Mating Game

by Maynard, Janice

  His shoulders lowered an inch or two and he grinned ruefully. “I can’t believe I’m giving you to him. What kind of putz am I?”

  She hugged him. “You’re a wonderful man who’s going to find the perfect woman someday. And when you see her, you’ll know.”

  “Fat chance,” he said, pretending to sulk.

  “Promise to be nice, and we’ll name our first child after you.”

  His face lit up. “I’ll bet your mountain of a groom will have something to say about that.”

  The first simple notes of a piano piece drifted to where they stood in the narthex. Nola smiled, perfectly calm. “Showtime.”

  Marc held open the door and they stepped through as one. Nola’s gaze went immediately to the front of the church, where Tanner stood with the minister beside him.

  Tanner’s shoulders were military straight. And good Lord, he had cut his hair. Not all of it. Only a couple of inches. But it made him look a little less wild, a bit more domesticated.

  She wanted to smile at such an unlikely prospect. She didn’t want her groom to be anything other than what he was.

  Marc handed her off at the appropriate moment and stepped back to sit in the front row and take pictures.

  The pianist, a rosy-cheeked, white-haired woman who looked to be about ninety, smiled benignly as she quietly brought the music to a close.

  The minister began to speak. . . .

  With a “Will you have this man?” followed by a firm “I will,” Nola Grainger Nash inherited $60 million. Plus a derelict old house and acres of prime farmland. As her handsome, black-tie-clad husband repeated his own set of vows, Nola closed her eyes for a moment and smiled. She could see it all so clearly . . . the newly renovated house, the precocious toddlers, the long, lazy nights in bed with Tanner.

  She looked up at the simple rafters of the quietly reverent church and blew an imaginary kiss heavenward, her eyes moist after all. Thank you, Grandmother. I love you, too.

  Tanner held her left hand with a firm touch. She had put her engagement ring on her right hand for the ceremony. Although it was not strictly traditional, he took the time after settling her wedding band in place to move the diamond ring back where it belonged.

  And his cocky, jubilant grin made her smile in return.

  It seemed a lifetime until the minister finished tying up all the bits and pieces. His benediction was lovely. But when he prompted Tanner to kiss the bride, everything inside the small sanctuary faded away, leaving only Nola and the man she loved.

  Tanner bent his head, his lips hovering over hers. “Till death do us part, Red. That’s a hell of a long time.”

  The dark night cloaked Lochhaven in intimacy. Inside Tanner’s large room, the newly minted bride and groom faced each other across the bed. Tanner’s face was troubled. “You deserve a perfect wedding night. And you’ve been through hell. I can wait.”

  Nola rolled her eyes. “Well, I can’t. Strip, Nash. You’re mine.”

  His lips quirked, but he started unbuttoning his tux shirt. “I’m sorry about Krystal and Tally.” He’d spent several hours the day before trying to juggle flights and connections, but nothing had worked.

  Nola smiled wistfully. “Having them here today would have been perfect, but we’ll throw a big bash and invite all our friends in a month or so. I love knowing you tried so hard to bring them for me.”

  His hands stopped their task, and his jaw firmed. “I’d do anything for you, Nola.”

  The serious tenor of the conversation was making her weepy. She’d suffered too much, too fast, and it was only now sinking in that she was safe. After the wedding, the lawyer had shared the information that the shelter in Macon would have inherited everything had Nola failed to meet the will’s requirements.

  The only danger all along had been from Tanner’s partner. Though Nola had done her best to insist that Harold would have gone after her no matter what, Tanner was still struggling with guilt.

  But there was no room tonight for recriminations and negative thoughts. She was a newly married woman. And her now half-naked husband was about to be ravished.

  Nola was still wearing her dress. Several of Tanner’s coworkers had gone in together and prepared a romantic postwedding dinner. It had been the perfect end to the day, and now, finally, Nola and Tanner were alone.

  She put her hands on her hips and stared at Tanner, feeling the delicious curl of anticipation and arousal.

  His eyes narrowed. “You’re scaring me, Red.”

  She held out her hands with an innocent smile. “What? I’m just standing here.”

  “Yeah, but it’s the way you’re standing there. Like a lioness ready to pounce.”

  “Since when are you such a ’fraidy-cat? I thought big, tough men could handle anything.”

  He tossed his shirt on the chair and ran his hands through his hair. “I can’t handle hurting you, Nola.”

  She saw in his face that she was going to have to be the seducer tonight. No problem.

  She walked around the bed and stood toe-to-toe with Tanner. She had to crane her neck, and he got the message. He put his hands on her waist and lifted her to sit on the mattress.

  She put both her hands on his chest. His skin was warm, the sleek muscles hard. In dress clothes he was incredibly handsome. But like this, his raw masculinity took her breath away.

  He stood passive beneath her touch as she stroked him. His whole body was rigid.

  She frowned slightly. “You’re way too tense. Maybe you should finish getting undressed.”

  He stepped back in silence and dispensed with his pants, boxers, socks, and shoes. The strength of his erection reassured her. On some level she had been afraid that he really would deny them both the pleasure of a wedding night out of some misguided sense of chivalry.

  But his hunger was plain to see.

  She crooked a finger. “Come here, Tanner Nash. Prepare to be ravished.”

  He joined her on the bed and stretched out with his hands behind his head.

  She frowned slightly. “So I’m supposed to do all the work?”

  He shrugged, his smile tinged with boyish charm. “Ladies first.”

  She tugged her dress above her knees so she could maneuver and scooted over near him. “You know one reason I liked this gown so much?”

  It was his turn to frown . . . and to look confused. “No, why?” Clearly he hadn’t anticipated a fashion conversation at this precise moment.

  She grinned slyly. “It looks great from the back.”

  On the far side of the room, the dressing table mirror gave an erotic reflection of their every move. Nola went to her knees and dragged the slippery fabric to her waist. She slid a leg across Tanner’s prone form, and after rolling a condom onto his big, hungry cock, mounted him facing toward the mirror and away from Tanner’s hungry gaze.

  “Ah, shit.” The two words didn’t really sound like a protest.

  She put her hands on his bare knees, bracing herself. “Is there a problem?” she asked innocently.

  Tanner gripped her ass and groaned. “What about foreplay?”

  She bent her head and gasped as he moved powerfully inside her. “We’ve got all night for that.” Her words were a thready whisper. She was already close to coming. “I’ve waited hours for this. And I suck at delayed gratification.”

  The time for talking was over. Tanner sat up and put his arms around her, scooping her breasts from the low-cut bodice. The new angle made him go so deep, she trembled and closed her eyes. He played with her nipples and watched in the mirror.

  She tried to keep her eyes open, but the visual imagery, combined with the feel of him huge and hard inside her, made her feel faint.

  He flexed his hips and fucked her slowly, making them both moan in tandem. She was on her knees, panting. Suddenly she wanted to rip the dress away, but she had waited too long.

  Tanner reached between her legs, found her aching clit, and brushed it gently. She went wild in his arms as the i
ntense release swept through every cell in her body.

  He turned her gently, laid her on her back, and entered her again. His hair fell over his forehead. His eyes were dark and glazed. As he went rigid and thrust rapidly in his own climax, she held him tightly.

  He was hers. She was his. Game, set, match.

  About the Author

  Janice Maynard came to writing early in life. When her short story “The Princess and the Robbers” won a red ribbon in her third-grade school arts fair, Janice was hooked. Since then, she has sold more than a dozen books and novellas. She holds a BA from Emory & Henry College and an MA from East Tennessee State University. In 2002, Janice left a fifteen-year career as an elementary schoolteacher to write full-time.

  Janice lives with her husband in beautiful east Tennessee, and they have two grown daughters, who make them proud. She can be reached via e-mail at JESM13@aol.com. Visit her on the Web at www.janicemaynard.com and www.myspacecom/janicemaynard.

  Valentine’s Day will never be the same again in Janice Maynard’s intoxicating erotic tale

  Hot Mail

  On sale now from Signet Eclipse

  Read on for a sneak peek. . . .

  Jane Norman appreciated men even though she didn’t have a clue what made them tick.

  She was thirty-two, and her feminist sensibilities were as well developed as the next gal’s, but she was willing to ask for help when it came to carpentry projects, plumbing emergencies, auto repair, spider extermination—you name it. Fortunately, at the moment she had no crises, mechanical or otherwise, that needed male intervention.

  And though she freely admitted that men were vital to the process of conception, her biological clock wasn’t ticking any louder than normal. Motherhood was still a delightful “maybe” somewhere way out on the horizon.

  But despite the fact that her life was under control in most areas, she couldn’t ignore the truth. She needed a man . . .

  For sex. And cuddling. And long walks on the beach. Well, scratch that one. Tennessee was a landlocked state. She deleted the last entry on her mental checklist and continued. . . . She needed a man for sharing meals with. And sex. And laughter. And sex. And playing footsies under the covers. And sex.

  Definitely a pattern developing. The trouble was, not any man would do. Jane had a lamentable tendency toward wanting what she couldn’t have. Or didn’t have. Namely, Ethan Oldham, the tall, self-assured assistant chief of police. He made her heartbeat skitter and her forehead break out in a sweat whenever she saw him in his khaki uniform, his muscular thighs and broad shoulders straining the seams of the standard-issue clothing.

  Never mind that she and Ethan had lived in the same community since they were in grade school. Or that they’d shared an on-again, off-again friendship for a decade and a half. Mostly off for the past four years. But hey, that wasn’t her fault. Ethan had done the unforgivable. He’d gotten engaged to another woman. And even though he’d had the good sense to rectify his mistake really quickly, she’d told herself it was a sign she needed to eradicate this silly crush.

  They were never going to be a couple.

  But time heals all wounds, or so she had been told, and when a girl sits alone on New Year’s Eve one too many times, she gets desperate. In this instance, really, really desperate. Desperate enough to come up with a plan that was completely beyond her skill set. She was going to become a poet and win the man she loved.

  She had never at any previous point in her life aspired to write erotic verse, but in a moment of blinding revelation while standing in line at the supermarket, she’d read a snatch of an article from the latest Cosmo, and realized that she needed something original. Something inspired. Something that Ethan Oldham would be unable to ignore.

  In a moment of insanity, she’d decided to use bottled ink and a fancy quill . . . as if that would somehow afford her an edge in this dirty-poetry endeavor. Instead, all it had given her was an indelible spot on her favorite robe and a trash can full of crumpled efforts.

  She scanned her most recent attempt.

  Roses are red.

  Violets are blue.

  I’d like to get naked,

  With you and me, too.

  Not only did her poetry suck—it didn’t even make grammatical sense. She sighed and tossed the latest version with all the rest.

  It was all Ethan’s fault. If he’d reciprocated her adolescent devotion in the ninth grade, things would have been different. But when a girl was almost six feet tall at the tender age of fourteen, it was a cold, cruel world. Sadly, Ethan had been the only boy in the junior high school taller than Jane, and she’d fallen madly in love with him for no other reason than his stature. Of course, his single dimple hadn’t hurt. Despite the fact that he barely knew her name way back then, she had yearned for him to notice her.

  She pushed the memories aside and looked at the clock in the bottom corner of the TV. Fifteen minutes left in the old year. And good riddance was all she had to say.

  She ignored the messy quill and reached for a ballpoint pen and a piece of scrap paper for her next draft.

  There lives near you a lady fair

  Who wants to play with your hair.

  She yearns for your touch.

  She would like it so much,

  So please take me home to your lair.

  She burst out laughing and moaned, scooting from the sofa to the floor. She crossed her arms on the coffee table and buried her face, wishing she had the confidence to simply walk up to Ethan Oldham and ask him out.

  As a healthy, virile young man at the peak of his physical power, he was enough to make any woman’s knees weak, but Jane had no clue about how to reveal her not so platonic feelings. She’d tried time and again to move on . . . to develop a crush on someone else. Anyone else. In fact, she had sworn to herself that she was over Ethan . . . for good.

  Yet here she was, alone in her apartment on another sad, lonely New Year’s Eve, doing her best to compose a sexy, wicked valentine that would bring him to his knees. She knew that one card wasn’t going to do it. She’d need patience, and perseverance, and a bunch of valentines.

  Maybe six or seven. One for each Friday from now until February fourteenth. Could she do it? Could she court a man using nothing more than creative, erotic verse?

  She picked up the quill one last time and retrieved her final sheet of neatly trimmed parchment paper. Her brow furrowed. Her fingers tensed. This was do-or-die time. Delicately, she moved the nib across the paper and watched openmouthed as the pen composed words and phrases with all the confidence and aplomb of a Ouija board.

  A man such as you,

  A man strong and true,

  Makes my woman’s heart break;

  Makes my woman parts ache.

  I’m writing you now,

  As a sign of my vow.

  I’m tired of denying

  This love I’ve been hiding.

  So I’ll woo you with words

  And arouse your suspicions

  Until that fine day

  When we lose inhibitions.

  Tonight when you sleep

  In dreams hot and deep,

  See me come to your bed and

  Then dwell in your head.

  This note’s but the first

  Of a string of my verse,

  So read this with care

  And wait for me there. . . .

  Jane’s hand was shaking when she laid down the pen. Did she dare send this? Would Ethan be intrigued? And if he was, would she ever work up the courage to reveal her identity?

  She thought of his smoke-colored eyes, his flashing smile, the wonderful little rumble of masculine laughter that made her nipples ache to have him nestled at her breast.

  She was tired of being a coward. She was tired of wishing for the moon. Most of all, she was tired of watching other people live the life she wanted. Ethan Oldham was on the endangered-species list, and it was time to kick Cupid’s fat pink butt cheeks and do some matchmaking of her
own.

  Soon her oh so yummy, hard-bodied police officer love interest was going to have a bunch of really good reasons to use his handcuffs.

  She hoped. . . .