All Tied Up

by Alison Kent

  “What’s to be curious about?” Besides ten out of her twelve items. “I know you wear sexy little bikini briefs, when you bother to wear anything at all.”

  “Underwear. Right. What else is on your list? How many things don’t you know?”

  She didn’t want to answer, to admit that her infatuation had sprinkled fairy dust in her eyes. She was giddy with the way she’d fallen so amazingly hard for this man, and blind to what she didn’t want to see.

  Like the fact that the schedules she and Anton kept had them stealing quick lunches or spending what time they had together in bed, where talk ran the gamut from endearments to smut.

  Turning the tables was the easiest response. “What about you? How many things do you or don’t you know about me?”

  She waited while he stared into her eyes, and she watched the flames of dozens of candles flicker in his, playing tricks with their color until she couldn’t remember if they were really that close to navy or that lighter shade of ocean blue.

  Such a little thing she couldn’t remember, and the resulting worry tightened the muscles of her stomach even more.

  “Let’s see,” he finally said, and smiled, a slow revelation of beautifully deep dimples. “I should know your addictions. Nothing narcotic or alcoholic. Not even chocolate.”

  He went on, even after she stuck out her tongue. “I’d have to say television. Specifically, every endlessly rerun episode of Frasier and Friends.”

  Lauren reached out and punched his shoulder. “Don’t be making fun of my fun. I could be addicted to porn, you know, spending all my money on smut books and wanker flicks.”

  He gave a quick shake of his head. “Did you just say wanker? I can’t believe you said wanker.”

  “Excuse me?” This time Lauren’s punch was a shove, sending Anton flat to his back. She crawled up over him, glared down into his face. “I know my share of dirty words, big boy.”

  He cupped her breasts in his hands. “So I’ve noticed.”

  “Is that a complaint?” she asked, and lowered her weight onto his naked body, chest to chest, thighs to thighs, feet and knees tangled and soft sex ground against hard.

  He shuddered and held her still. “No healthy, red-blooded man is going to complain when his woman talks dirty in bed.”

  “So you do like the way I use my mouth.” She opened her lips over the hollow of his throat, teased his skin with tiny flicks of her tongue.

  Anton groaned. His sex pulsed, growing thick and strong. “Yes, I like your mouth. I also like that you have a mind to go with it.”

  Lauren lifted her head, propped her chin on Anton’s collarbone and forced a sultry pout. “Does that mean you want me for my brain and not my body?”

  “It means I want the combination.” He bunched a pillow beneath his head and studied her down the length of his nose. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t have intelligence and an incredible wit. If you didn’t give good conversation.”

  He reached for a lock of her hair and tested its texture with his fingers. “And I wouldn’t be here if you didn’t rock my world in bed.”

  A tack-sharp sting spread from the base of Lauren’s spine to burn like an aggravated ulcer. He wanted intelligence and wit. He wanted conversation. And he’d just put both on a pedestal above sex. Her stomach muscles clenched to hold in the pangs of anxiety. But she made certain not to reveal any of the turmoil she was feeling.

  “Is one more important to you than the other, then?”

  “Are we talking long-term or short-term?” Anton’s initial scowl softened from thoughtfully tense to tender. “Or is this about the scavenger hunt?”

  “I thought we were talking about you and me.”

  That hand that had been slipping in and out of her hair joined the other wrapped around her shoulders and holding her close. “Then I guess you have your answer.”

  She didn’t have anything of the kind. But analyzing the dynamics of their relationship would have to wait. Their bodies were not to be denied. It was the one constant in her swirling awareness, this extraordinary physical attraction they shared.

  Moving the way her body, instinct and Anton had taught her pleasured him most, Lauren took control of the mating. His strangled gasp signaled his surrender. His hands worked their way down her spine to her backside, which he squeezed before moving to the tops of her thighs.

  Using strong fingers, he spread her legs, giving himself room between. His erection was full, and once settled, she closed her legs around his length, holding him still.

  Then finally, when she was ready, when imminent ecstasy had erased fear of the unknown, she let him go and shifted her lower body, slowly settling herself over the tip of his sex until he was fully sheathed. Totally captured. Completely hers.

  Rotating slowly, she lifted and lowered with alternating strokes. Faster, harder, slicker, hotter. She tossed her mane of hair and sat up, splaying her hands across his shoulders and using that base of muscle as leverage, setting a rhythm that had him urging her with his hands on her hips to slow the pace, to gentle the mood. But slow and gentle would have to wait.

  She wanted rough and mindless.

  From her kneeling position atop his prone form, she used her toes to pry apart his legs, and worked her feet down between his thighs. He groaned, but gave in and spread wider, groaned again when she reached back and caressed him, exploring his skin, slick with the fluids they’d stirred, and the skin beneath, now tight and drawn close to his body.

  She knew by his sharp intake of breath she’d more than hit her mark. And seconds later he proved it, flipping her onto her back, keeping their bodies fully engaged as he leaned his weight into his elbows on either side of her head.

  “You’re an amazing woman, Lauren Hollister.” He brushed his lips over her eyelids, her cheekbones, the line of her jaw and her chin, whispering against her mouth, “You have no idea how sexy it is for a woman to respond the way you respond.”

  “Of course I respond.” Men could be so simpleminded, she thought, and shivered from the feel of his body made one with hers. “Why wouldn’t I respond? I love you.”

  And she did. She knew she did.

  Yet this time, when she came, the intensity she’d always found with Anton wasn’t there. Still, she hugged him fiercely, held him tight, tracing soothing patterns across his muscular back and receiving in return a sleepily mumbled, “Mmm.”

  Mmm? That was it? She forced her frown to relax. What had she expected? A declaration of love? Why would now be any different than before?

  Anton rarely spoke of his feelings at all, a trait he shared with many men. He’d actually confided more tonight about what he thought important, what he wanted from their relationship, than she could remember him ever sharing before.

  It was foolish for her to need more in order to settle the unease she’d been feeling for a while now. Words were just words. She’d never hungered for them in the past, so what was the difference tonight?

  This time, foolish girl, his silence doesn’t make you question his honesty and commitment, an inner voice jeered.

  It makes you question your own.

  IT WAS THREE DAYS later before Macy, curled up on the sofa waiting for Lauren to finish her shower, had access to quality girl talk.

  Lauren hadn’t been home since leaving the loft with Anton after Saturday’s game night. She kept enough of her things at his place to stay for weeks at a time if she wanted. Her rule of thumb was never to stay more than two or three days.

  Years of roommate experience, not to mention the faux roommate contract she’d been forced by Macy to cross her heart, hope to die and sign, had persuaded Lauren that prolonged peace, quiet and solitude would send Macy over the edge.

  Macy knew this, and when she counted her blessings, Lauren’s name topped the list. Not many people, not even everyone Macy considered a friend, would have the patience with her quirkiness that Lauren never failed to show.

  Macy had to be the only living person she hers
elf knew who considered private time the equivalent of solitary confinement. She hated being alone. Hated the sound of silence. Hated the depressing sense of isolation, the unnatural withdrawal from the outside world.

  Okay, she’d heard enough psychobabble to know her reaction was textbook classic. That of a party girl, searching “out there” instead of “within” for peace. The quintessential live-for-the-moment extrovert. But one who well understood an introvert’s moments of loneliness and despair, the unparalleled depression, the accompanying tears.

  Which is why she no longer cried.

  Well, there was the occasional bout of PMS. And her sappy addiction to romantic videos that coincided with the blues brought on by those days. She’d sobbed her heart out when Hugh Grant came back for Emma Thompson at the end of Sense And Sensibility. When Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood told Maid Marian, “I would die for you.”

  And how could she forget Niles finally telling Daphne he loved her? If not for Lauren, Macy would never have gotten so wrapped up in watching Frasier. The sitcom’s nightly reruns had become a Hollister and Webb evening tradition—one Macy had gotten too used to.

  The way things were going between Lauren and Anton, Macy knew her best friend’s loft-living roommate days were numbered. Macy couldn’t panic. Wouldn’t panic. Not just yet. Not until the very last minute…when she’d probably do something stupid like take in boarders.

  But now that it was Tuesday evening and Lauren had managed to find her way home, catch up on her laundry and fix herself a bean sprout to eat, Macy was ready to get back to their normal routine…starting immediately, with the two weeknight back-to-back reruns of Frasier.

  Right on cue, Lauren breezed in smelling of citrus shampoo, plopped down on the sofa and scrubbed her wet hair with a towel. She tucked her feet between her cushion and the one on which Macy sat, then frowned at the television. “I’ve seen this one.”

  Casting a sideways glance at her roommate, Macy scooted onto the next cushion and off of Lauren’s feet. “What are you talking about? You’ve seen all of them.”

  “I know. They quit being as funny when you already know every punch line.”

  “You always laugh at every punch line no matter how many times you’ve seen the episode.” Macy gentled the tone of her reminder. Lauren often returned moody from Anton’s, wanting to stay, knowing she had to go. “Do you want me to turn it off?”

  Twisting her hair into a topknot and her mouth into a foul-looking grimace, Lauren shook her head and reached for the bag of pretzel sticks she’d set on the floor with a can of diet soda. “I need the noise. Keeps me from having to think.”

  Having to think? Interesting development from the woman who prided herself on always thinking of everything. “If you’ve seen this episode, then I have a feeling you’ll be thinking instead of watching, whether the television is on or not.”

  Lauren didn’t reply, just shoved a dozen or so sticks into her mouth and smiled with pretzel teeth.

  Undeterred by her roommate’s antics, Macy said, “That teeth thing works better with an orange wedge, you know.”

  Lauren chewed, then swallowed. “Fine. Slice me an orange. And while you’re at it, bring me a banana, an apple and a vat of dipping chocolate.”

  Macy muted the television, leaving Niles with his mouth wide-open. “Quit obsessing and speak to me.”

  “Can’t talk,” Lauren mumbled. “Food in mouth.”

  “That didn’t stop you fifteen seconds ago.” Macy leaned forward to grab her roommate’s can of diet soda from the floor, handed it over and waited until Lauren had washed the pretzels away before asking, “Now, what’s going on?”

  Lauren sank deeper into the sofa cushions and curled up into a long-legged ball of cropped khakis. “I don’t like your stupid scavenger hunt.”

  Yes and hallelujah! sang the devil on Macy’s shoulder. “Why not? I figured you and Anton spent the last few days packing for the trip.”

  “What trip?”

  As if Lauren’s sarcasm could throw Macy’s bloodhound nose off track. “Hello? Sydney’s trip? The scavenger hunt prize?”

  “Why would you think we’d be packing for that?”

  “The game should be a piece of cake for you two.”

  “Yeah. You’d think so,” Lauren said, punctuating her comment with a snort.

  Oh, but it was hard to keep a straight face, a level tone, the appearance of being an innocent bystander. “You mean you and Anton don’t know everything about each other?”

  “No we do not.” Lauren slid a narrow-eyed, sideways glance at Macy. “And I have a feeling you knew that.”

  “What’re you talking about?”

  “Don’t give me that crap, Macy Webb.” Lauren demanded Macy’s undivided attention. “I dare you to deny that this scavenger hunt wasn’t some grand master plan to set me up.”

  Uh-oh. Not quite the reaction Macy had anticipated. “Set you up how?”

  “The list. You knew I wouldn’t know all those things about Anton.”

  “Now you’re being paranoid. I mean, yeah. I made up the lists. But it’s not like I had any control over who would know what about their teammate. Or if the lists would cause problems for anyone,” she added, though she probably shouldn’t have gone quite that far. Too much curiosity was rumored to be deadly.

  Lauren crossed defensive arms over her retro peasant blouse of embroidered white cotton. The long red draw cords hung over her wrists. “Uh-huh. Right. Sure you didn’t.”

  “You don’t believe me?”

  “What I believe is that you couldn’t wait, that you can’t wait—” Lauren pointed an accusing finger “—to find out how much trouble you’ve caused for me with Anton.”

  “That’s a load of crap.” Macy hooked her finger around Lauren’s and twisted until she cried uncle. “The scavenger hunt is work. It’s for my gIRL gAMES column. It’s not about you and Anton. Or Eric and Chloe. Or Sydney and Ray. You know that.”

  Sitting back to sulk, Lauren rubbed at her reddened skin. “Yes. I know that. I’m just trying to avoid facing up to the fact that I didn’t make much of a dent in my list.”

  “Duh. You’ve only had the list for, what? Three days? I never intended it to be that easy. And you’re way ahead of me. I haven’t had a chance to learn a thing about Leo.” Except that he had the love ’em and leave ’em game down pat…not that Macy planned to share those particularly humiliating details.

  “If you can’t think of it as fun, then think of it as a job. My job. Which effects your job. Do I need to do the gIRL-gEAR song and dance here?” Macy threatened to get up and shake her booty.

  Yanking her back to the sofa by one of the dozen zippers on her cargo pants, Lauren trumped Macy’s trump card. “This scavenger hunt goes above and beyond my gIRL-gEAR duty.”

  Lauren left her no choice. Macy pulled out the big guns. “What about your best friend duty?”

  “I don’t remember anything in the rule book about you being allowed to turn my life upside down.” Lauren reached for the pretzels again.

  “It’s not upside down.” At Lauren’s look of incredulity, Macy extended a trembling hand. “Okay. Maybe a little shaky.”

  “A little?” Lauren shrieked, tossing pretzel sticks at Macy’s head. “The only thing I knew for sure was Anton’s type of underwear.”

  Funny, but Macy hadn’t wondered until now what Leo wore beneath his corporate uniform of crisp whites and pressed grays. “Well? What does he wear?”

  “Ha! Like I’d tell you after the hell you put me through.”

  And she’d only just begun. Macy started picking bits and pieces of pretzel from both the cushions and her lap, and building a small log cabin on the back of the sofa. “It wasn’t really as bad as all that, was it?”

  She was met with another telling sideways glance. Another volley of pretzels.

  “Okay. I believe you. It was really that bad.” Now, of course, she was dying to know the details.

  “Yes it was.” Laur
en chewed and thought. “Are you sure you don’t remember what was on the list you gave me?”

  “There were ten lists. No, twelve, since Kinsey and Doug didn’t show.” Lying by evasion. How harmful could it be? “I don’t remember all the items on every single one.”

  And that remark was the absolute truth. Of course, Macy might remember more of the grueling torture she’d assigned her best friend if she wasn’t having so much trouble dealing with her own list.

  She shook off thoughts of Leo Redding. “So, give me an example.”

  “Okay.” Lauren turned her body and her attention toward Macy. “What characteristic found in a woman, whether physical, emotional or intellectual, plays the biggest part in his decision to commit to a long-term relationship?”

  “Hmm. Wow. That is a toughie. I’d forgotten about that one.” And bears didn’t poop in the woods. “Do you know the answer?”

  “No.”

  “Did you at least guess?”

  “It didn’t do any good.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because Anton doesn’t know the answer.”

  “Whoa! What? You’re kidding.” Macy’d wanted Lauren and Anton to connect on a deeper spiritual level. But to score a touchdown at kickoff? “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Nope.”

  “You mean, he couldn’t decide on one? Or he’d never analyzed your charms individually?”

  “He just doesn’t know.” When Macy remained silent, Lauren emphasized, “As in, he doesn’t know. Because he’s never consciously decided to pursue a long-term relationship.”

  “Until now.”

  “No. Ever.”

  Macy wasn’t sure exactly what to say. She’d expected her questions to cause both Lauren and Anton to think about their relationship. But she hadn’t entertained the idea that what the two had together wasn’t a relationship at all.

  That had to be Anton’s male denial. Because Macy knew exactly how Lauren felt about her man.

  Didn’t she? “So, what are you going to do?”