by Alison Kent
“I don’t blame you. As the object of your culinary pursuit, I have been flattered.” Macy thought for a minute, then puffed out her lower lip. “As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, I’m going to miss being wooed.”
“You want woo? I’ll give you woo.” Eric took a step closer and slowly smiled, allowing his dimples to deepen to maximum impact. Then he leaned down and poured all that macho charm into Macy’s personal space.
She leaned up into his, pulling to a halt before she actually got stupid and kissed the man. “Yeah? You and whose football team? Hmm.” Eyes closed, she held up one finger. “Let me take a minute here to imagine the possibilities.”
“Very funny, Macy.”
“Okay. I’m done.” She opened one eye, then the other, laughed out loud as Eric rolled his.
“You’re sick.”
“And you’re gullible.” She punched him in the shoulder.
“Hey.” He rubbed away the damage. “You know, just for that I think I’ll take one last shrimp and leave.”
“You can’t do that.” She grabbed and ended up with a handful of loose sleeve minus the elbow she’d been aiming for. “I’m already one man short, since I don’t know where Anton is.”
“I knew it.” Eric hung his head, his chin lowered in defeat. “This is going to be one of those games where we have to pair off into couples, isn’t it?”
“And what makes you jump to that conclusion?” Besides the fact that at least fifty percent of her games were designed for interaction between the sexes, and her players knew the odds rarely changed from month to month.
“Two things. The tougher the game, the better the spread. And you have fajitas coming out the wazoo. Second thing. If you’re a man short, that means couples.” He held up a second finger, jabbed it at his chest to make his point. “And there is no Mrs. Eric Haydon in my future.”
“No need to be so touchy, Eric. It’s just a game. Not holy matrimony.”
Eric braced both hands on the edge of the sink, shook his head and looked down.
Macy moved in, massaged circles on his back between his shoulder blades. “Poor baby. Your breakup with Cathy was a tough one?”
“Brutal. Totally brutal.” He pushed back from the sink, stood in the center of the kitchen with his hands at his hips as if waiting for a flying tackle.
Macy didn’t know whether to hug him or push him over with a feather, which she was sure would be all it would take. She did manage to bite her tongue on a chuckle.
If he wasn’t such a Tarzan…Hmm. Maybe that was the problem. She never had made a very good Jane. “You know, Eric, I hate to say it….”
“Go ahead. Everyone else has.”
“Okay then. I told you so. You and Cathy were totally wrong for each other.”
“Well, it didn’t feel so wrong when we got together.” Eric rubbed the base of his neck, looked from Macy to the wildly paint-splattered kitchen floor and back again.
She just waited, one brow lifted while he stewed.
When his juices reached a simmer, he jumped from the frying pan into the fire. “Damn it, Macy. Just spit it out before you choke on your tongue.”
“It didn’t feel so wrong when you got together because you didn’t get out of bed for a week.” She punctuated her pronouncement with a sternly pointed index finger.
“Yeah, so?”
“So?” Were all men so daft? “Man cannot live by bed alone.”
“Aha! Wrong. Man can. Woman cannot.”
Macy was gearing up to set Eric straight when a soft female voice cut into the conversation. “Sounds to me, sugar, like you haven’t met the right woman.”
Both Macy and Eric turned, to find Chloe Zuniga with one hip propped on a bulbous red sculpture.
With a gorgeously full Jennifer Lopez figure, naturally highlighted platinum hair and eyes that changed color depending on her choice of contact lenses, Chloe was fantasy pinup material.
It was only when she opened her mouth that the myth was dispelled. Chloe had a voice as soft as down…and the vocabulary of a wharf rat.
Hand extended, Eric started forward. “Eric Haydon. And you would be?”
Batting ingenuous eyes that said less about her innocence and more about her understanding of artful naiveté, she dispensed a frosted pink, candy-coated smile. “Why, your wildest dream, of course.”
Eric grabbed her wrist, turned his cheek and nuzzled his lips to her skin. And he did it all without breaking eye contact. “Is that a promise I should be holding you to, Chloe?”
Time to stop this conversation’s downhill slide, Macy decided, stepping into the standoff before either of her guests could strip to their skivvies. “Any sign of Anton yet?”
Chloe extricated herself from Eric’s hold, leaving him with a pat on the cheek. She crossed the kitchen to pull a bottle of spring water from the fridge. “He’s here. Lauren sent me to tell you.”
“It’s about damn time.”
Macy breathed a sigh of relief, which Chloe interrupted by adding, “But Doug’s not coming. A bad blueprint on one of the condos, I think was the deal.”
Chloe twisted the cap from her bottle and sipped. “Oh, and Kinsey just called. Her parents came into town this afternoon and insisted she join them for dinner.”
Oh, good aggravating grief, Macy thought, and grimaced. The more feedback on the game, the better to gauge the column’s success. “Now what am I going to do? I planned this month’s game around five couples.”
Eric, of course, found the news to his liking. “Looks like I’m off the matrimonial hook.”
Chloe slid up against Eric’s side, gave him a look from beneath sultry lashes. “Speaking of a matrimonial hook, rumor has it, sugar, that Cathy cut you loose.”
Eric blew out a long tolerant sigh and wrapped a brotherly arm around Chloe’s shoulders. “Chloe, Chloe, Chloe. Seeing as how this is Macy’s party and I’m working to be on my best behavior here, I’m going to let that one slide.”
Macy wished she could slide. All the way into tomorrow, and forget tonight ever happened. “I’m not sure your behavior’s going to make any difference, since it looks like Macy’s party is now Macy’s bust.”
“Actually,” Chloe began, cutting off Macy’s third-person soliloquy, “five couples won’t be a problem. As long as you play, too.”
“Whoa. Wait. You’re not off any hook yet,” Macy said, but Eric had already scooted out of the kitchen. She turned to Chloe. “What do you mean, five couples? Who’s my extra man?”
“Anton’s not alone. He’s got that lawyer with him.”
The floor beneath Macy’s feet became a hungry black hole. “That lawyer?”
“Uh-huh.” Chloe stepped back to follow Eric into the other room. “Are you coming?”
“Yeah.” Macy turned on the kitchen faucet.
Leo Redding. Here.
In her loft.
With her underthings the length of the building away.
Of all times to be without cleavage. “Let me wash my hands. Tell Lauren I’ll be right there. And whatever you do, Chloe, don’t let Eric escape.”
Chloe leaned around a stack of bright, glossy yellow spheres to watch Eric’s retreat. “He does have a cute butt. I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad to play Jane to his Tarzan act.”
“His Tarzan isn’t an act, Chloe. He’s an alpha of the highest order. Head of the pack and all that psychobabble.”
“Such a shame. Swinging from a vine is so uncivilized. Give me a chandelier any day.” Chloe sighed and, when Macy rolled her eyes, gave a quick flutter of her fingers. “I know, I’m going. And I promise no one will get away.”
Macy shook her head and got back to the business of washing her hands. Chloe, the enigma. The bad girl body, the baby doll face. No wonder Eric had gotten all touchy-feely when Chloe walked into the kitchen.
Men. They all had such one-track libidos. Macy could just imagine Leo Redding’s tongue lolling in Chloe’s direction like some expensive…What breed
of dog would an uppity attorney own, anyway?
Whatever the pedigree, because he was definitely pedigreed, he’d pant after Chloe’s cute-toy-poodle personality long before he’d share his bone with Macy, the scruffy rat terrier.
She didn’t care. She didn’t care! Why should she care? It wasn’t like he’d ever offered her more than the time of day.
Leo Redding III, Esquire, had first come into Macy’s life a year ago, during changes to the corporate structure of gIRL-gEAR. Having landed the account through Anton’s connection to Sydney via Lauren, Leo had drawn up the required documents for shareholding and ownership. He’d been a total automaton during the group’s corporate dealings.
Sydney, who seemed his perfect female counterpart, declared him unsuitably career obsessed. Neither Kinsey nor Mel had managed to crack his focused composure. Even Chloe’s cotton-candy Chloe magic had only resulted in Leo removing his pewter-colored wire-rimmed glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. She’d declared him to be a big waste of time.
Macy hadn’t known him well enough to disagree. Things hadn’t changed. One thing she did know was that, along with Eric Haydon, Ray Coffey and Jess Morgan—all gorging on fajitas in the loft’s central room—Leo played on the same adult soccer team as Anton. The soccer team meant Macy had a jackpot of single men to draft into service on game nights.
But this was the first time Leo had come to play.
Oh, and then there was his incredibly acute sense of hearing, and matching sarcastic streak, both traits she’d happened to discover when he’d stopped by the loft with Anton one Saturday morning last fall.
The men had been on their way to a soccer game, and Anton had dropped by for Lauren. As much as Lauren loved cheering on her favorite forward, she hated pacing the sidelines alone, and had begged Macy to come along. And Macy had been tempted.
Like any healthy twenty-five-year-old female, she more than enjoyed spectating when it came to a twenty-two-man testosterone tournament. She’d said as much to Lauren. Said as well that she was glad to be a child of the new millennium, where men were equal opportunity sex objects.
And then she’d made the mistake of glancing across the loft in time to catch Leo’s indulgent expression turn to one of annoyance, insult even.
Humph. Leo, obviously, still lived in the past.
But then, after Macy had dodged Lauren’s bullying, walked the three to the freight elevator and reached for the switch to send the car to the ground, Leo had stepped back into the loft and done it for her.
He’d looked at her, studied her, stared down at her, making one-on-one visual contact for the first time in their brief association.
She hadn’t counted on his eyes. He wore wire-rimmed glasses when working, and Macy had to admit they added a je ne sais quoi to his smoothly urbane image.
But he hadn’t been wearing them that morning. He’d been wearing clear contacts, if any at all, because there was no reproducing that shade of pale, translucent, dollar-bill green.
The worry lines at the corners of his eyes had fanned out toward his temples, his expression one of a man enjoying a private, inside joke. He’d never smiled. To this day Macy didn’t think she’d seen him smile.
But he had parted his lips. And she had responded in kind. His effect was like that, his appeal a powerful weapon. She might not like him much in her mind, but her body didn’t share her mental morals.
Using the tip of one finger, he’d lifted her chin, made sure he had her attention, taken her frantic pulse with the stroke of his thumb. “Macy?”
She’d managed a vague, “Hmm?”
“I know about equal opportunity. I’ve handled a lot of cases, and won more than my share. I’m very good at what I do.” His glittering eyes had promised it was no idle boast.
A true believer, she’d swayed forward a telling fraction.
And he’d backed a step away. “But without evidence of a challenge? I’m not about to waste my time.”
The elevator had returned by then and he’d stepped inside. The doors had closed on his mocking expression. He’d taken the easy way out, leaving her breathless and scrambling for a suitable retort.
Well, Macy wasn’t having any of that tonight. Tonight she was forewarned, and no smooth-talking lawyer would get the best of her. Not again, no sir-ree.
Leo wanted a challenge? She’d give him a challenge.
Because when it came to playing games, she was more than very good.
She was the absolute best.
2
ABANDONING THE SANCTUARY of the kitchen, Macy returned to the loft’s main room. She snatched a shred of lettuce from the floor and tossed it on a stack of plates destined for the trash. “Okay. Let’s get started.”
A collective groan went up and threatened to drown out the techno-pop music vibrating the wall-mounted speakers. Walking by the entertainment center, Macy turned down the volume. She hated having to shout over the music, on top of shouting over nine voices engaged in both conversation and complaint.
With the boom-boom faded to a muted thump-thump, the groans became intelligible protests. None she hadn’t heard before.
“It’s too late. Let’s wait till next weekend.”
“Hey, I’m not finished eating.”
“Anyone want to head down to Karma? I think Azrael’s spinning tonight.”
Macy took the objections in stride and overrode each one. First to Jess. “We can’t wait until next weekend. I’m on deadline.” Next to Anton. “You can eat while you play. The two are not mutually exclusive.”
Finally to Ray. “Karma will still be there when we’re finished here for the night, and Azrael never spins before midnight.” Eric she silenced with only a look. No doubt he was still recovering from Chloe.
And then there was the fifth man, the quiet one, the interloper, whom Macy dodged.
She wasn’t sure why Anton had brought Leo along. Or now that he was here, why he stayed. Participation was mandatory for all who set foot inside the loft on game night.
And no matter how hard she tried, or how many times, she could not picture Leo Redding playing her game, her way. Not with all that starch in his collar. Not even on a dare.
He sat sprawled in the huge armchair upholstered in yellow-and-red plaid. But his posture was deceptive, his thoughts clearly focused elsewhere. More than likely on one of his challenging equal-opportunity cases.
Macy enjoyed a private smirk. He had no idea what sort of challenge was about to land in his lap. He’d be leaving here tonight with a new respect for fun and games. If he could actually enjoy himself with a noose around his neck.
It was Saturday night. It was party time. He wore a white dress shirt and, admittedly, a fairly fashionable tie. But it was still a tie. And it was still knotted.
His slacks were dark gray dress wool and neatly pressed, his shoes black tasseled wing tips. Tonight he wore his glasses, the rims serving to emphasize his incredible light-green eyes.
So much for her smirk, she thought, pulling, instead, a grimace. This was not a good start to the evening, noticing his every male detail when she shouldn’t be noticing him as anything but a piece of data by which to measure the success of her game.
“Uh, Macy?” Lauren edged up to Macy’s side, pulling her away from the gathered group, who’d long since quit paying attention. “This bunch is off in the ozone. If you launch your game idea now, you’ll be talking to the wind.”
“So I noticed.” Whatever was in the air tonight could’ve picked a better time to blow. It wasn’t like she was on deadline or anything.
Lauren twisted the cap from her bottle of water, twisted her mouth as she thought. “You’ve got to get their attention. I was thinking maybe…Spin the Webb?”
Macy’s version of Spin the Bottle had never failed to perk up audience interest in the past. Of course, there was the small matter of who to ensnare….
“You know, Lauren, I like the way you think.” Macy pushed her best friend back to the center of the grou
p, all of whom looked more interested in sleeping off the evening’s food and drink than anything she had to say.
Lauren clapped her hands. “Okay, gang. Before Macy tests her newest gIRL gAMES creation on all of us, it’s time for the evening’s first act. Her famous version of Spin the Bottle. Better known as Spin the Webb!”
While Macy attempted a pirouette on the toe of one clunky leather clog, Lauren frowned and patted pockets she didn’t have. “Uh, Mace. I don’t have anything to use for a blindfold.”
Macy twirled to a stop and did a visual search of the room. She gave serious consideration to volunteering Leo Redding’s tie, but decided she might need it later for bondage, uh, leverage.
“No problem. I’ll cover my eyes with my hands.”
That, of course, started another round of mouthy macho maneuvering.
“How fair is that?”
“Yeah. How do we know you won’t peek?”
“Foul! Foul!”
After peering through spread fingers to stare down both Ray and Jess, Macy turned to the last bellyacher, who was sprawled across two of the sofa’s three cushions. “Watch it, Eric. Or Lauren might accidentally spin me into your lap, right on top of your shrimp.”
Eric frowned. “Hey, hey. Watch out who you’re calling a shrimp.”
“I’m talking about the fajitas, you goober.”
“Hey, hey. Watch out who you’re calling a peanut.”
“Pillow, please,” Macy called to Sydney Ford, who’d settled into the heap of mismatched bolsters and cushions cozily stacked against the corner of the entertainment center.
Sydney chose a goldfish-shaped throw pillow, started to pass it over the back of the sofa to Macy, but changed her mind. Instead, she got to her feet and tossed not one, not two, but pillow after cushion after sham in Eric’s direction.
Chloe and Melanie cheered her on, then jumped up and pitched in until all that was left visible of Eric were his feet, his knees and one hand. That hand he used to reach out and grab the rear pocket on Sydney’s long narrow denim skirt. He pulled her over the back of the sofa and down.
