“Doing what? Making you breakfast? Wanting to talk?”
“No…yes. I mean, there’s nothing to talk about. What happened happened. And we both know why it happened.”
“It happened because we’ve been attracted to each other for some time, and it was bound to happen sooner or later.”
“I don’t think—”
“It’s true. I could prove it mathematically if you like, the odds of two people as close as we are, over a number of years—”
“Stop, please. No math,” she begged. “Don’t you think your little experiment with the cologne would throw off your results, anyway? This was attraction that you manufactured, and you know it.”
Dan was nonplussed. “I didn’t wear the cologne last night, Jodie. I admit I did wear it to the shop, yes, but I didn’t wear it last night, though there was some residual effect. I could see it with women’s responses to me all day.”
“Like what?”
He shrugged. “They wanted to stand closer, their pupils dilated, their bodies and postures showed clear evidence of attraction. So I knew the cologne was probably still active in some way, even though I had tried to shower it off. For that reason, I had promised not to let anything happen with us last night, but when I saw you…it was like…” He caught her gaze and held it, his own so intense it was like a touch. “It was like an explosion.”
He frowned then and kept talking. “But let’s back up here a minute. I admit, the cologne could have had some effect, but you were clearly intent on seduction last night. The clothes, the invitation…and you planned that before I showed up at the door. Long before the cologne would have been an issue.”
He stared at her, not saying another word, and she swallowed hard.
Nailed. In more ways than one.
Throwing her hands up, she knew there was no point in denying it. “Okay, fine, that’s true. I had planned to get back at you for using me with that cologne, for that kiss. I thought I’d give you a dose of your own medicine and lead you on a little, and then let you know I knew it was the cologne, and leave you…” She stopped, feeling her face heat as she realized what she was admitting.
Dan finished her thought for her. “You figured you’d get me all hot and bring me to the edge, and then leave me there? And let me know why?”
She let out the breath she was holding. “Yes.”
“I see. I guess there’s one other thing I’m still confused about.”
“What’s that?”
Dan stood and walked over, standing close to her, though he didn’t try to touch her. “I am attracted to you, Jodie. I’ve wanted you for years, and it’s been hell watching you with other men. I won’t deny I wanted you last night, but I didn’t intend to sleep with you—until I saw you. And I think my reaction felt…enhanced, as well. Like maybe you were helping things along as well? And I don’t just mean with that sexy nightie and the seductive talk.”
Jodie looked away. “I might have had a few cookies, just to teach you a lesson. To show you what it felt like.”
“I figured. So the effects of the cookies and the remnant of the cologne in my bloodstream…do you think that’s all we can attribute our behavior to?”
Why was her heart pounding so hard in her chest? She wanted to take a step back, but the wall was right behind her.
“What do you mean? Of course that’s what happened. It was a bad plan in the first place, and I never considered that I wouldn’t be able to resist the effects of the cologne,” she said, her voice softer than she wished.
“Your pulse has spiked, your cheeks are flushed, and your pupils are dilated,” he said, raising a hand to her cheek.
“It’s that stupid cologne. Does it ever wear off?”
Dan smiled. “There’s no way the cologne is still having any major effect at this point. The ingredients break down over forty-eight hours. So what else do you think could be causing this reaction?”
“I’m furious with you, that’s what,” she said. “I want you to leave.”
“I think you want me to leave because you know your response isn’t having anything to do with the cologne,” he said softly. “Neither is mine. Whatever is happening right here, right now, it’s just us, Jodie.”
She did step back, sure that some distance would give her sanity, but he stepped forward, trapping her against the wall. Hardness pressed against the softness of her stomach, and she couldn’t stop the rush of heat between her legs.
“Dan, we can’t do this,” she said, sounding more desperate than she wished.
“Why not? It appears we have fantastic chemistry, with or without additives,” he said with a brief kiss to the edge of her lips. “Though I am always interested in experimenting, I’ve never had much use for…implements…toys. But maybe we could explore…”
Jodie’s mind entered total meltdown mode as she even considered the idea. Dan tying her to the rails of her bed and experimenting with her vibrator…or maybe she’d tie him and experiment with warm honey….
“Stop,” she said sharply, though she was speaking to the direction of her own thoughts more than she was to him. Still, Dan nodded shortly and stepped back. She appreciated it, and also regretted losing the closeness.
He had her so confused she didn’t know what she wanted.
“Jodie, can I suggest something?”
“As long as it doesn’t have to do with sex toys, yes,” she said.
“I want to apologize for the cologne. I did use it the day in the shop, because I had an agenda, as well. I needed to stop you from seeing Jason. He’s a…he’s an ass. I’ve wanted you for so long, and I couldn’t stand the idea of you with him. So I…I gambled.”
Shocked by his confession and his honesty, Jodie relaxed slightly. “You were jealous of Jason?”
Dan looked minutely uncomfortable, but nodded. “I’m jealous of all of them, jealous of anyone who touches you, of who gets to be with you. But the rest were strangers. With Jason…I could…it was just too much.”
Now, when she thought he couldn’t rock her world any more than he already had, he went and tilted it entirely in the other direction.
It was a revelation of sorts. She’d never had any idea that Dan could be jealous. She’d always just thought of him as her friend. As a friend, she supposed she could meet him halfway, all things considered.
“I’m sorry, too. For the cookies, and for planning to seduce you, and leave you high and dry. We’ve been friends too long. I should have just come and talked to you,” she said, truly regretful now that she had calmed down.
“Thank you.”
She blew out a sigh. “So I guess we just try to put this behind us? To pretend this never happened, to save our friendship?” she said, walking to the other side of the kitchen to get some distance.
Could she? Could she really forget last night?
“I guess I wasn’t clear,” Dan said, smiling ruefully. “You make things topsy-turvy. I look at you, and it’s hard to think straight.”
Her breath caught. Lots of men had said things to her like that, but none of them with the depth of emotion that Dan had. The way he was looking at her led her to believe he wasn’t interested in going back to being friends at all.
Uh-oh.
“What I meant to say,” he continued, “was that not only would it be impossible for us to forget what happened last night, but we shouldn’t forget it. How can we ever be with each other again without wanting more?”
Her heart sank. He was right.
“So I guess we have to keep our distance? Let things cool down, and over time, maybe we can make it work, if we try?” she suggested, her throat constricting at the idea of losing Dan at all, even short-term. She hated feeling so needy, but couldn’t seem to help it. It was Dan.
He closed the space between them, taking her in his arms and holding her close. “No, Jodie. What I mean is that we should do the exact opposite. We should be lovers. Exclusive lovers. Just you and me.”
DAN WATCHED TH
E COLOR drain from Jodie’s face and grabbed her shoulders, helping her to one of the kitchen chairs.
“Hey, are you okay?”
He hadn’t expected such a drastic reaction to his proposition. Maybe laughter or something along the lines of her telling him he was completely crazy, or another angry flare of temper, but he hadn’t expected her to look as though she would pass out.
“I’m fine,” she said, wiping a hand over her face. “I don’t…I think I misunderstood you.”
“You heard me exactly right. We should be together, Jodie. It’s…logical.”
Her eyes widened. “How is any of this logical?”
He started to pace back and forth, the way he always did when he was formulating an idea.
“Well, we’ve already been in a committed relationship for over a decade,” he posited, and when she tried to interrupt, he stopped her. “Just listen. Statistically our friendship has lasted longer than sixty-five percent of new marriages, which tend to dissolve within eight years,” he said.
“But we aren’t—”
“True, we aren’t married, but we have spent a lot of time together. We’ve seen each other at our best and worst, and we’ve always communicated extremely well. We’re there for each other, no matter what. On top of that, we’ve been successful business partners. That’s even more impressive than beating the divorce statistics. Did you know that two out of three business partnerships fail within five years?”
She shook her head. “No I didn’t but—”
“Additionally, you can’t argue that our sexual compatibility is off the charts. Do you know the odds against the number of orgasms that you had—”
Jodie put up a hand. “No, I don’t, and I don’t think I want to. Listen, Dan, people can’t become lovers based on statistics.”
“Why not?”
She looked at him long and hard, as if trying to figure out whether he was serious.
“Well, because…they just don’t.”
“And maybe that’s why they fail. You and I have history, we have background, we have friendship…now we have more. It’s logical that our friendship would have developed into more over time. It’s probably why neither of us has been permanently attracted to anyone else.”
“That’s a stretch.”
“Maybe. But I hypothesize that we could be extremely happy and successful in a romantic relationship. We owe it to ourselves to try.”
“You’re forgetting a pretty big consideration, Dan.”
“What?”
“I don’t want a romantic relationship. I’ve lived my life without it, and no matter how many statistics you quote, I don’t want this,” she said quietly. “And you know me better than anyone. You know that’s true.”
Dan felt the words as a punch to the gut, but he straightened, figuring that if she wouldn’t be convinced in one way, maybe he could convince her in another.
“You haven’t wanted it before, with anyone else, and I understand why. I know how you were hurt, Jodie, and I know—”
“You don’t know everything, even if you think you do.”
“I know enough. I also know you’re cutting love out of your life, and if you do that, it’s letting him win. Did you ever consider that? That living your life without love means he changed you forever? That you let him keep you from being happy in your life?”
She was so still Dan didn’t know what to think. They stood like that for several long minutes, no one saying anything. Had he gone too far?
“I guess that’s true,” she said, surprising him, but still not looking at him. “I never thought about it like that.”
“And?”
“I don’t know. I am who I am, you know? I don’t believe in love.”
“Maybe I can help you change that. People change their beliefs all the time. It’s the foundation of scientific thought, really, when you think about it.”
“Who am I to thwart the very foundations of scientific reason?” she said, and Dan had to smile. He knew he was wearing her down.
“Exactly.”
“I guess if I was ever going to risk any kind of permanent relationship, you would be the right choice? The logical choice?” She laughed, pushing a hand through her hair. “I can’t believe I’m actually buying into this.”
“It will work, Jodie. You’ll see.”
“Listen, Dan, I know you mean well, but—”
“No buts. Let’s try this, Jodie. What do you have to lose? The sex between us is great, and we’re friends. Why not give it a shot?” he asked. “We can see if it works, and if it doesn’t, we’ll leave it behind, and just go back to being friends?”
Dan was building an escape hatch, and he was okay with that, since he had no intention of letting her use it. He knew they could never go back to being simply friends. Ever.
So this experiment had to work.
She stared at him intently, shaking her head, and he felt his heart take a dive, sure he had lost his chance to convince her.
“Okay then,” she said, dusting her hands on the side of her jeans. “You win. We can be friends with benefits for a while, but either of us can call time, and we just become friends again, right?”
“Yeah,” Dan said with a smile. He’d won. Jodie was his. He’d make sure this worked.
And he was going to start right now, he thought, crossing the kitchen and catching her up close for a deep kiss, old-movie style, dipping her down low. She laughed at first, but before long, they were on their way to the kitchen tile, breathless.
Until they were interrupted by the shrill ring of her cordless phone on the wall.
“Don’t answer, they’ll leave a message,” he said against her neck.
She was inclined to agree, as he had her both hot and bothered, but they froze as they heard Ginger’s panicked voice. Jodie jumped up and grabbed the phone, tugging her clothes back into place.
Dan watched her face clear, red patches staining her cheeks—anger. She pushed a hand through her bangs.
“Okay, I’m sorry, Ginger, I’ll be right there.” She hung up and walked past him, grabbing his hand. “C’mon, we have to go.”
“Where?”
“It’s the shop. Someone broke in and wrecked the place.”
6
“I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS,” Jodie said in amazement, noting the destruction of the cases, the ruined baked goods on the floor, crushed.
Jason, she thought immediately.
He’d said she hadn’t seen the last of him, but would a respected scientist really break into a business like a common thug? There had to be another explanation.
“We’ll be closed for two days, at least,” Ginger said dispiritedly. “The back is even worse. The orders were thrown and ripped, bags of flour and other ingredients dumped.”
“Insurance will cover the damage, but not the lost business,” Jodie said with a sigh, contemplating the slurs written in red spray paint across the glass display. It was clear disapproval of the sexy cookies she sold.
Dan hadn’t said a word, but had been out back while she and Ginger had surveyed the damage up front and talked with police. Jody hadn’t mentioned suspecting Jason, and tried to think through all the possibilities. There was no way the break-in was random.
“Hey, did you ever call that guy who stopped by and wanted to hook up with you?”
“No. He came in again, though, and I had to tell him no, in no uncertain terms. I can’t expose Anna to this right now. She has enough to deal with without me dating.”
Jodie nodded, patting Ginger’s shoulder. She wasn’t a mother, so she had no idea, and didn’t want to say more than she had.
“Do you think that could have ticked him off?”
Ginger’s eyes widened, but then she shook her head. “He didn’t even get upset. He just said if I ever changed my mind, to call, and that he’d still stop by if that was okay, to see me here. I didn’t want to encourage him, so I told him…oh crap. I told him customers are always welcome.”
&
nbsp; “Ouch. That was a bit cold.”
Ginger’s back stiffened. “I didn’t want to encourage him.”
“I know, I know. I’m sorry. I guess I’m trying to think of who else would do this, and your new admirer is the only other one I thought of. He doesn’t seem the type, but you never can tell.”
“Other one? Who else are you thinking about?”
“Jason—he was pretty pissed the other day. I just find it hard to think a guy of his stature would do something this…low.”
“Then again, he might be smart enough to know that no one would suspect him, maybe.”
Jodie nodded. She hadn’t thought of it like that.
The police were done, and filed out the door. Now all that was left was cleaning up the mess. Jodie closed the door as best she could behind them. A new lock would be installed before the end of the day, and she turned to hug Ginger tight.
“I think your idea about Jason could be right,” Dan said from the doorway, joining their conversation.
Jodie turned, a slight riff of some new emotion wafting through her as she made eye contact with him, even in the middle of this mess.
“Dan, I know you don’t like him, and I don’t, either, but would he really stoop to something like this? Why?”
“There’s only one good reason, especially since there was no money in the register and the safe is intact.”
Awareness dawned painfully. “He came after the icing recipe.”
“I’m afraid so.”
She looked around and rushed to the back refrigerators. “All of the premixed icing I had made is gone, as well. None of the canisters are here. They’re all gone.”
“He’d need that to run tests, to back up the formula,” Dan said.
“But isn’t it patented or something? What can he do?” Ginger asked.
“He could share it on the Internet or do any number of things to ruin our sales. People wouldn’t be able to get hold of the ingredients, but commercial manufacturers could, and then they just tweak something, call it something different, and there you have it,” Dan said, wiping flour from the front of the designer shirt he’d been wearing all morning—the same one he’d come to her apartment in the night before.
Samantha Hunter Page 6
