“Yeah—and you know what he was doing the rest of the time?”
Kate colored. She did. Up until the argument, she’d been almost convinced Jada was right—Julian did want to take her over his shoulder and have his way with her back in his cave, pressed up against the cold rock wall, his body supplying all the heat she’d ever need.
She shivered, even though her old, poorly insulated house was already growing hot for the day. “You heard him,” she said, slamming the cupboard shut and forcing her mind to clear of the erotic images that had fueled so many different dreams during the night. “He assumed his event was more important than mine and that I’d give up my plans for his. Did you see the way he took over the drink order and tried to tell me where to go? Controlling—that’s what he is. Like I don’t already have enough of that in my life.”
Jada gave a sigh, casting her eyes up to the ceiling. “Oh, I do love a masterful man.”
“You call him, then.”
She poured some coffee grounds into the bottom of the canister, spilling most of them all over the counter. Jada stepped in and took over, directing Kate to a stool at the kitchen island.
“What was he thinking? Opening your car door and buying you drinks. The nerve.”
“He laughed at me, Jada, and after I told him how important the group is. It’s one thing when you make fun of the JARRS—it’s another when a guy like that does it, and in front of his friends, no less. You’ve earned the right to mockery after fifteen years of friendship. I don’t owe that man a thing.”
Jada finished preparing the coffee and set an empty cup on the counter in front of Kate. “No, you don’t. But wouldn’t you like to? Just imagine how he’d exact payment.” She gave a little shimmy for good effect.
Kate rolled her eyes. Owing that man anything was too dangerous to even contemplate. He was like the Scotsmen of old, stealing cattle all along the border and celebrating his victories with home-brewed whisky and arms full of bosomy women. Being indebted to him would be akin to being an insect pegged against a board, wriggling helplessly under the gaze of those dark, piercing, unreadable eyes.
It was a bad idea every way she looked at it. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d come across a man who went so wholly against her ideals of gentlemanly behavior. She’d always sought out mild-mannered, professional men. Gentlemen. Men who knew the difference between champagne and sparkling wine—who treated her not like an object of lust or derision, as the situation called for it, but like someone to be cherished from every angle.
Kate was a romantic. She knew that. Too many years spent reading historical novels and watching her parents exist in a farcical marriage in which neither party respected the other had taught her to appreciate a different type of man than the ones who existed today. She wanted grand, sweeping gestures that indicated a lasting commitment. She wanted a slow courtship in which her mate couldn’t help but be taken in by her fine eyes. She wanted… Well, she wouldn’t know for sure what it was until she found him. But Julian Wallace—mocking, domineering Julian Wallace—wasn’t it. That much she knew. Her reaction to him was purely physical. Carnal. Not nearly enough to found a romance for the ages.
And that was all she wanted. A romance that could be written in the annals of time. Was that asking so much?
“I still don’t see what calling Julian will accomplish. I don’t want to date him. I want Cornwall Park.”
Jada plopped her forehead down on the counter in mock exasperation. “Invite him over, Katy-did. Use the gifts God gave you to get what you want. A little shake here and a pout there, and it’s yours.”
“No way. It would never work.”
“Who are you kidding? I saw him practically having sexual relations with your leg last night. If there’s any man in the world you could make bow to your charms, he’s it.”
“You think?” Doubt furrowed her brow.
“I don’t think. I know. Trust me. Reading male cues is the one thing I’m excellent at.”
It wasn’t a good idea on so many levels Kate lost track of them all. It was wrong to try to manipulate a man that way. It was wrong to try to have anything to do with Julian again. In fact, she should drop everything now and sever the ties with him for good.
For good was an awfully long time.
Her stomach gave a queer flip that not even the scent of fresh coffee could appease. “Okay. I’ll do it.”
Jada gave a cheer and clapped her hands. “That’s my girl! Oh, and while he’s here, will you please find out for me what they wear under those kilts?”
Kate had never been happier to get an answering machine in her life.
Of course, she’d rehearsed her lines several times. More than rehearsed. She and Jada had spent the morning making a flowchart outlining Julian’s possible responses and what Kate might say in return. It was several pages long. Okay, ten pages long and covered in a spatter of coffee from when Jada spilled hers in a peal of mirth.
The directives for delivery were Kate’s favorite parts. “Can’t wait to see you” should be uttered in throaty, breathless tones. “You’ve been very, very naughty” had to carry a hint of the sultry in order to come off right. And right before she left Kate to her own devices, Jada had scrawled something about the size of the haggis being the measure of a man across the bottom of the last page.
Kate laid the pages across her bed, hoping to draw strength from them. Nefarious seduction wasn’t exactly her normal line of work.
But when she finally got up the nerve to call, he didn’t pick up. Instead, she got an answering machine message in that low, rough voice of his. Sorry, I’m not in right now. Please leave a message.
Short. To the point. This wasn’t a man who played games or beat around the bush. He was a warrior in the most time-honored sense possible. He came, he saw, he conquered.
Kate tried to figure out which step they were supposed to be on right now.
And then she promptly forgot all her lines.
“Yeah, hi. Julian? This is Kate. Kate Simmons. From yesterday?” She winced as she faltered over her own name.
“So, I was wondering if you might be interested in talking over our…disagreement. I think maybe we can work something out. At least, I hope so. I get home from work tomorrow around five, so any time after that would be good for me.”
She pressed a thumb and forefinger against the bridge of her nose. This wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped. All the words they’d written across the pages were cascading into an unreadable jumble of letters and punctuation marks.
She hurriedly gave him her address and phone number. “Um, and I can’t wait to see you,” she added.
The words were not breathy. In fact, she may not have taken in a single breath during that whole call.
Crap. Foot, meet mouth. Head, meet wall.
Kate clicked off the cell phone with a fierce stab, throwing herself on the bed, flowchart and all. There. It was over and done with. All she had to do was turn off her ringer and let him leave her a message in return.
But the phone was still in her hand when it started ringing. The numbers flashed before her eyes. He was calling her back. No games. No nonsense.
“Hello?” she asked tentatively.
“Kate? It’s Julian.”
She responded with a squeak. It was all she could manage. Her tongue had suddenly turned into a sponge, soaking up every last bit of moisture in her mouth. It was one thing to plot out a man’s seduction in the middle of day with Jada giggling by her side. It was quite another to do it.
“I got your message. I’m actually in the neighborhood right now. Is it okay to stop by this evening instead of tomorrow?”
Kate looked frantically around her bedroom, but other than the papers lying around the room like oversized confetti, it was immaculate. Just like the rest of her house—right down to the underwear drawer. Jada was right. She needed a life.
She forced her tongue to unstick from the roof of her mouth. “Yes, it’s fine.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course. I’m just…lounging at home.” She nodded to herself. It was a good word, lounging. It sounded relaxed. Seductive. Like she was Doris Day, sipping cocktails in a silk nightie, waiting for her fluffy pink phone to ring.
“I can’t wait to see you,” she added.
“Yeah. You mentioned that.”
The two seconds it took Julian to hang up the phone were the longest moments of her life.
“Well, that was classy.” Kate rolled off the bed and gathered up all the papers, shoving them deep into the garbage, underneath her old copies of Architectural Digest and a giant wad of used tissues from when she’d watched Gone with the Wind last week.
Jada had pulled out the outfit Kate was to wear for this meeting. It was a little black dress that had served as Kate’s default clubbing outfit in her early twenties. It was short. And tight. Something Doris Day would use to wash her dishes.
“Forget that,” Kate mumbled. She shoved it back in her closet, way in the back, where all her fashion missteps went to die. The dress she had on, a simple white eyelet summer dress that skimmed the tops of her knees, would have to do.
A quick brush through her hair and a touch of lip gloss completed her look. She was on a time crunch, after all.
She went to the living room and sat on the couch, crossing her legs and leaning casually across the back. Gretna watched her from the other end.
“What are you looking at?” she asked the animal. “I’m practicing looking seductive.”
Gretna was a tabby, big and rough and sporting one heavily scarred ear. Kate had him for years, ever since she’d first moved into the house. The people who owned it before her were the types who left their cat behind to either starve or find a new way of life. Gretna had been close to the former, all mangy fur and sharp claws. But she’d seen in an instant the potential that rested behind a few hundred dollars’ worth of vet bills and a lifetime supply of the fancy cat food the ads always showed being served with a snip of fresh parsley.
A heavy knock startled them both. The cat handled his fear easily, transforming it into a casual grooming session, but Kate wasn’t quite as quick at the recovery. She smoothed her hands over her dress and swallowed, one deep breath moving her all the way to the front door to pull it open.
“Julian!” she called brightly. But her next words—whatever they were supposed to be—died in her throat. It had been less than twenty-four hours since she’d seen him, and the fact that he was almost six feet of pulsating muscle had somehow escaped her memory.
His stubble was a little more pronounced today, the shadow of his facial hair gruff and sexy in all the right ways. He wore a simple black T-shirt over faded jeans, not too different from what he’d worn the night before at the bar. The clothes fit like they were molded to his body, his hard pecs clearly visible through the material—his ass, Kate knew, a perfect symmetry of taut flesh. He didn’t even have to try looking good. It just happened. To complete the picture, his arms were crossed casually over his chest, a shopping bag dangling from one hand.
“I brought a peace offering,” he said, holding out the bag. “You didn’t seem like the chocolate-and-flowers type.”
She didn’t? Chocolate and flowers had been a staple on her first dates for as long as she could remember. It was practically tattooed across her forehead.
She took the gift and ushered him into the living room, hoping he’d sit in one of the two royal armchairs that sat opposite the couch, since it would save her from the agony of deciding whether to sit next to him or not.
So of course he sat all the way at one end of the couch, leaving ample room for both Kate and Gretna to settle in comfortably.
She settled but not comfortably. Perched on the edge of the seat, which was as far as her sense of self-preservation allowed her, she realized how much she needed to get the thing reupholstered.
“Open it.” Julian gestured toward the bag.
Kate pulled out a toy package with a plastic window on the front. Inside was a small Jane Austen action figure, complete with a writing desk and a quill pen. The box bragged she had bendable limbs and real society manners.
It was little. A novelty item. Nothing, really.
But she felt the depth of the gesture as if he’d laid out an array of diamonds. He’d thought of her—of what was important to her—before she even called him. Probably while she and Jada were busy plotting ways to bring him down.
Her first reaction was to burst into sobs.
So she laughed instead.
“I’ll have to get some GI Joe dolls so I can set up a whole scene.” She smiled. “Wartime Jane, with Napoleonic action. I bet she could take the Cobra.”
“But not Hawk,” Julian returned with perfect solemnity. “Jane could never take Hawk. He’s got Duke to cover him.” He leaned back against the couch and crossed one foot on the opposite knee in a perfectly masculine repose.
“I don’t have nearly as much action-hero knowledge as I let on,” Kate confessed, setting the doll carefully on the table. She seemed right at home there.
So did Julian.
She scowled at her own thoughts. It was nerves. They were making her susceptible to all sorts of wayward emotions that had no place there.
“I’m an only child,” she explained, leaning back and trying to keep the conversation light. “So it was all Barbies and rainbows and pink ribbons when I was growing up.”
“I was the same way,” Julian replied. He laughed and added, “Not the pink ribbons, of course. But about not playing very much with action heroes. My mom moved here from Guam when I was a baby, and she never quite caught on to the American pop-culture craze while I was growing up.”
“You don’t have any siblings, either?”
“Two sisters, but they came quite a bit later. Later enough that my mom modernized and supplied them with plenty of Barbies and rainbows.”
It was odd to think of this man with sisters and a mother. It made him more human—turned some of the dark to a light that filled the room. And he hadn’t looked disparagingly at her shoes once.
“Do they throw hammers and trees too?” she asked, smiling softly.
Julian gave a low laugh. “No. My mom makes a mean mince and tatties at one of the food stalls, but my sisters are way too embarrassed by it all to acknowledge me in public.”
“Teenagers?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe.”
“Give them time. I remember once refusing to go to the mall with my dad unless he took off the socks he had on underneath his sandals.” Both she and her mom had been adamant about that.
“Did he do it?”
Kate smiled, remembering. “No. He put on a fanny pack and a Hawaiian shirt, and then made us spend all day together as a family. I don’t think my mom talked to him for a week after that.” Her dad’s small rebellions were always like that, and once Kate had seen how upset her mom had gotten, she’d started wearing a fanny pack too. In every picture of her at age thirteen, she was smiling widely, her hand resting possessively on the red nylon bag.
“I’ll remember that. The surefire way to infuriate a woman is to put on a Hawaiian shirt.”
Kate shook her head. “It wouldn’t work. I don’t think there’s anything you could wear that wouldn’t look like it was made for you.” The words slipped out before she realized what she was saying, and she had to sit on her hand to keep from clapping it over her mouth. “I mean—”
Julian leaned in closely and shook his head, a smile lurking in the corner of his mouth. “No way. You can’t take it back now. What else do you think about me?”
Kate paused. This would be a good place to start stroking his ego and get her seduction underway, and goodness knew there were a dozen compliments that could roll off her tongue. His raw, animal magnetism. The way he could make a woman feel like she was the only person in the room. The unique blend of Guam and Scotland that made him stand prouder and taller than anyone she’d
ever met. How soft his lips looked, and how very much she wanted to feel them against her own.
But she couldn’t do it. Not with that glittering look in his eyes. Not when she felt so out of control.
“Thank you for the gift,” she said evenly, taking a deep breath. “It was a lovely gesture, but you didn’t have to.”
He shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I’m glad you like it.”
A silence descended over the room, broken only by the contented purr of the cat, which remained lodged in the corner of the couch.
“Listen, about last night. I wanted to apologize—”
Kate leaped up. “Can I get you a drink? I have wine, beer, water…”
He looked up at her with an unreadable expression. “Sure. Whatever. Beer is fine.”
She practically ran off to the kitchen. Kate had no idea what to do with all this heady conversation and gifts and apologies—they were most decidedly not in her plan of action. Last night, Julian had been overbearing and rude, using his friends as a shield for mockery. He’d wanted Cornwall Park, and he made it very clear he would use his brawn to get it. Based on what Jada said, the best idea was for her to pay him back in kind, except instead of brawn, she was supposed to use beauty.
And brains.
Crap.
Somewhere in there, she’d forgotten to take brains into account.
She peeked out the doorway. Julian sat there looking completely at ease, not at all like a man who was worried about losing his land to a silly little woman. He looked like a man who knew what he wanted and always got it. Because he was big. Because he was strong. Because he was gorgeous.
He was playing her. Like she was playing him.
But he was doing it better.
She stormed back into the kitchen and opened two bottles of Heineken, tossing the caps into the sink with a tinny ring. Her whole life she let other people make the rules and set the course. She always tucked her shoelaces back into her bowling shoes before dropping them off at the counter. She was constantly working double shifts at the bookstore because one of her employees needed time off for a date or day at the beach. And she went home to Seattle for almost every holiday out of the year because that’s when her mother and father felt the heavy burden of their lackluster marriage the most.
Love is a Battlefield: Games of Love, Book 1 Page 6
