As for her former fiancé, Frasier Sheffield, just hearing his name set her teeth on edge. Frasier Sheffield’s pack owned the land next to her pack’s back in Georgia. As far as her family was concerned, he peed champagne and farted rainbows. He could sacrifice a kitten in front of them and they’d still worship him. When he’d cheated on Daisy with a skinny yoga teacher, her parents had blamed her for it.
“Well really, dear, with the way you neglect your figure – can you blame the man?” had been her mother’s exact words, with her father nodding solemnly and looking disappointed – with her.
Yes, she could blame him. And did. And she had thrown his ring back in his face.
“What makes you think my date went badly?” Had it been on the news already? She swallowed hard. Talking to her mother always gave her anxiety attacks.
“For heaven’s sake. Aside from the way you answered the phone, it was obvious from the start. I mean, seriously. You and a famous athlete like Ryker Harrison? I don’t know what your aunt was thinking, trying to arrange a match like that.” Daisy could visualize the venomous scorn dripping from each word.
So that was why her parents had given their approval for the date. Because they had been sure that Ryker would run for the hills as soon as he saw her – and somehow, that would force her back into Frasier’s arms.
“I answered the phone like that because you were interrupting my date,” Daisy said desperately. Oh, why bother lying? Her parents would find out soon enough.
“Hey, I think you dropped your bracelet,” Ryker’s voice rumbled right behind her.
Daisy squeaked and spun around. Ryker was holding up a glittery rhinestone bracelet, dangling from one finger.
“Mother, if you will excuse me, I have to go,” she said. “My date and I were just about to grab something to eat. And yes, I will be having seconds.”
“Daisy!” her mother gasped in horror. She couldn’t have been more offended if Daisy had passed gas in church.
“And dessert,” Daisy added viciously, and turned off her cell phone.
“That isn’t my bracelet,” she said to Ryker.
“I know, it’s my cousin Katie’s bracelet, I just grabbed it out of my car so I’d have an excuse to talk to you. Wait, I’m confused. We are going on a date?” he said.
She looked around. Apparently he’d given the groupie the brush off and come back to try to talk Daisy into going out with him. Interesting. The groupie had been a sure thing.
She turned and regarded Ryker with a skeptical eye. “Can I be brutally honest with you?” she said.
“Go ahead. But not too brutal - I’m fragile,” he said with a big, boisterous grin. She stifled an answering smile. His enthusiasm was contagious; it was hard not to smile along with him.
“I’m only agreeing to finish this date to prove my mother wrong. Also, the rec center is in desperate need of funds or it will probably never get built. So if we can still stand each other after hanging out for one night, I’m willing to pretend that we’re together for the next few weeks.”
“I’m not proud. I’ll take it,” he said with a shrug. He pointed at a food cart, where a man was doling out hot dogs and pretzels. “Hey, there’s a hot dog cart! I’ll even buy you dinner, because that’s the kind of stand-up guy I am.”
“Whoa, big spender, slow down,” she said, stifling a laugh.
He looked worried. “Is this too cheap? Do you want to go back to the restaurant?”
She laughed out loud. “After that scene we all just caused there? Hellz, no. I’m not really a fancy restaurant kind of girl anyway. Hot dogs suit me just fine. I’ll take four.”
A smile spread across his face. Looked like this was going to be a good night after all. “We’ll have twelve hot dogs,” he said to the vendor. “Eight for her and four for me.”
Chapter Four
As the vendor began putting their hot dogs into buns, a woman rushed up holding a notepad and pen. “Oh, I just love you. Can I have your autograph?” she gushed.
“I’m on a date,” Ryker grumbled, and signed quickly, an illegible scrawl.
By the time they vender had handed over their hot dogs,there were half a dozen people gathered around them.
They walked through the park, with the people trailing along behind them. The crowd looked as if they wanted to approach, but Ryker scared them off by spinning around and raking them with a ferocious scowl.
Daisy took a bite of hot dog, and a dozen flash bulbs went off. She chewed and swallowed quickly, annoyed.
“You have mustard on your face,” Ryker said. “Don’t worry, though – yellow is definitely your color.” He quickly wiped it off with a paper napkin. More flashbulbs went off. Daisy stared down at her hot dog with dismay.
“Mouth full of food is not my best look,” she said.
“This is ridiculous,” Ryker groaned. Then he got a wicked look in his eye. “Do you trust me?”
“Not in the slightest,” she said promptly. “Why?”
“Are you willing to at least trust my driving?”
“I guess?” She glanced doubtfully at his little red sports car. She knew guys liked their flashy sports cars, but driving in a tiny piece of tinfoil on wheels made her nervous. How did Ryker even fit in that damn thing?
Then she shrugged. “I mean, I’m a shifter. I’m pretty hard to kill, unless you go right off the edge of a very high cliff.”
“Your confidence fills my heart with joy,” he said. “Lucky there’s no cliffs in this area.”
They got into his car and drove off quickly, tearing through the streets, squealing on two tires as they rounded sharp corners, racing through yellow lights. One by one the paparazzi began dropping off.
Her phone rang as she drove. It was her roommate Larissa, making their pre-arranged call.
“Cadence is having an allergic reaction,” Larissa said. That was their code phrase. It gave Daisy an excuse to drop everything and rush home if the date was going badly.
“I’m sure she’ll be fine,” Daisy said, which meant that Daisy didn’t need to be rescued.
“Does she need us to come kick some ass or not?” Cadence yelled in the background. “Because if not, it’s ladies night at the Thirsty Iguana and I’m gonna miss the two for one drink special.”
“No asses need to be kicked tonight, thank you,” Daisy said, as Ryker gave her a puzzled look.
“So?” Larissa said. “How is the date going tonight? My dating life is a vast, arid desert this week. Let me live vicariously through you.”
“It’s…” She glanced over at Ryker. “Indescribable.”
“Indescribable?” Larissa said suspiciously. “That doesn’t sound good. What do you mean by that?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll tell you when I do. Don’t wait up.” She hung up the phone.
“So, an allergy attack. That’s original.” Ryker grinned.
“Eavesdropper.” She smiled back.
“Shifter hearing,” he said. “Can’t help myself.”
A short while later they pulled up in front of an enormous neo-modern house in the city’s exclusive Greenwood Heights neighborhood. It had an asymmetrical angled roof, floor to ceiling windows with a dark tint, and a white-washed concrete exterior. The hedges in front of it were severely clipped into twisty corkscrew shapes.
He pulled into his garage and parked, quickly shutting the garage door.
“I’ll drive you back to get your car tomorrow morning. I hope you don’t mind getting up early – I have to take the investors on a tour of our factory.”
“That’s fine. I volunteered to help clean up the school playground tomorrow morning,” she said.
“What do you do at the school?” Ryker held open the door to the house and gestured for her to walk through. “See, I can be a gentleman.”
“I’m a teacher. Middle school English and history.”
“So you work at some fancy prep school?”
“Oh, it’s fancy all right.” So fancy that t
here were metal detectors in the doorways and bars on the windows. It was a culture shock that Daisy still struggled to adjust to every day.
Daisy walked down a hallway into Ryker’s massive living room and looked around. The floor plan was open concept. The furniture was shiny black leather and chrome. There were moody black-and-white photos of cityscapes in silver frames, and floor lamps that looked like movie spotlights. The floor was tinted concrete, scattered with black-and-white rugs in abstract patterns. The room was beautifully decorated but it gave off a cold, hard feeling.
She glanced over at the chrome bookshelves. There were artfully arranged stacks of hardcovers and giant art books that she doubted he’d ever read, mixed in with abstract granite statuettes and black and silver candles. No personal mementoes or family photos.
Same thing with the kitchen. It was a showroom kitchen. Giant, shiny refrigerator big enough to feed an army, no pictures or knick-knacks anywhere.
So, this was a man who valued style over substance, and didn’t have close family ties.
She felt an odd sense of disappointment as she looked around. It was hard to imagine ever getting truly close to the owner of this place.
Funny, she’d gotten such a different feel from him this evening. He’d been boisterous and crude and, she had to admit, kind of funny even while he was being a jerk. And she thought she’d felt the closeness between him and his uncle. Apparently she’d been wrong. His public image was the real him. Flashy and with zero substance.
So why was her body reacting like this? Just being near him was sending her into full arousal mode. All of her senses felt heightened, with her skin exquisitely sensitive to the sensation of fabric sliding across it. Her panties were damp and she could feel sweat beading on her forehead. She kept wanting to lean in and sniff him.
She shed her jacket and draped it over a chair back, then stood there uncertainly in the center of the room, clutching her purse.
“Have a seat,” Ryker said, gesturing at the couch. “I’ll get you a drink. Are you hungry? Can I order in some food?”
“Oh, no thanks,” she said. “I’m full from the hot dogs.” She’d actually only had one, so she was still hungry, but this wasn’t the kind of house she would feel comfortable eating in. It was so gleaming-clean and sterile that she’d be petrified of spilling a single crumb.
“What would you like to drink?” He gestured at an enormous bar on a nearby wall. There were glass shelves stocked with expensive liquor, and exquisite cocktail glasses and margarita glasses and shot glasses, rimmed in silver. Of course. This was the ultimate bachelor pad, designed to impress and seduce.
“I’ll have a blood orange cosmopolitan,” she said, just to be cantankerous.
He went over to the bar, poured two drinks, and came back.
He set the drinks down in front of them.
“I made you rum and Coke,” he said. “I don’t even know what a cosmopolitan is.” He took a sip of his; some kind of whiskey.
With him sitting so close to her, she could smell his earthy, masculine scent, mixing with the smell of the stables, which actually wasn’t so unpleasant after all. She’d just carped about it because of him showing up late and being so damn smug, as if she were going to roll right into bed with him just because he flashed a smile at her.
But damn it, his scent and his grin and the gleam in his eyes were all making her think of doing just that.
She could feel her nipples pebbling with desire, rubbing against the filmy fabric of her blouse. He was a shifter; he’d be able to smell her arousal, just as she could scent the musky aroma of his desire for her.
She grabbed the drink and drained half of it, then stifled a yawn.
“I’m sorry,” she said, covering her mouth with her hand. “It’s not you. I was up almost all night writing grant applications.” She took another big sip to calm her jangled nerves.
She drained the rest of the drink and set it down on the chrome cube that served as a side table. “All right, what exactly is the plan?” she asked him. “How are we going to fool your investors into thinking that you actually like me?”
“What makes you think I don’t?” he rumbled, his voice low and sexy with that hint of backwoods twang. His eyes bored into her, and she felt sweat trickling down the back of her neck, despite the fans circling overhead and the icy air pumping from the air conditioner.
“Well, aside from you showing up late, you called me a snob and a stuck-up princess and said you didn’t know if you even wanted to sleep with me.”
He glanced at her empty drink, picked it up and walked back to the bar. “You called me rude and dirty and a jerkwad,” he pointed out as he mixed another drink. “And I only showed up late because I thought I was meeting my Uncle Walt, and he knows I hate fancy restaurants.”
He returned and set down the drink in front of her, then settled in next to her. Much closer this time. She slid away from him and gulped down the drink in one long swallow. She felt lightheaded. Was it him, or the alcohol on a near-empty stomach and the lack of sleep? Perhaps a bit of both.
“You could sit a little closer,” Ryker said to her, sliding towards her. Now she was up against the arm of the couch and he was only inches away. “After all, I bite.” There was a roguish gleam in his eye as he said it.
“In my defense, I wasn’t being insulting before, I was telling the truth. You are actually dirty. You’ve got manure on your shoes and hay in your hair. Nothing wrong with horses, I’m just saying, I was not inaccurate.” She reached out and plucked several strands of hay from his hair, which felt soft and silky. When her fingers brushed up against him, an electric thrill shot through her, and she stifled a whimper.
“Next time I’ll make sure that I’m squeaky clean. I’ll take a nice, long, hot shower.” He was leaning in even closer, and her head was swimming. Damn, I am a cheap date, she thought.
“Next time?”
“We’re mated for the next few weeks,” he said. “We’ll be seeing a lot of each other.” Her hair had fallen into her face, and he reached up and brushed it gently behind her ear, sending blood rushing to her cheeks.
She felt faintly dizzy, and her pulse accelerated. Thump thump, thump thump…she could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears. “Pretend mated,” she protested faintly. She looked around the big, sterile showplace of a room and tried to be repulsed by him…and failed. He’s rude and cocky and stuck-up and…
She turned to look at him, and struggled to stifle a guttural growl of arousal. The way he was staring at her, as if she was a rich dessert that he wanted to lap up…The thought of his tongue between her legs made her want to weep with frustration and need.
“It doesn’t have to be pretend. We’re going to be spending time together, and we’re attracted to each other. I can scent it on you.”
Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment. It was true, but did he have to say it out loud?
He stroked a stray curl away from her cheek with the gentlest of touches. “We could get to know each other better, and see…”
The next thing she knew, he leaned in to kiss her…and another piece of hay fell out of his hair, onto her cleavage. She couldn’t help herself; she clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a hysterical giggle.
He let out a groan.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right, I am dirty, and that is no way to court a lady. I’m going to take a nice hot shower and then we can take up where we left off.” He grinned at her. “Unless you want to join me,” he said with a wink.
“Join you?” Her head was swimming, but she forced herself to focus. She was sitting there in a room with Ryker Harrison and she’d been about to take her clothes off for him, mere hours after meeting him. She’d fallen for his charm the same way every other woman did. How stupid was she?
“I will not be joining you,” she said indignantly. “You think I’ll just fall into your arms because you’re Ryker Harrison? You…you…womanizer.”
He let out a snor
t. “Okay, be that way, Miss Fancy Pants.” And he left the room to go shower.
She flopped back on the couch and closed her eyes and willed the room to stop whirling.
Chapter Five
Daisy woke up with a start, to the sound of banging and the doorbell ringing.
The sun was pouring through the windows, throwing giant rectangles of blinding sunlight across the floor. Daisy leaped up off the couch, and then stumbled. She was still wearing her dress and her shoes. Fully clothed… Okay… She’d passed out, but Ryker hadn’t taken advantage of her…
“Ryker?” she yelled. There was no answer, and the house was dead silent inside. Right, he had to leave early this morning, he’d told her.
Then she saw that there was a folded-up note on lined notepaper on the couch next to her. She didn’t pick it up; he’d probably written something like “Sayonara” or “Don’t let the door hit your ass on the way out.” The previous night had been one disaster after another – and all this on their first date! They’d been sparring from the minute they first met. Wynona had tried to brain him with her pocketbook. And then Daisy had passed out on Ryker’s couch.
Her jacket was lying across the back of the chair where she’d tossed it yesterday evening. She grabbed it and put it on quickly, then snatched up her purse from the coffee table, mentally berating herself as she did so.
She’d been on a date with the sexiest shifter in the universe, and she’d passed out after two drinks. She was going to die an old maid. A born again virgin.
And damn it, she’d blown any chance of getting donations for the rec center. She should have tried to channel her inner vamp and be charming, for once in her life.
“Who am I kidding?” she muttered to herself as she headed for the door. “I have no inner vamp. I have a giant man-repelling ray gun.”
Well, there was no point in wallowing. Maybe Ryker would at least pretend to be mated to her for the next few weeks, and she’d still get the donation.
The Mating Game: Big Bad Wolf Page 3
