glanced briefly at Ray as the fiery liquid slid over her tongue. The look in his eyes added to the burn, and it was all she could do to finish her reply. "Not to mention the right alcohol in the right quantity."

"I'll drink to that," Poe said, and finally everyone relaxed enough to laugh. Everyone, that is, but Lauren.

Lauren looked around the table, meeting one gaze after another, lingering the longest on Anton, whose expression was impossible to read. He definitely had stoicism down to an art,
Sydney
thought, but whether the look in his eyes was anger, intrigue or true indifference, she couldn't tell.

Lauren, obviously, wasn't having the same trouble. What she saw when she looked at Anton seemed to be all she needed to make up her mind. Decision made, she reached for the decanter and splashed a double over the ice cubes she'd added to her glass.

With a quick shake of her head, she downed a quarter of the drink, whistled, shuddered, then thumped the crystal against the table. "Fine. I'm in."

"All right," Doug said, and clapped his hands together. "I think we might just have ourselves a party."

At that, Anton grabbed his own glass and, not bothering with water or ice, downed the shot he poured. "Hell. If the subject is sex, count me in."

"Then sex it is." Poe pulled the stopper from the decanter of water and gave
Sydney
a quick wink.
Sydney
mentally crossed her fingers, hoping Poe hadn't gone too far. The last thing she wanted was for this game to backfire.

What she wanted, in fact, was for this game to rid the room of inhibitions. To rid Ray, in particular, of any hang-ups he might have that would prevent him from being open to her advances. Judging by the look in his eyes, however, judging by the way his gaze fairly simmered with uninhibited invitation, hang-ups weren't going to be a problem.

"So, Poe. Does your version of this game have rules? Or do we make it up as we go along?" Jess added two cubes of ice to two separate glasses, splashed both with bourbon and passed one to Kinsey. "I've got as good an imagination as the next guy but—"

"But like the next guy, you need direction. You just hate having to stop and ask." Smiling brightly, Kinsey toasted the other women with her drink and a round of high fives.

The men sat back, glowered and glared.
Sydney
had a feeling they were only biding their time. She'd yet to know a single man who didn't get a kick out of delivering a slam dunk comeuppance—especially to a woman.

"Hey, I asked. I asked." Jess tossed up his hands in exaggerated exasperation. "And like the next guy, I can't seem to get a straight answer, which is what I expected with a woman in charge."

This time it was the men exchanging the loud whooping endorsement of Jess's commentary on the female game plan. So, Poe did what any self-respecting woman would do when faced with a group of male chauvinists.

Leaning across the table, she beckoned him closer with the crook of one finger, running a fingertip over his lower lip when he met her halfway. "Why don't you put your money where your mouth is?"

Jess frowned, obviously confused by the switch in Poe's gears. "I don't get it."

"Since you seem to think I don't know what I'm doing, you figure out how this game should go down." She eased back into her chair. "Unlike you men, we women don't mind a bit when a man tells us what he wants us to do."

"I agree with Poe. Having a man in charge makes things run so much more smoothly." Kinsey scooted around in her chair and got comfy, having a whole lot of fun at Jess's expense as she stretched out her legs and crossed her ankles in his lap. "I just don't know what we'd do without you."

Jess ignored the batting of Kinsey's lashes, and smiling to herself,
Sydney
finally started to relax. Maybe a good time
was
about to be had by all. Poe's leap into the center of the tension was certainly proving a lot more effective than the eggshell route. Even Lauren had a grin on her face.

Jess rubbed his hands together, then he rubbed them from Kinsey's ankles to her knees. His brown eyes glittered and he lifted one dark brow. "Now this is more like it. Getting drunk, talking about sex, a man in charge and a woman in his lap. Doesn't get any better, does it, boys?"

His enthusiasm earned him a cuff to the back of the head from Kinsey. "You're forgetting one thing, mister. And that is paybacks are hell."

Jess thrust out his chin, tapped it with one finger. "C'mon, then. Your best shot. Right here."

Kinsey drew back a fist. Anton, sitting on her other side, caught her hand from behind.
Sydney
, in the chair next to Anton, leaned across and pried his fingers from Kinsey's, and when he turned to protest, she stack out her tongue.

At the other end of the table, Lauren poured herself another drink. "Enough, you people." She used her glass as a gavel. "Let Jess explain his rules."

"No kidding." Doug refilled his own glass, going for more water than whiskey. "If I'm gonna get lucky tonight, I'm all for getting this show on the road."

Poe lifted a brow. "Weren't you the one talking earlier about taking matters into your own hands?"

Ray chuckled, shaking his head and reaching for his drink. He met
Sydney
's gaze over the rim of the glass he lifted to his mouth. His eyes were bright, a beautiful green, his gaze sharp and intent in both focus and connection.

Shivering,
Sydney
raised her glass. This was exactly what she wanted. This anticipation, this attraction. This slow, simmering arousal that was beginning to sweeten the stakes of the evening. She sipped her drink. The whiskey burned and she lifted her chin as she swallowed.

The motion drew Ray's attention. His eyes flashed and, as he lowered his glass to the table, he blew out a long, slow breath and briefly closed his eyes.
Sydney
blinked, but looked away as she lifted her lashes. As much as she wanted to hurry, she wanted to wait, to take her time and savor the seduction as much as she planned to savor plucking the forbidden fruit from the vine.

She turned her attention back to Jess, who'd dislodged Kinsey from his lap and gotten to his feet. He placed both hands flat on the table and glanced around, making eye contact with everyone. "Here's how we play. Whoever I choose to go first will pick someone of the opposite sex and ask that person a question. That person then decides whether he—or she—wants to answer truthfully or go for the dare."

"And we have to come up with the dares, too?" Lauren asked, and Jess nodded.

Anton, slumped back in his chair with arms crossed, looked as if he'd swallowed a nastier alcohol than was ever stocked in the liquor cabinet on Coconut Caye. "What if the person answers, but someone else at the table knows for a fact that they're telling a lie?"

Sydney
took a deep breath and held it, waiting for Lauren to jump down his throat. But it didn't happen. Lauren only stared somberly at her drink. Her wounded expression tugged hard on
Sydney
's girlfriend heartstrings. Why did relationships have to be so damned difficult?