Just for Fun

Dedication

To Nick, Nikoel and Derek—thanks for making every single day the best time I’ve ever had. And thanks for putting up with everything writing these books entails. It is fun, honest…in spite of the swearing you hear and the wine bottles and chocolate wrappers that pile up.

Chapter One

The sexy redhead who’d just stepped into the bar had been wearing far fewer clothes the last time he’d seen her.

But there was no doubt that she was the woman responsible for the hottest night of his life. Dooley Miller turned back to the bar and picked up his beer.

Well, shit.

This couldn’t be good.

“Hi, I’m looking for Douglas Miller. Do you know him?”

Just as he would have expected, his friends and co-workers parted like the Red Sea. It wasn’t that Dooley didn’t ever have women looking for him or wanting to find him. But he’d never had a woman who carried herself with such smooth confidence and obvious sophistication looking for him. None of the guys in the bar had, for that matter.

She was a whole different league.

He dated nice women, beautiful women, sexy women.

This woman was all of that times about ten thousand. Even the nice part. Though he doubted he was going to be seeing any of that in the near future.

He took a final fortifying swig, sighed and swiveled on his stool. He’d known, from minute one with her, that she wasn’t actually a stripper.

“Hi, Sugar.”

“You’re already calling her
Sugar
?” Mac, one of his best friends, asked.

Calling a woman Sugar did imply a relationship, after all.

Though having hot sex in public and spending an hour in jail together probably didn’t constitute a relationship.

“Sugar’s her name.”

“Actually it’s not. It’s Morgan.” She put her hand on one hip and regarded him with a mixture of amusement and irritation. An interesting combination to pull off.

Morgan. Something about knowing her real first name made him take a deep breath. “Sugar fits.” He took a drink of his beer as he watched her.

God he could still remember the taste of her skin against his tongue. And the way she moved. And the way she sounded.

All very, very sweet.

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment, considering you don’t know me.”

“I know some stuff.”

Her cheeks got pink and her eyes narrowed. “I suppose you’re going to try to convince me you played baseball for the Arkansas Travelers.”

He grinned. He’d known there was no way she’d recognize the name of his father’s favorite minor league baseball player, but he’d been sure she’d known it wasn’t
his
name.

“You Googled me?”

“I Googled, curious about the name you gave me. It didn’t sound totally made up.”

They’d agreed to use fake names. He’d pulled his out of his head right away. When she’d paused, probably trying to think creatively through all the Kahlua, he’d suggested Sugar. He’d also mentioned it sounded like a stripper name. She’d grinned and said, “Perfect.”

Even thirty minutes into knowing her, he’d been aware that the woman was far too high class to have ever set foot in a strip club.

“So how’d you find me?”

“You told me you were the CEO of St. Anthony’s Medical Center.”

“Did I?” Crap, that had been dumb.

“Lucky for me the actual CEO’s assistant immediately knew who I was talking about when I described you.”

“You went to his office?”

“He wants to talk to you on Monday.”

Dooley lifted his beer. He was sure he did.

“So—” she slid up onto the stool next to him, “—remember when you told me if I ever needed anything all I had to do was ask?”

He looked over at her, truly taking in the details now. She was wearing a pantsuit. A nice one that even showed a little cleavage, but a pantsuit nonetheless.

He preferred the cherry-red dress she’d worn to the fundraiser. The tight cherry-red dress that left her shoulders bare and clung to her curves.

That really didn’t sound like him. “I said that?”

“No, but it’s what you
should have
said.” She scowled at him. “Especially after you got me arrested and left me in jail while you paid your bail and walked out.”

Dooley didn’t have to look at his friends to know their expressions ranged from shocked to downright entertained.

In fact, he stoically avoided looking at them. “You had to pay bail?”

She frowned harder. “Fine, they finally let me out without bail. You still left me there.”

He’d paid her bail. That’s why they hadn’t asked her for it. But he didn’t want her to know it.

The whole night with this woman had been out of control from the beginning, and getting arrested had been the sobering moment when he realized he was headed for nothing but trouble with her. He’d been in a cell before. Having a mark on his record didn’t bother him. But it bothered him that he’d let things get so out of control it had affected someone else. Usually the other people with him in the cell were there because they deserved it.

In the jail cell it had become impossible to ignore that this woman was the complete opposite of the sexy-girl-just-looking-for-a-good-time she’d portrayed. He didn’t get involved with classy women. They naturally needed things he couldn’t give. Like money, for example.

That wasn’t his type. He wasn’t interested. It had been time to go.

Now she was here, had found him, in his regular hang-out. And the scene was all unfolding in front of an audience of his friends. Awesome.

“I need your help. And you owe me.”

“You need
my
help?” He faced her fully for the first time. He’d been avoiding it because he knew the moment he looked into her eyes, he’d feel like he’d been punched in the stomach.

He was right.

She was stunning. Her auburn hair fell to her mid-back when it was down. She had a killer body with generous breasts and curvy hips, enough for a man to have something to hold onto. But her legs were long and toned and her butt was tight.

She should have been a stripper. It wasn’t fair to humankind to not share every glorious inch.

She had a redhead’s pale, creamy skin, but there hadn’t been a freckle in sight. At least as far as he could tell. The lighting in the elevator had been good, but he hadn’t gotten her completely undressed. Just enough.

Her startlingly bright green eyes could have easily been mistaken for contact lenses, but they were real. They’d looked at him as if he could give her the world. Which had been exactly what he’d wanted her to think that first night. It was supposed to have been their last night as well.

She wasn’t looking at him like she thought he was a big shot hero right now.

He was dressed, as usual, in a pair of blue jeans and a T-shirt. His tennis shoes had seen better days, which made them his favorite shoes. They’d just come off a twelve-hour shift and he had some stubble going and knew his eyes were bloodshot from the lack of sleep he’d had last night.

He looked nothing like the man she’d met five weeks ago.

He did look great in a tux.

“Believe me, I’m not thrilled about it either,” she said, referring to needing his help. “But, as unbelievable as this may sound, I need your sophistication and—” she looked him up and down in obvious doubt, “—charm.”

There was a moment of shocked silence and Dooley braced himself.

Then his friends let loose with three equally delighted and loud whoops of laughter.

Sophistication and charm were not adjectives most people would assign him.

But Sugar—well, she’d seen his best side for sure. The side he’d almost forgotten he had.

Dammit, it had been fun.

Suddenly Kevin Campbell, another of his friends, bumped into her. Sam and Mac had shoved him forward.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, with the goofy grin that always had girls making goo-goo eyes at him.

“This is the best we can offer in the sophistication and charm department,” Mac said, slapping Kevin on the shoulder. “There are no promises here either, but he goes to church and eats with utensils.”

Dooley rolled his eyes. He deserved all of this. Had any of his friends been on the receiving end of the gorgeous redhead’s attention he would have been doing the same exact thing.

He had to get her out of here.

But before he could tell her that, she turned and looked Kevin up and down. “The next time I need to pray or have dinner I’ll keep him in mind. What I need right now, though, I need from him.” She pointed at Dooley.

Mac, Sam and Kevin raised their eyebrows in unison.

“You sure?” Sam asked.

“Oh, yeah.” She said it in a husky, seductive voice that had Dooley’s blood pumping harder.

There were only three things she knew he was good at: dressing up, playing Blackjack and giving her orgasms.

“I think we should talk by ourselves,” Dooly said, setting down his still half-full beer and sliding off his stool.

“Oh, no, no. We’ll be quiet,” Kevin said.

“Yeah, wouldn’t want to miss any details about your class and charm,” Sam added. Clearly the idea of Dooley having class and charm was intriguing. And hard to believe.

Well, screw them.

See? Totally charming.

He grinned in spite of himself. There was no reason for Sam or Mac to think he had class or charm. He never needed either with them around. Kevin knew him better. In fact, Kevin had been at the same fundraiser and had seen Dooley in his tux. He’d been properly surprised and amused by it, but he now knew Dooley could pull it off.

He hadn’t, however, seen him with
her
.

“Okay, come here.” He took a hold of her arm just above the elbow.

Touching her, even through the sleeve of her jacket, affected him. He felt his gut clench. Cripes. This was ridiculous. He had had sex with Lori, the lab tech he’d dated three or four times, just a couple of days ago. Or maybe it had been a week. Or two. Still, it wasn’t like he was hard up.

But that was the biggest danger of this woman—she’d made him
want
in a way he’d never experienced. In an out-of-control, shake-up-his-world way that had, frankly, scared the shit out of him.

“What are you talking about?” he asked as he steered her around the end of the bar into a corner that had one important characteristic—it was far from his friends.

“I need your help. And you owe me,” she repeated.

“You mentioned that.”

She turned and faced him. “Do you deny it?”

Fuck. He couldn’t. She’d participated in the getting arrested for public indecency, but he’d been the one to leave her in jail. It had only been half an hour, but he’d felt bad about it for weeks.

Also unusual for him.

So many things had been unusual about the night with Sugar that he’d wanted nothing more to do with her.

He was afraid that was no longer an option.

Looking at her now he was filled with a stupid, likely self-destructive, combination of lust, happiness and curiosity. She was here to find him. She needed him, wanted him for something. He liked that.

Definitely stupid.

He sighed. “I need a few more details before I agree to help out.”

“Even considering you left me? In
jail
?”

Okay, she was clearly pissed.

“Thirty minutes. You were there for an hour and a half total. Relax.”

“Relax?” she repeated. “You realize it shows up on background checks, right?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t be involved in things where they need to do background checks on you,” he suggested.

She narrowed her eyes. “It’s still there. I still know it and it bugs me.”

“Having my hand up your skirt didn’t bug you.”

Her eyes widened and she pressed her lips together. Then nodded. “You’re right. That didn’t bug me at all.”

He appreciated—and was turned on by—her honesty. “It’s a consequence. A risk you take to have what you want.” He didn’t have to drop his voice to a husky lower tone.

She stared up at him, her lips parting. Then she nodded. “You know what? I’d do it again.”

“You would?”

“Definitely. Even knowing I’d end up in jail, I’d do it all again.”

Heat swirled in his gut and he pulled her closer. “What do you need my help with?” Maybe she was here for a booty call of sorts. Maybe she’d missed him. Maybe she’d been thinking of him like had her. ‘Cause he’d go for it. Without question. Right here and now.

“I need you to go to Chicago with me for three days.”

O-kay. “Chicago?”

She sighed. “It’s a work thing I have to be at, but I want you to come along. We’re staying at a five star hotel, room service, massages…and I’m done by five every day, so then we’ll spend the evening together.”

“You want me to come to a work thing with you for three days in Chicago.”

“Right.”

“We barely know each other.”

“All I need to know is you dress well, you can schmooze with the best of them and the sex is out of this world.”

He grinned at that. “There will be sex in Chicago?”

She took a step back, looked him up and down and sighed. “Considering I’m in the middle of a bar and I’m annoyed with you and I still want to rip your clothes off…yeah, I’d say there will be sex in Chicago.”