Love Reality

by Nana Malone

  For an hour they danced, her body pressed up against his. His leg sliding between hers as their bodies fused together. Ryan had the skills. Clearly Salsa was not new to him, but it was more than the moves that lulled her into a sex-crazed-ready-to-crawl-out-of-her-skin stupor.

  It was the way his broad hands would splay over her back as he pulled her to him. Or even better, the way they slid down over her hips and low on her back. Hinting at where he’d like to put them, but never overstepping the line.

  They skimmed over her body, leading her into a deliberate rotation of her hips then a spin. It was the way he’d slowly smooth his hands over her belly and rest them on her pelvic bones, making her insane. By the time they stumbled out of the bar, she was pulsing with need. Over the course of the night, they’d only briefly touched on what they did for work. She’d mentioned she was in production and he’d mentioned he was a writer.

  He was like a drug. The worst kind. And Mia was definitely hooked.

  After the bar, they jumped into another cab to head farther downtown to the Village. He dragged her into an unassuming pizza place, stating unequivocally that it was the best pizza in New York. He ordered them something called the Grandma Pizza, and she couldn’t deny he was right. So right that she ate half the thing on her own.

  He stared at her as they walked out.

  “What?”

  “You want to pretend that didn’t just happen?”

  Mia frowned. “That what didn’t just happen?”

  He tugged her to him, and she gasped at the sudden contact. “That I didn’t just get out-eaten by a girl.”

  Mia giggled. “Well, this girl likes to eat, and when you have eleven brothers and sisters, you learn to keep your head down and chow down if you don’t want to starve.”

  He leaned back a little to peer at her. “E-eleven?”

  “Yeah,” she said with a laugh. “Relax, most of them are adopted.”

  “Still though, that’s a lot of kids.” He licked his bottom lip and sucked it into his mouth. “So tell me, how many of those eleven are brothers?”

  “Six, why?”

  The right side of his mouth ticked up into a half smile. “Just wondering about the ass kickings coming my way.”

  He was close enough that his breath comingled with hers. As lust melted her bones and fried her synapses, her heart thundered. Maybe it was the alcohol, or the way he touched her, or the intoxicating way he smelled, but her body swayed into his.

  He leaned forward, dropping his forehead to hers, and whispered, “I want to see you again.”

  Lust drunk, she nodded slowly as he added, “And you know I can’t let the night end without kissing you.”

  His lips were soft at first, gliding over hers, and Mia drew in a shuddering breath.

  Wow. As soon as she granted him entry, the kiss changed from teasing and testing to desperate and needy. Ryan slid his tongue over hers expertly, and she moaned at the contact.

  One hand caressed her face while the other slid over her nape and into her hair. He tasted like mint and rum and sugar, and Mia couldn’t get enough. When she wound her hands around his neck, he growled low in his throat, shifting his hand from her face to the small of her back and pressing her closer.

  Through his jeans, she could feel every throbbing pulse of his erection as it pressed into her. His fingers tightened in her hair, and heat pooled in her center. She wanted him. Needed his hands on her. Needed to be close to him.

  In the distant recesses of her brain, she heard the clanging of warning bells. But she could ignore them. She would ignore them.

  They were bumped by a passerby, and Ryan cradled her, steadying her on her feet. He drew back and dragged in a breath. “You pack a hell of a punch, Mia.”

  “Says the guy who should probably make a career out of kissing girls.” She started to smile, but there was something so familiar about what he’d said before that had her frowning.

  “Somehow, I don’t think frowning is what I was going for.”

  Her eyes widened. “No. Oh God. You are good. At that. Great. Fantastic. You should be a professional kisser.” She nodded awkwardly. “I’m going to stop talk—” It finally occurred to her what was wrong. Right before he kissed her, he’d said something that sounded familiar. But no, it wasn’t just familiar. It was like she’d heard the exact phrasing before. Verbatim. “What did you say before you kissed me?”

  He nuzzled her nose with his. “I was trying to get you to agree to see me again. Why?”

  She shook her head. “No, uh, you said you couldn’t let the night end without kissing me.”

  “Something like that. Now, if you’d let me get a word in edgewise, I’ll do it again.”

  Her memory jogged, something else came to mind. Right before they’d left Prohibition, he’d asked her to hold something then taken her hand. It was cute and funny, but that too was familiar. Too familiar. At the salsa club, he’d stayed close, had his hands all over her, introduced her to the owner, made it seem like the place was his second home. The mojitos had flowed and they’d left seemingly without paying. He would either settle up later or they had his credit card on file for things like that. As a dating tactic, it was killer. And just now what he’d said…

  Matthew Rhode’s column. Ryan was a writer.

  Oh hell.

  She eyed him. “I just want to know how much of tonight was sincere and how much is for your column?”

  He blinked twice, then his gaze cleared, and he slowly released her. “You read my column?”

  Her stomach knotted. “Yeah, I do.” She nodded. “And I have had the distinct pleasure of more than one bad date quote your particular brand of bullshit to me.” She rubbed at her temples. “I should have known this was too perfect to be real.”

  He shook his head. “Look. Yes, I do write the column, but I’m not faking this.”

  He was good. His words carried a certain level of sincerity that made her want to believe him. “Okay. Then tell me, how many women have you taken to that salsa club? How many times have you used that hand-holding trick? Or just answer this, how many times have you used that exact line in the last month?”

  “Shit, I’m not thinking about it. It sort of just fell off my tongue, I—”

  She crossed her arms. “How many?” Her heart sank. Nothing about this was real. “Here’s a hint. Next time, try to be sincere. And I swear, if I see a hint of tonight anywhere in your column, just remember, I have six brothers.”

  His mouth fell open, and he stuttered for words. When he reached for her, she backed up, turning to try to hail a cab.

  “Mia. It’s not like that. Maybe I say those things in my column, but I’m not playing you. I was just having a good time.”

  She whirled to face him, and her purse slipped off her shoulder, spilling all the contents. “Shit.”

  He bent to help her, and she shooed away his hands. A huffy exit worked so much better when you actually had somewhere to go. Damn. How had this turned from the best date of her life to the worst in a matter of moments?

  “Mia, listen to me, okay? I was having fun, and I think you were too. Just forget about the column for a minute. Do you feel this between us?”

  Yes. “I don’t feel a thing. Not anymore.” Never mind that her lips still tingled. “You want me to forget about the column and the way you talk about women like we’re all desperate to lock-in a husband? For your information, you’re a sexist ass hat.”

  His gaze narrowed. “Newsflash—it’s not sexist when it’s true. You want to pretend during our little date there you weren’t picturing me in a tux?”

  “You are such a cocky—No, I wasn’t.” She’d been picturing him naked. But he didn’t need to know that. “You talk about dating like it’s a game and women are just elaborate pawn pieces.”

  “Mia it is a game. Sometimes you get lucky and meet someone you really connect with. But mostly it’s a game.”

  Glaring up at him, she felt around for the last items from her
purse and shoved them inside before standing. “Spoken like a man who’s never actually been in love. You spout all this bullshit, but you don’t know what it’s like to actually care about someone. I can’t wait till it happens to you. I hope you choke on that crow.”

  “And you want to tell me you’ve been in love before? Come on, it’s a load of crap.”

  A flare of fury had her opening her mouth, then she snapped it shut. He’s not worth it, Mia. Keep your cool. Just get in a cab. You would not look good in prison orange. He couldn’t know about David or how he’d broken her heart. And she certainly wasn’t going to give this douche bag the satisfaction of telling him. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  She whirled around and, lucky for her, a taxi was just letting someone out. She jogged up in her heels and slid in. She told herself not to do it, but she glared back at Ryan. Their eyes locked, and she ground her teeth as a hot spike of need rolled through her. This was just her stupid luck. All night she’d been on a date with her nemesis.

  Chapter Three

  Mia Donovan had Ryan wound tight. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind since she’d left him on the sidewalk last night. Just his luck, she’d dropped her tablet. The engraving on the back still rattled around in his skull. Property of Love Reality. She worked for that stupid reality dating show. Smart, fun, sexy Mia. It didn’t compute. The show was a contrived piece of nonsense.

  And of course his brain kept trying to figure out elaborate scenarios of how he could get the tablet back to her. No woman had affected him like that in years.

  But he didn’t have time to think about Mia. He had work to do.

  The voice on the speakers filtered through his reverie. I put a spell on you… Because you’re mine.

  “Ain’t that right, Nina,” Ryan Matthews mumbled to himself as he slid into his usual booth at Prohibition Bar. Nina Simone crooned softly in the background, and the happy hour crowd was thinning out, so the place was quieting down again.

  The waitress brought his vodka on the rocks without even asking for his order. Prohibition had been doing a month-long vodka tasting, and he was going through the samples. He needed to get a life. He came here far too often. The upscale speakeasy was his go-to place for clients and interviewees, or for getting work done and people watching.

  As always Chris was late, but tonight, Ryan wasn’t in the mood for her chronic lateness. Christine Armstrong was the editor in chief of the New City Post and his boss. But she was so much more than that. She had been the first one to give an untried kid a shot. She’d seen something in him and trusted it. Unlike so many people before her who just saw the packaging. It made him extremely loyal to her. He probably could have left the paper a year ago and been writing what he wanted, but he believed in loyalty. So when she called with a Get-your-ass-to-Prohibition summons, he came. It didn’t mean he had to be thrilled about it. Not like you had fuck all to do tonight.

  He might coach New York’s single guys on how to snag women and blog about it for the paper, but as far as Ryan’s own social life went, he liked to keep it uneventful. It was far safer that way.

  His phone buzzed with a message notification, and he glanced down at it. There was no contact name attached, but he knew the number. He’d called it several times a day for two years of his life. He deleted the message without reading it. He wasn’t getting dragged into anyone else’s bullshit right now. Especially when the result would be like acid on flesh.

  Chris liked to make an entrance. Everyone inside turned to at least glance at her. He couldn’t blame them; she was striking to look at with her short, pale blond pixie cut and slim frame. She was six feet tall without heels and she preferred Louboutins. She might look like a model, but she was all shark. When she finally saw him, she nodded her head in his direction and gave him her characteristic sardonic smile.

  “On time, as always, I see.”

  She rolled her eyes as she helped herself to a seat. “Can it, Matthews. I’m here to give you a present.”

  “And if by present, you mean forcing me to do another charity dinner, then we need to work on your definition of the word present.”

  “Well, your pretty mug has to come in useful at some point.”

  He took a sip of his drink. “So what’s the big emergency? You called me down here like Justin Bieber wanted dating advice. Where’s the fire, Chris?”

  She reached over and took a sip of his drink. “So what would you say if I told you that you have a chance to go on the show Love Reality?”

  That was Mia’s show. He frowned as his heart raced. “I don’t understand.”

  “My sources say that they’re casting for the next season and they need some Prince Charmings. But we have to move fast.”

  “Explain how this would make me happy. I’m not really in the market for a fake TV girlfriend.” What he was in the market for was Mia Donovan.

  “Are you kidding? This is a hell of an opportunity to slide you in undercover. It’s a perfect tie-in with the column.”

  She did have a point there. His column was nationally syndicated, and they could launch it into the stratosphere if he brought behind the stage scoop on a show like Love Reality. To take the mystery out of the dating and pairings. The only kicker was he didn’t want stratosphere status for his column.

  What he really wanted was features, and Chris knew that. But she kept telling him he was too green, that he needed more seasoning. But she understood the truth. Eventually, he would leave. And the time was coming soon.

  The column was meant to be temporary. Something for him to build his skill and work out some of his baggage. But it had grown bigger than he’d ever imagined.

  “Hear me out. I know you want to write features. I’m going to give you that chance. I still want you to do what you normally do for the column, but I’m giving you a blank check with some oversight to do a feature on the show.”

  He sat up straighter, unsure he could believe the words out of his editor’s mouth. “You’re going to give me a feature?”

  She sighed and shook her head. “Yes, but I need to green light your topic. We’ll need to jump some hoops through legal and such, but this is an opportunity for us both to get what we want.”

  Yes practically tripped off of his tongue, but he understood what she wasn’t saying. If he did this show, there would go his anonymity. He wouldn’t be invisible anymore. There would be no hiding behind the Matthew Rhodes pen name. He would be the prodigal son returning to a life in the limelight.

  When he’d started, he’d never thought of the column as a permanent gig. Back then it was fun. Writing under the pseudonym Matthew Rhodes had been a way to blow off steam and forget the woman who’d broken his heart. He soon learned that it was only a temporary salve on the wound.

  If you wanted obscurity, you should have chosen to live in Cleveland.

  He’d walked away from that life so definitively and had never looked back. Doing the show would drag him back there, where everything was for sale and nothing was for real. But he’d fought hard for where he was now and had done things on his own terms. And he was too close to his goal.

  “If I say yes, then what?”

  Chris sat back. “Then we start the campaign to get you on the show. With your name, we’ll bypass the usual casting cattle calls, likely you’ll just meet with the producers.”

  He scrubbed a hand down his face. All he had to do to get what he wanted was to be a Matthews again. The one thing he didn’t want to be. But on the flipside, it meant he might get to work with Mia. She was on the production staff. His heart rate ticked up at the thought. “This isn’t a definite yes, but I’ll meet with them.”

  “That’s my boy.”

  Chapter Four

  “I cannot believe you left him on the curb. I’m convinced somebody put a voodoo hex on you. I mean, no one can have this much bad date luck.”

  Mia groaned as she took a bite of a blueberry bagel. Laying her head back against the window in the
Love Reality conference room, she slid a glance to her best friend, Larissa Porter. “Riss, I’m already reliving the whole night in my head over and over and over again in Technicolor. I can’t believe I was so stupid. To make matter worse, I lost my freaking tablet. My whole proposal is on there.”

  “Shit. When was the last time you saw it? You backed everything up, right?”

  “Yes, but I made a pretty significant change on Friday night while I waited, and I didn’t have wifi so couldn’t back it up. I last had it at Prohibition. I’ve called, and no one has called me back yet. I went down there yesterday but it’s not with lost and found. At this point, I’m afraid I have to track down the asshole to see if he has it.”

  Larissa patted her knee. “I’m sorry, sweetie.”

  “I’m the one who’s sorry. I fell for all of it.” Mia sagged. “The whole time I was on the date, I thought I’d just met some great guy.” She leaned in to whisper, “And you should see him. He’s beautiful.”

  Larissa winced. “So not fair.”

  “I know. I think it’s better if I just focus on work right now. Clearly, I shouldn’t be allowed to date.”

  “Well, maybe he didn’t mean to come across as a douche. Maybe Ryan really doesn’t have any game and just stepped back into the usual, the familiar?”

  “Nope. Some men can’t be salvaged. He’s never been in love and thinks it’s a foolish sentiment.” Mia shook her head. “And of course, he would have to be that quintessential hot guy. He looks like that actor who’s on that period show, the one all the girls on social media are busy setting up virtual shrines to.”

  “Damn.”

  “Yeah, you can say that again.” Mia shook her head. “The thing is, he was totally unpretentious. He was actually kind of sweet and funny, and I was not my typical nervous self. It was like one of those dates you see in a movie.”