Naughty Little Wishes (Birthday Dare)

by Nina Crespo

Meddling, wreaking havoc on order for no good reason—not happening. “That’s a nonstarter. Name something else.”

  She moved away and coolness replaced warmth. “Who dresses you?”

  He crossed his arms. “I do since the age of four, and I’ve been doing fine for the last twenty eight years.”

  “You’re a busy man.” She looked up, then down, as if sizing him up. “Somebody supplies your wardrobe.”

  “A men’s shop in Orlando. They keep me up-to-date with the latest.”

  She shot out a laugh. “The latest for your grandfather. You’re supposed to look different according to the event, the day, the weather, how you feel. You shouldn’t have a closet full of drab suits, white shirts, and red ties.” She glanced at his tie on the couch and grimaced. “My guess is you have a rack full of them from stripes to paisleys. You need a change. If you want my help, I get your closet.”

  “No.”

  She crossed her arms. “Those are my terms. I’m not negotiating.”

  He looked for amusement, but only saw hell-bent challenge in her eyes. “Nothing goes in or out without my approval, and you take care of Natalie first.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You left the barbecue when you couldn’t take the heat. What’s to keep you from running out on our deal?”

  He huffed out a laugh. Bullshit didn’t warrant explanations. “I thought we got past that in the guest bathroom.”

  “I thought sex wasn’t a game-changer, or are you running out on your little theory, too?”

  He snatched his shirt from the couch. What didn’t the woman use as ammo? And to think, he’d almost screwed up a second ago and kissed her. “Would you rather sign off in blood?” He held his hands out to his sides. “Go ahead. Rip off the bandage. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

  “And ruin my work? I’ll settle for something symbolic.” Her all-sass smile promised trouble. She reached for her bargaining chip and held it up. “One blood-red tie.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Why didn’t you call me yesterday?” Jasmine asked.

  Tab switched her cell to speaker and set it on the hotel dresser. “It wasn’t a good day. There was a pile-up on the interstate to Jacksonville, and I was late for my first appointment. It went downhill from there. After I checked in last night, I fell asleep. Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  “I assumed you were okay since you didn’t call me from jail and Drew’s still breathing.”

  “Oh, come on. What did you think I was going to do? Poison him?”

  Jasmine laughed. “That was Ethan’s guess. I was thinking something more dramatic like a steak knife in the heart. Seriously, how did Drew take you switching places with Vanessa?”

  “He was…surprised.” Tab folded a blouse and packed it in her bag.

  “That’s it, nothing else? No blows exchanged?”

  I had sex with Drew. She’d rehearsed the words, but now, they wouldn’t come out. Eventually, she’d have to tell the entire story, but Drew had asked her not to say anything about Natalie until they’d settled the contract. It killed not having Jasmine as a sounding board, but how would she react to this? Making it with your best friend’s boyfriend’s boss sounded like a bad plot from a soap opera. Maybe it was better to wait three weeks and unleash the crazy on Jasmine face to face in Dallas.

  Tab tucked a pair of ankle boots in her bag. “No, but it was interesting. Mitch was there.”

  Jasmine snickered. “How long did he hit on you, and who did he end up leaving with?”

  Tab fixed her hair and makeup while they shared harmless trash-talk about Mitch and Ethan’s other contractor friends. Jasmine’s laugh faded into an unusually long silence.

  Tab dusted blush on her cheeks. “You must have worn Ethan out if he’s letting you talk to me this long.”

  “He’s on a conference call. Some problem with an exec’s daughter and her security in South America.”

  “Oh?” Tab zipped up her mint-green dress and tied the cream-colored sash around her waist. Adding Natalie into the equation of South America was a safe bet. “Is she Ethan’s next assignment?”

  “No. I think I heard something about Mitch. Ethan’s scheduled to lead a climate assessment. He doesn’t think I know assessment actually means reconnaissance.” Jasmine released a soft sigh. “Ethan says he’s safe, but I know he could end up in the line of fire. Every time he leaves, I pray he comes back.”

  Tab’s heart went out to her. It took a lot for Jasmine to get over her fears of a long-distance relationship. Now she had the stress of Ethan’s job in the mix. “Hey, kiddo, I know you worry about him, but you said he’s good at his job. Ethan cares about you. He won’t take unnecessary risks, but more importantly, right now you’re together. Don’t let the scary stuff get in the way. Focus on the time you have.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  “Of course I am.”

  They made plans to talk in a couple of days and hung up. Tab finished packing and checked the room for anything left behind. She hoped Jasmine listened. Creating good memories with people you loved was important. She’d always cherish the last good weekend she and Corey had together. He’d ridden up the ranks that season and was traveling heavily on the bull-riding circuit. Normally, a cancellation in her schedule brought headaches, but it had led to an opportunity for her take an extended layover in Tulsa to spend time with him.

  They’d gone to a country bar with his bull-rider friends. She’d drunk too much beer, ate more than her share of nachos, and kicked butt at darts and the pool tables. Later on, she’d cuddled up with a cowboy for a few slow dances. The guy was all hat, no cattle, but she didn’t care if he was full of himself. He knew how to hold a woman, and she’d needed holding. When the lights came up at last call, Corey and his friend Luke sent the guy packing. Three days later, she’d gotten the news.

  Luke had injured his back earlier in the year. Desperate to make the semi-finals, he’d secretly consulted with a physician not affiliated with the circuit. An experimental concoction allowed him to endure the pain but made the injury worse. Corey found out about it but kept Luke’s secret. Caught up in his own success in the championships, her brother missed Luke’s pairing with a top-ranked bull too strong for his friend to handle with an injury. When the bull threw Luke off before the buzzer, he didn’t have the speed to get out of the way. Corey blamed himself. Shortly after Luke’s death, he buried himself in pills and alcohol.

  As Tab breathed against a sharp pang in her chest, her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number. Hopefully it wasn’t her morning client in Orlando trying to reschedule.

  “Hello, Ms. Drake. This is Margo, Drew’s assistant. He asked me to call you about where we’ve set you up to stay for the next three weeks.” A sixth sense rose hairs on Tab’s arms. “There’s been a slight change in plans.”

  …

  Tab yanked the sleeves of her extra-large sweatshirt and trudged downstairs. Coffee and Fruit Loops. The only sensible things in the midst of a week living in insanity. She’d expected her deal with Drew would place her in uncomfortable territory, but she hadn’t anticipated it dropping her into the hot zone. Not even Bode-Wynn’s golden connections had been able find a hotel not taken over by the convention or spring break. She should have waited until Drew’s assistant had confirmed everything before canceling her reservations.

  Morning sun glared off highly polished marble and steel in Drew’s kitchen. Not staying in a hotel should have rated as an enjoyable experience, but his stick-up-the-butt tendencies stretched way beyond impossible. Like yesterday when she’d taken a towel from the linen closet to dry her hair, causing the weekly housekeeper to freak out. At first, she’d thought the woman inhaled too much pine cleaner until she’d explained. Only blue towels, not green ones, belonged in the upstairs guest room. Why? Because Drew wanted order.

  The list didn’t end there. No dishes left in the sink. Pillows properly spaced on the couch. The thermostat set at precisely frigid-ass cold. Th
row in his other quirks about no TVs in the bedroom and the evils of junk food, and she existed in the equivalent of Siberia. Alone. He left early. Came home late. When he was there, he kept to himself and barely spoke. The beautifully decorated house felt unlived in and unloved. More than ever she needed the homey touches she used to make long trips bearable. Her Cinderella blanket, Dallas Cowboys sweatshirt, and comfort food.

  Two more weeks and then she would head for Virginia and a hotel room. She couldn’t wait. Tab opened the top cabinet. Beans, brown rice, organic peanut butter. Where was it? She searched through other cabinets, top and bottom. Sadist! He wouldn’t.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Keeping her back turned from him, she gripped marble. “Where are my Fruit Loops?”

  “You’re joking.”

  Spoon, bowl, those words matched. Joking didn’t fit anywhere in the scenario. She’d endured his house rules, but messing with her cereal went too far.

  “No. I’m not.” She whirled around to face him, and her breath hitched.

  Drops of water slid into the divide of his pecs, traveled over the ridges of his abdomen, melted into the soft, downy-looking hairs leading like a silken arrow into his short, square-cut swim trunks.

  “I want my treat.” Prickles surged into her scalp. “I mean cereal. It was here yesterday.” Damn, she sounded mental.

  He took the towel from his shoulder and wrapped it around his waist. “I put it where it belonged.”

  “And where’s that exactly?”

  He walked in and opened the cabinet near her head. His closeness tempted her to touch, stroke, follow the drops of water with her tongue to the bulge under his towel. She should look away, but only a blind nun could stare and not lose every scrap of sense.

  He set the jumbo box on the counter. “Your cereal. Second cabinet. Third shelf next to the oatmeal.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” She crossed her arms. “Why does it matter if it’s on the second or third shelf?”

  “Why Fruit Loops?”

  Arguing over nonsense, his favorite pastime. She scooted past him. “You always want to weasel out of answering the question.”

  “Give me a decent reason for shoveling down a bowl of sugar, and I’ll answer the damn question.”

  She had more than enough reasons. The mornings she and Corey squabbled over the last of their favorite cereal as kids. The day she’d thought she lost Jasmine as her best friend, fallen off her horse during a roping competition, broken up with her boyfriend before homecoming, held the family dog when he died. All the times she’d felt sad or like a failure, her brother had brought her Fruit Loops to make her smile again. Now, the morning ritual revived comforting memories, and the promise she’d made to never abandon anyone who needed her again.

  Tab grabbed the cereal box and clutched it to her chest. “You’re not always right.”

  “And you are?”

  Why bother explaining? Unless it had a function or a place, he boiled it down to impractical or unnecessary. He didn’t understand life or demons wouldn’t fit neatly in a box.

  She shouldered him out of the way. “We have an agreement. If you want me to live up to my end, don’t lecture me. I like sugar. I’m not turned on by your bland, boring diet of chicken, bark, and leaves.”

  “But you sure as hell like the results.”

  “Bullshit.”

  He backed her up against the marble. Déjà vu swept in—her sitting on the bathroom counter, him gliding her bikinis down her legs.

  His gaze held hers as he grasped her shoulders. “Let me refresh your memory.”

  Heat radiated the faint scent of chlorine from head-to-toe perfection. Her nipples tingled. Her sweatshirt grew warm and heavy like a blanket she needed to shed. He leaned in and cardboard crumpled against her chest. The heat of his breath drifted over her lips. His tongue teased the seam of her mouth. He took advantage of her quiet gasp and slid in. Soft, deep, the kiss mesmerized her into touching his defined abs, enticed her to press against his hard length. Just when she’d gotten a good taste, he moved away.

  The cellophane bag from inside the box plopped down at her feet. He picked it up. Arrogance reigned in his expression as he handed it to her and walked away. “Enjoy your Fruit Loops.”

  Chapter Eight

  Tab flopped back in the chair in Drew’s home office. This was ridiculous. Ever since he’d kissed her yesterday, she couldn’t get him out of her head. Her fault for taking a stupid tie instead of a detailed contract signed in his blood. Just because his strict regimen gave him a sex-on-a-stick physique didn’t mean he could use it against her, literally, or in any other sense. No sex included no touching and no tonsil-probing kisses, no matter how much she enjoyed it.

  Finding another place to stay could solve the problem. She wouldn’t have to see him, stare at his books, pictures, and mementos and wonder what they meant to him. She could stop listening for him to come home at night and stop lying in bed thinking about him a few steps down the hall. She could focus on Natalie and let Drew off the hook.

  Tab tossed her pen on the desk and went to the French doors overlooking the pool. She also couldn’t shake the belief their paths crossed for a reason. Seeing so much of Corey in him, she wouldn’t go as far as calling it a sign, but it compelled her to stay.

  The other day, he didn’t realize she was there, but she saw him after a late night run heaving for breaths, limping, but with emotional pain in his expression. Like hell had chased him and he’d barely escaped. Today, whatever haunted him threatened the loss of a business contract. Tomorrow whatever kept him stuck could take away a lot more. All because his past almost tore him down. He’d survived but a part of him still remained there.

  Had the accident taken the same or more from Shana? Was she enjoying life while Drew embraced rigidity? Did she feel any guilt over her father trying to destroy the man she’d supposedly loved?

  Tab sat behind the desk and drank the tea she’d brewed to ease the knots in her belly. She set it down, fingers hovering above the laptop keyboard. Shana, congressman’s daughter, Andrew Bode, accident, words capable of digging up answers if she typed them in the internet browser. Did she really want to know?

  Her cell rang. Drew? He’d never called before. “Hey.”

  “When will you be back tonight?”

  A cancelled appointment left her working at the house for most of the day. She had a late consult with a client in crisis mode over her wardrobe for her high school reunion later that night. The brusqueness of his tone stopped her from sharing the information. “I’m in and out. Why?”

  “Bob Harrison wants to meet for dinner. Five o’clock. Can you make it?”

  “I have to leave at seven.”

  “We should be done before then. I’ll text the address.”

  He’d fortified his wall again. Heaviness sat on her shoulders as she rose from the chair. Watching him brood through dinner wasn’t on her happy list, but she’d made a deal to help him land Bob’s contract.

  She changed four times, unable to find an outfit to lift her spirits. The threat of arriving late became the deciding factor. At the valet station in front of the restaurant, she smoothed down the above-the-knee, fitted purple dress. Did she have a rebellious curl sticking up, a bra-strap peeking out, a forgotten sticker on the bottom of her stilettos?

  She almost missed Drew pacing in front of the door. He probably waited to rip into her for not arriving on the dot.

  “Is Bob waiting inside?” she asked.

  Drew’s mouth flattened into a grim line. “No. He’s running late, too and so is our table. We’ll wait for him in the lounge.”

  Tension rolled from every action and word spoken by him to the hostess apologizing for the late table, the manager who promised to comp dessert, and the bartender behind the counter in the lounge. Lucky for her, they’d caught the tail end of two-for-one happy hour. She’d been around him for less than fifteen minutes and already needed a drink. Tab dropped her cl
utch on the bar and sat down on a stool. The bartender filled their orders, two glasses of merlot for her and water for Drew.

  Drew glanced up from, what she’d guess from the scowl, were unhappy messages on his cell. “Go easy on the wine. I need you sharp.”

  She took a long sip. From the way things looked, a difficult night lie ahead. Wine was the only way through it. “Don’t worry. I can handle a big girl drink. As tempting as it is, I’ll refrain from jumping on the bar and doing a striptease.”

  His jawline sharpened as if biting back words.

  “Drew, I’m joking. Relax. Everything’s going to turn out fine.”

  “It’s not fine. Why haven’t you spoken to Natalie?”

  She paused in the midst of lifting her glass. “Maybe because she’s in the Amazon with no cell phone reception? Is that what you’re upset about?”

  “No.” Drew drank ice water, staring as if debating what to share. “Bob is on the other side of town meeting with my competitor.”

  “He told you that?”

  He chuckled bitterly. “Bob isn’t as forthcoming as my sources.”

  “But you made a deal, and he’s your friend. He wouldn’t make a decision behind your back.”

  “He hasn’t signed yet. Nothing ties us together, so Bob can do whatever he wants. You said it yourself. I don’t know him as well as I think I do.” Lines of fatigue deepened around his eyes. Did he always push this hard? He needed a break.

  She touched his leg. “Have a drink and stop worrying. You can’t sort out anything until he gets here.”

  “It’s my job to sort out shit and find solutions. Nothing gets in the way of that.” His scowl deepened.

  Spoiling for a fight wouldn’t help his negotiations with Bob, and she wasn’t in the mood to watch a pissing contest. She had to snap him out of it. Sacrifices. Sometimes a girl had to make one for the greater good.

  Tab inched toward the edge of her stool. “I bet I can offer a distraction.” As she leaned to whisper in his ear, she stroked farther up his thigh. Muscle tensed underneath her palm. “I’m not wearing underwear.”