By the Book_A laugh-out-loud feel good romantic comedy

by Nancy Warren

  And yet, no man could be expected to seduce a woman over milk and cookies with all the lights on. Well, come to think of it, he’d done that in high school with his first girlfriend. For a long time after that, just the sight of cinnamon-swirl cookies gave him a hard-on.

  Had he mentioned wine and candlelight in chapter one? If so, he was off the hook. What the hell had he written, anyway?

  Irritated, and vaguely nervous about the upcoming “lesson,” he opened the book and started reading.

  Seduction begins, not with the body, but with the mind.

  He nodded. “Smart fellow, Lance.”

  Conversation is foreplay. If you can make the man or woman you are interested in feel desired, they’ll reciprocate and develop a heightened interest in you. And this is where you, the Total Moron, stop being seen as a TM and become a possible bed buddy. This whole book is about your journey from TM to Outstanding Lover.

  He skipped through all the rest of the intro to locate the first exercise specifically for men. Ah, there it was.

  Are you ready? Let’s go.

  Exercise One.

  Go to a crowded bar. If you’re on your own, try to pick out a woman who looks friendly. If you have a partner, and you both feel you need this book, I suggest you go back to the beginning of your relationship and start over. I don’t care if you have three kids—pretend you’re meeting for the first time.

  Look your woman full in the eyes. The Dallas Cowboys’ cheerleaders can walk by naked and you won’t bat an eyelash. Focus your attention on this person you are “meeting” for the first time. Ask her what she did today. Ask her about her job, her interests.

  Watch her body language. Is she inviting you closer? Sending you messages with her eyes?

  Go with the flow. If you can get away with a quick touch on the shoulder, do it. An accidental brushing of your arm against hers is a subtle sign you’re interested. But don’t overdo it. You’re not taking lint off a suit here.

  When it comes time to leave, walk her to her car, the bus, a taxi, whatever. Now, you’re dying to kiss her, right? Just get in there and clean her tonsils?

  Don’t do it.

  Take her hand. Tell her you had a great time. Try to get her number or give her yours.

  Leave her wanting more. This, my comrades in the trenches, is the secret. Leave them wanting more.

  Now, if the moment feels right, brush your lips across her cheek. Look right into her eyes and tell her you’ll call.

  Luke dropped the book.

  Damn. He’d forgotten that. The first exercise took place out on the town.

  So much for candles. He checked his watch. Shari was supposed to be here in half an hour. He found her number and called.

  “Hello?” Her voice sounded huskier on the phone. Sexy as hell.

  “Hey, I just read chapter one. We’re supposed to meet in a bar and talk.”

  There was a moment of silence. “What kind of a bar?”

  “The book doesn’t say.”

  “You’re supposed to go to a bar to seduce a woman. That’s the first lesson?”

  “I guess.”

  She sighed. “That book has to have been written by a man.”

  There wasn’t a whole lot he could say to that. “Just give it a try, okay?”

  “I’m not much of a bar person. Where do you want to meet?”

  He thought about it. Not his local joint, too many people knew him there. Besides, it wasn’t classy enough for Shari. He searched his mind and came up with a bistro/bar in a hotel not too far from them. On Fridays there was live music of the piano-and-quartet variety. It was quiet enough to talk, but also had a pretty good crowd of single professionals. She’d probably love it.

  “The Rainbow Room. Do you know it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you get there, say, around seven? I’ll arrive a little later. You have to pretend you don’t know me. We’re meeting for the first time.”

  “This is the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Luke grit his teeth. Truth was, he agreed with her. When he’d written that tripe in chapter one, he’d never imagined himself traipsing off to a bar to pick up a woman who lived one floor above him. He sensed her wavering on the whole thing and decided to remind her that this bargain went both ways. “I dropped my tux off at the dry cleaner’s today, just to make sure it’s nice and crisp for that wedding.”

  “Don’t get to the bar too late or somebody else will get lesson one.”

  He chuckled at her cocky tone. Somehow, he had a feeling this evening was going to be fun. He just had to remember to follow his own instructions to the letter. No improvising.

  If he wasn’t trying so hard to play this charade strictly by the book, he’d be tempted to toy with her on the phone. She had a quick wit and wasn’t afraid to put him in his place. He imagined there weren’t many subjects about which she didn’t know something. But for his experiment to have any validity, he had to stay within the guidelines of the book. Flirtation by phone before he even got to chapter one didn’t suit his notions of fair play. So he squelched his desire to have some telephone fun and told her he’d arrive a few minutes after her.

  “And, Luke,” she said in that snotty teacher’s voice that completely turned him on, “next time, I’ll expect you to do your homework ahead of time.”

  4

  OF ALL THE CRAZY, ridiculous ideas. Shari made herself stare at the wedding invite in all its grisly embossed-silver-roses glory. This ghastly evening pretending to be picked up in a bar by a man she wasn’t at all certain she wanted anything to do with was B.J.’s fault. As if the woman hadn’t tortured her enough in college, she’d followed Shari into the rest of her life just to screw that up for her, too.

  Grumbling, she hauled on a skirt and a red clinging top. After all, she reasoned, no need for Luke to have it easy with her dressed as a little brown mouse hiding in the corner. With luck, he’d actually have to put a bit of effort into this absurd faux pick-up routine.

  With that in mind, she outlined her full lips in a nice deep mulberry shade and added an extra layer of mascara.

  War paint in place, she was on her way.

  By the time she got to the hotel, she was feeling a little ticked. What was she? Some kind of prop to be used so he could act out the part of Luke the Seducer in his own private show?

  Shari wasn’t at all the passive type. She lifted her chin. Luke might as well find out that the road out of Total Moronism wasn’t as easy as reading a few chapters in a book.

  Women liked to star in their own stories, as Luke Lawson was about to learn.

  She walked into the dimly lit Rainbow Room and glanced around. It was fairly busy with an after-work, predinner and theater crowd. All the good tables were taken, but there were a couple of empty tables in the middle and a few vacant stools at the bar.

  It would be so easy to take a seat at an empty table and wait for her “date” to pick her up.

  She strolled past the tables, made her way to the back and settled herself on a bar stool. The bartender tossed her a grin from where he was pulling a beer. “Be right with you.”

  She returned the smile. “Thanks.”

  It gave her a moment or two to decide what to drink, but by the time the bartender stood in front of her, she still didn’t know. She wrinkled her nose in indecision. “White wine?”

  The bartender shook his head and leaned close. “Not for a lady in red.”

  Damn, he was flirting with her. Her plan was already working. Was she good or what?

  She twinkled back at him. “What do you suggest?”

  He leaned his elbows on the wooden counter, just an inch closer than necessary, and studied her. “I’m thinking exotic but cool. Maybe a little spicy with a touch of salt. And I happen to make the best margarita this side of Mexico City.”

  She giggled. He was cute. Probably a couple of years younger than she, but he definitely had attitude and was obviously only too happy to while away a few min
utes between customers flirting with the only lone woman in the vicinity. “A margarita sounds perfect. Thanks.”

  He turned her drink into a performance complete with swagger and bravado, and she enjoyed every second of it. When the drink arrived, it was perfect. Cool, salt-sweet and tangy. She surfaced from the first shivery sip and nodded her approval.

  “What’s your name?” he asked, wiping the dark bar in front of her with a towel, although it looked perfectly clean to her.

  “Shari. What’s yours?”

  “Les. I don’t remember seeing you here before.”

  “I don’t come here that often.” She’d dated an engineer a couple of times and they’d dropped by after a night at the theater, she remembered. But that had been more than a year ago. In fact, since she’d broken up with the perfectly nice but unexciting Peter six months ago, she hadn’t been to very many places like this.

  “What brings you here tonight? Meeting someone?” He let her see the light of interest in his eyes.

  “Yes, she’s meeting someone,” said a deep and somewhat annoyed voice from behind her.

  She turned her head to find Luke wearing a possessive scowl.

  “And who might that be?” she asked. According to chapter one, they were supposed to be strangers, after all.

  “Me.” He must have forgotten he was supposed to play a stranger. She’d rattled him out of his textbook exercise already and, luckily for him, that made her feel charitable.

  “You know this guy?” her new friend Les asked, ready, she was certain, to have Luke thrown out on his arrogant ass.

  However, she needed a date for B.J.’s wedding and somehow she didn’t think getting Luke tossed into a back alley was going to improve his role as her devoted love slave.

  “Yes,” she said. “I know him.”

  Luke glanced to either side of her, but both stools were occupied. “Could we move to a table?” he asked her.

  “Sure.”

  She reached for her drink, but the bartender stopped her with a hand on hers. “I’ll bring your drink over for you, Shari.” She almost laughed at the deliberate way he used her name in front of Luke. Oh, yeah. She’d made her point. The bartender turned his attention to Luke. “What can I get you?”

  “A pint of whatever you have on tap.”

  “Coming right up.”

  They made their way to an empty table and settled themselves. Although there were waitstaff, the bartender brought their drinks over himself. He placed Shari’s drink in front of her, a large frosty mug of ale in front of Luke and a black plastic bowl of nuts in the middle of the table. “There you go, Shari,” he said with the ghost of a wink.

  “Thanks, Les,” she said, enjoying chapter one much more than she’d thought she would.

  “Yes, thanks, Les,” her date said.

  “No problem, man,” he said.

  Luke lifted his beer in her direction, then drank deeply. She followed suit, sipping her own drink.

  “I hope I didn’t horn in on anything,” he said when he’d swallowed.

  “Pardon? Oh, you mean the bartender. No. Not at all. He was just being friendly to a woman alone.”

  He glanced at her, a devilish gleam in his deep green eyes. “Do I need to apologize?”

  “No.” She allowed herself a tiny, self-satisfied smirk. “I think I’ve made my point. So, now what do we do?”

  “Hell if I know,” he said, slumping back in his armchair. “You’ve completely thrown me off my agenda.”

  She nodded, pleased. “That’s good. I think being spontaneous is more fun.”

  He leaned closer, his gaze never leaving hers. “Then, can I be completely spontaneous and tell you that you look good enough to eat?” He reached over and ran his index finger up her arm and over her shoulder, coming to rest lightly at the juncture of shoulder and throat.

  She shivered at the contact of his finger, cold from the beer mug, on the naked flesh of her shoulder. “Is that in chapter one?” she asked, feeling bereft when he put his arm back at his side.

  “Yes.”

  “What else is in chapter one?”

  He was wearing a navy polo shirt. At least, she thought it was navy; it appeared black in the dim light. It molded to his chest and she saw the muscles of his arms shift the fabric every time he moved. A trio of piano, bass and drums played softly in the background.

  He leaned closer and stared right into her eyes. It felt as personal as a kiss. “We talk about you all night,” he said.

  O-oh, something about the way he said those words made them feel like a caress. She shifted on her chair and gazed right back at him. His lips were nice, she thought. Full without being punched-in-the-mouth puffy, and firm. Darkness pooled in the cleft in his chin.

  “We talk about me. Okay. I can do that. Then what?”

  “Then we go home.”

  Of course. She wasn’t sure when the kissing part took place in the book. If that didn’t happen until chapter four, she wondered what they’d do for the next three weeks. At the pace of this book, Total Morons would be into their golden years before they saw any action.

  “So,” he said, half joking. “Tell me about yourself.”

  “I’m a Capricorn,” she said in a bright, ditzy voice. “I like considerate people and I hate guys who smoke.”

  “Come on, help me out here, will you?”

  “I couldn’t help myself. Okay, ask me something specific.”

  “What do you like most about being a teacher?”

  “Bringing poetry alive.” She was surprised she’d even said that. But she was even more surprised that he’d remembered her profession when she’d only mentioned it casually during one of their exchanging-mail chitchat sessions. How odd to admit her passion to a virtual stranger. Still, he’d asked and was gazing at her as though he were truly interested, so she continued.

  “Kids don’t get a lot of poetry in their lives. I love it when you suddenly see that a student gets it. They’ll be stuttering along and then it’s as though the rhythms and the beauty of the language catch them unaware. Those are my breakthrough moments. They don’t happen often, but no one leaves my class without a nodding acquaintance with Shakespeare, Wordsworth…” She glanced at him with a wry grin. “Even Whitman. Right now we’re studying John Donne.”

  “‘No man is an island.’ Good choice for teenagers.”

  “That’s the very poem we discussed in class today.” She chuckled softly and told Luke that when the bell to change classes had rung, Terry, a smart but lazy junior had intoned in a deep baritone, “‘Never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’”

  Class anecdotes were safe and gave the illusion of talking about her while, in fact, she shared little personal information.

  They were into their second drink when he said, “You’re single.” It wasn’t a question but a statement, and yet she felt as though he really wanted to know.

  “Yes. I’m single.”

  Luke reached forward and played with the fingers of her left hand. “Still pining over Randy?”

  She was impressed he remembered the guy’s name. “No. Of course not. I’m between men, that’s all.”

  “How long’s it been?”

  “Six months.” She didn’t know why she should feel defensive. She hadn’t met anyone she cared for enough to get serious within half a year. So what? “How about you?”

  He shook his head. “Tonight’s only about you.”

  “I was with someone for a year or so, but it wasn’t going anywhere. I’m getting to a stage in my life where I’d rather be alone than with someone who bores me.”

  “I’ll try not to bore you in our four weeks together,” he said softly.

  “I’d appreciate that,” she said, thinking that bored was not how she felt about the way he was toying with her fingers. The man must have memorized a diagram in chapter one.

  The expression in those mossy green eyes went way past chapter four. His gaze communicated wanting, promi
sed intimacy. Every womanly atom in her body was answering his unspoken question, Yes, yes, yes! She forced herself to swallow. Down, girl.

  She stared again at his lips, wetted her own with her tongue and then said an incredibly stupid thing before she could stop herself. “When do we kiss?”

  He grinned at her, his teeth gleaming white in the darkness. “Let’s leave that for a surprise.”

  He’d taste like beer and hot male. Were his lips as firm as they looked? Would he have a clue what to do with them? At least let him be a good kisser.

  “You know,” she said, in what she hoped was a reasonable teacher’s tone, “I think we should give the kissing a try quite soon. Just in case.”

  “In case what?”

  She shrugged. “We might really have to work at it. Don’t forget, we only have a month.” She watched a line of condensation form near the top of his beer mug. “Maybe I should go get a copy of that book.”

  The moisture on his mug wavered as his arm jerked, jarring the glass mug. “No,” he all but shouted. “Don’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Then you’ll know…”

  A quiver of amusement shook her. “Know all your secrets?”

  “Yeah. And you’ll know all my moves before I make them. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “I thought you said this book was for couples? Isn’t there a section for women?”

  He stuck out his lower lip like a pouting child and puffed out a breath that lifted the lock of hair that had fallen onto his forehead. He brushed it back irritably.

  “Yes. There’s a section for women. And maybe we’ll get to that. But for now, could we please do this my way?”

  She shifted irritably in her seat, wishing she wasn’t so wildly attracted to this man. And if she had to tutor him in seducing a woman, she’d at least like to do it on her own terms and with her own agenda, not according to some self-proclaimed sex expert’s idea of how to go about it. “He’s got some nerve, this Lance person.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Imagine a man writing a book for couples. How does he know how women think? What they want? What…”