Spin Some More

An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Spin Some More

ISBN 9781419912658

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Spin Some More Copyright © 2007 Red Garnier

Edited by Kelli Kwiatkowski.

Cover art by Syneca.

Electronic book Publication November 2007

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

DEVILISH GAMES:

SPIN SOME MORE

I’d like to dedicate this book to the following wonderful people:
To my editor, Kelli Kwiatkowski, for her expertise, dedication and unrelenting faith in me
To my husband, who is simply the most adorable man in the world
And to all my readers, your time and support mean the world to me
From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

Trademark Acknowledgment

The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of the following wordmarks mentioned in this work of fiction:

BMW: Bayerische Motoren Werke Aktiengesellschaft

Care Bears: Those Characters from Cleveland, Inc.

Jell-O: Kraft Foods Holdings, Inc.

PGA Tour: The Professional Golfers’ Association of America

The spin devil didn’t work.

Which was odd, since it was the same toy that had thrown Jason Sheppy and his friends into a sexual frenzy only last year, at their mini-reunion at his beachfront home.

Since then, the plush devil had been making the rounds. David had just shipped it to Jason from New York, not having further use for it himself. But now that it was back in Florida, the little bastard wasn’t working.

Jason had tried it for the past two weeks and all he’d gotten was a few minutes of lousy sex with a really fat chick. He’d twirled it, whirled it and spun it some more, and no matter whether the tail or the pitchfork pointed at him, he still wasn’t getting any hot sex. The conclusion, then, was simple. The little shit didn’t work and Jason had no further reason to stride around town looking for a hot date with the little thing sticking from his shirt pocket in case he got lucky—since it was now pretty clear that he
wouldn’t
.

He’d been damned glad to see it sink deep into the ocean last night.

The problem was his neighbor, the young and beautiful Penelope Judd, a.k.a. little Miss Disaster, as he liked to think of her, thought she was being very cute and considerate coming to knock on his backdoor the next morning, clutching the vicious little thing in her hands.

Jason didn’t know who he was most annoyed at seeing—the spin devil or
her
. Miss Disaster was a load of trouble and every time he had the misfortune of seeing her, she all but dragged him into her personal crap bag of problems. It seemed she always needed someone to do some kind of weird, dirty job for her, and this unfortunate person—without exception—ended up being him. Only last month, she’d completely lost her house keys only God knows where—and it had probably been on purpose, no doubt, just to give Jason something to yell about. A half-hour later, he’d found himself hanging precariously from the ledge of an open second-story window of her house, climbing through it and running down to unlock the front door so the little princess could calmly stride inside. Then last week, she’d crashed her month-old BMW smack center into a palm tree on the side of the road, claiming it had all just “sort of happened.” Who did the little troublemaker call? Jason.

Hell yeah, why not?

The fact that Miss Disaster had been a permanent resident in his brain for what seemed like forever didn’t help his disposition much. Yes, she was damn good-looking, but Penelope was trouble. She was screwing up his brain and messing up his golf.

She was like a child in a woman’s body, and he the lucky, lucky sitter.

Two days ago he’d decided to stay away from her from now on because he’d had just about enough. He wanted
nothing
more to do with her. And he’d been doing fine, too, until right now.

He stared her down for a full minute, yet she seemed unperturbed by his deep blue gaze. It was unfortunate that she happened to look extremely, inordinately beautiful this morning, because that meant Jason would have to work double to ignore his body’s reaction to her. Her face was all but glowing and the freckles on her nose looked remarkably more like glittering gold than sunspots. Her eyes were framed by thick, spiky lashes and shone a beautiful amber color in the sunlight. Her hair, a soft brown with natural reddish streaks, was held back by a sleek white headband which only served to emphasize the delicate features of her face. Features so angelic that it was hard to believe a real live monster could live under there.

She wore a billowy, long white sundress, the bottom of her skirt flapping softly with the wind and the material around her hips clinging in a way Jason found infinitely disturbing. Flickering gold sandals encased her tiny feet and her little pink toes.

Although Jason had never harbored fantasies about licking toes, he found a particularly pleasant one coming to mind. Thank God he quickly caught himself before he did something mental like bite her toe.

In case she didn’t get the hint that he was not particularly thrilled to see her, he kept his face masked, his expression solemn. “Penelope,” he said flatly, hoping he sounded bored as hell.

Unperturbed by his less-than-warm greeting, she calmly walked past him. “I think you misplaced your toy, Jason,” she said airily as she strolled inside, pausing in the middle of the contemporary living room of his beachfront Florida home—a beachfront home which was, because God hated him—right next to hers.

Jason didn’t remember ever playing spin devil with her, so how the hell she knew it was his toy, he had no idea.

“Keep it,” he said flatly, not wanting to argue with her because he knew it would take up his whole morning, as arguing with her usually did.

“Why would I want to keep it?” She wrinkled her nose, grossed out by the idea.

“I’m not a devil worshipper.” A wide smile spread her lips, her teeth dazzling white and perfectly straight. “That’s why I knew this just
had
to be yours, Jason.”

Ignoring her bait, he raked his hands through his hair in exasperation. “Fine, leave it there,” he conceded.

Lifting the item in question up to her eye level, she frowned as she scrutinized it.

“What’s it for anyway?”

“You don’t want to know.”

Her eyes settled on his for a long, tense moment. Jason had always found that her strange, golden-colored eyes really packed a punch. Every time she locked gazes with him, he felt as if someone had slammed his gut.

“If I didn’t want to know I wouldn’t have asked you, now would I?”

“It’s supposed to be for sex,” he said simply. “Not something I want to discuss with you right now.” Her mouth formed a big wide O as her eyes widened. He didn’t want to think how damnably sexy she looked, standing in the middle of his living room with her mouth perfectly open and perfectly capable of receiving…something long and hard.

“But…I don’t understand… Where are you supposed to put it?” she suddenly asked, acting all innocent and confused. Now
this
was exactly why Jason felt he needed to protect her. She was too naïve, for Christ’s sake.

“You twirl it, Penelope. Like a bottle. Ever play spin the bottle?”

“All right then, if you insist. Should I just twirl it right over my palm or…?”

“Do whatever you want with it, I don’t really care. Just do it somewhere else.”

He knew her so damned well he already knew she’d do the opposite, so he figured he might as well get comfortable. Leaning back on his heels, he crossed his arms and calmly watched as she headed to a nearby table and set it down on top of the gleaming, polished wood.

“Let’s see now…hmm…there we go, twirl away little fellow,” she said with a wide grin as she spun it. Jason arched a brow when the little thing stopped, the tail pointing straight at him.

“Now what?” Penelope asked, blinking up at him. “Is this where you take your clothes off, or I?”

So witty. So
not
funny. That woman was in sore need of someone tying her to a bed and giving her something to be funny about. She practically lived to taunt and bug him and make him hot and miserable. “This is where you leave,” he said coldly.

Finally something got to her, making her little body stiffen. It had been either his tone or the words or both. Whatever. He didn’t care to know what, as long as she left him alone.

“Oh, silly me, I keep forgetting how crowded a golfing schedule can be.” She snatched the spin devil up to her chest before heading for the door. Pausing when she reached it, she pointed the devil straight at him. “You’re being a jerk, Jason.” She smiled benignly. “I just thought you’d like to know.”

Before she could leave, he snatched her chin with his thumb and forefinger and tilted her face up to his. “And
you’re
being a pest.” He made an effort not to smile. “I just thought you ought to know.”

“Your vocabulary has been very limited lately,” she countered, a mischievous spark dancing in her eyes. “That’s all you ever call me.”

Whenever she smiled at him like that it was as if every organ in his body malfunctioned, and it didn’t feel good. Somehow he still managed to shrug, feigning indifference. “I just thought pest sounded a little tamer than
canker
.”

She didn’t take offense and laughed instead, the sound soft and delicious and totally unfair to him. The way she made him feel—it wasn’t pleasant at all. Since she’d become his nightmare of a neighbor over a year ago, the word “peace” had all but gone extinct from his dictionary. Reckless and troublesome as she was, Penelope made his life a real roller-coaster ride. Problem was, Jason wasn’t particularly fond of roller-coasters, unless they included an orgasm afterward, which in her case they didn’t. All Penelope included in her topsy-turvy adventures was a lousy headache. Or two.

“So,” she said merrily. “Any plans after tee time?”

“I’m booked,” he instantly said, his eyes falling to her plush, pink lips—lips responsible for plenty of sleepless nights. Nightmares, really. “Big-time booked. Why?”

She shrugged casually. “Oh, I just thought we could play with the devil.”

“Don’t think so.”

She arched her brows. “Why not?” she taunted saucily. “It could be fun. We could—”

“No.”

“Jason…”

He grabbed her shoulders and squeezed them hard. “I’m not playing that game.” “But I know for sure you played with Martha the other day!” she protested. “And she said—”

“I don’t care what Martha said.”

She pursed her lips tightly, her hand coiling around the plush devil’s throat as she pressed it to her chest. “Why?” She was squeezing the devil so hard Jason feared the toy’s eyes might just pop out any second now. “Why won’t you play with me?”

He sighed wearily. Dealing with her was unbelievably draining. “Can’t you stop looking for trouble for once in your life?”

“I don’t look for trouble,
you
do,” she said willfully. “I don’t ask you to follow me around. You do that all by yourself.”

“I’m saving your ass!” he protested.

“My ass doesn’t
need
your precious saving!”

And Jason had already decided that even if it did, he’d save it no more!

When she drew in a deep, miffed breath in a failed attempt to tranquilize herself, her nipples brushed against his chest and he could almost swear she did that on purpose, just to rile him. Jason had never noticed when her breasts had grown, but one day there they were—shouting for attention—and trying not to gape at them had always been exhausting. Her father, being a close family friend, had charged Jason with the noble task of looking out for his youngest daughter, since they’d been friends as kids, and Jason had found he’d taken the task far more seriously than he should have.