by Lori Wilde
“Much as I would like to ignore him,” Dirk said. “He’s making himself comfortable in our seating area.”
Jude groaned. “Fine. I’ll deal with him.”
Dirk looked amused and made a sweeping gesture with his arm that said go for it.
“No.” Jude shook her head. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m not playing into whatever scheme he’s got up his sleeve.” She gave Dirk the most charming smile she could muster. “It’s your turn.”
“You sure you don’t want to go talk to him?”
“Absolutely.”
“It’s all right if you do.”
“I don’t.”
“Okay. Your call.” Dirk chuckled and picked up his ball.
But despite her declarations to the contrary, as Dirk sized up his shot, Jude couldn’t stop herself from striding over to where Tom sat spread out, taking up more than his allotment of space on the bench.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
That aw-shucks, lopsided grin crossed his face.
“You’re here to mess with Dirk, aren’t you?” she accused. “Throw him off his game. Embarrass him.”
“Not at all,” Tom said with a devastating smile. “I came to tell you something important.”
Ooh, that took her breath away, but she didn’t want him to know how much he could affect her. “While I’m on my date?”
“Jude, there’s something you must know about—”
“We’ve already covered this last night.” She snorted and curled her hands on her hips. “You’ve already warned me. Dirk’s a player. I know. I don’t care. I’m not going to let you sabotage my evening. You’ve got to get over this ridiculous jealousy. It’s not a good look.”
“That’s not why I’m here.”
“No?”
“This is about me.” He gulped visibly. “About you. About us.”
“Us?”
Dirk came up to stand behind Jude and put a hand at her waist.
She didn’t like that and gave him a “step-off” stare.
Looking sheepish, Dirk dropped his hand and backed up.
Well, will you look at that? She was making her wishes known. Raising her chin a little higher, Jude turned back to Tom and caught him shooting Dirk a gloaty smile. Exasperated, she snapped her fingers in front of his face.
“You,” she said. “May I speak to you in private?” To Dirk, she said, “I’ll just be a sec.”
“Hurry back. It’s boring without you.” Dirk waved and didn’t look at all perturbed. She wasn’t quite sure what to make of this whole thing.
They left the lane area, and Jude marched to an alcove near the restrooms and waited for Tom to join her. She felt amped up, as if a low-level hum of electricity were running through her entire body, but she had no idea why.
Beyond Tom’s unique scent jumbling up her mind.
“Look,” he said, raising his hands and then pushing his palms downward simultaneously. “Please let me explain before you go off on me.”
She prided herself on being a rational person who was willing to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. Jude folded her arms across her chest, tilted her head, and said, “I’m listening.”
He seemed surprised by that. Inhaling deeply, he exhaled the breath in a rush. “See, there’s this bet…”
“A bet? What kind of bet?”
Tom winced. “There were four of us initially. Frat brothers from college. Dirk and I are the last two left.”
“Left?”
“In the competition.”
“What kind of competition?” she repeated, stringing Tom along.
On the way to the bowling alley after their dinner, Dirk had told Jude about the bet and the real reason he’d asked her out, but Tom didn’t need to know what she knew. Let him sweat it out.
Ooh, that wasn’t something a “nice” woman would say. Take that, Jaxon!
“A no-sex bet,” Tom mumbled.
Enjoying his embarrassment maybe a little too much, Jude cupped a palm around her ear. “I’m sorry, it’s so noisy in here. What did you say?”
Meeting her gaze, he said a bit louder, “A no-sex bet.”
“What’s that?” Jude asked, pretending to be clueless. It was fun watching him squirm.
“Ever seen the movie 40 Days and 40 Nights?”
“I might have heard about it. An old flick with Josh Hartnett not having sex for forty days and forty nights.”
“Actually, our bet is really more along the lines of a Seinfeld episode. ‘The Contest.’”
“Really?” She struggled not to laugh. She wanted him to think she was put off by such immature behavior. “You’re competing to be the master of your domain?”
“Yes, well, except with our bet, it’s no sex of any kind.” Tom cleared his throat and had the good grace to look embarrassed. “That’s why Dirk asked you out. He’s just trying to get me jealous, so I’ll want you all the more, and he’s hoping we’ll get together and I’ll be out of the contest, leaving him to walk away with twelve hundred dollars.”
“Oh, really?” Now she was a bit irked. “Let me unpack this. You’re saying that in order to get turned on, you have to have someone else chasing after the woman you’re interested in?”
“No!” He snorted, a little too fast and a little loud, his cheeks flushing red.
“Are you sure?”
“Dirk has nothing to do with how much you turn me on.” His voice turned husky.
“I’m beginning to think your mom and aunts are right and your competitive streak is a sickness.”
“It’s not like that.” He sounded almost desperate now, as if he realized far too late what a miscalculation he’d made.
“Then why are you here? We’re merely acquaintances who shared a kiss last night. We have no claims on each other.” This was the same thing she’d been telling herself all day. “Why did you feel compelled to follow me on my date and confess about the bet? You could have just stayed away and kept your mouth shut. Or if you had to tell me, you could have waited until our date tomorrow.”
“Are you still going out with me tomorrow?” he asked.
In that moment, he looked so freaking vulnerable, it was all she could do to hold on to her pique. “That all depends on you.”
Tom hung his head and glanced down. “Your shoe is untied.”
“What?” Jude asked, trying to puzzle out what was truly going on. Dirk had told her one thing, Tom another.
Without answering, Tom sank to his knees in front of her.
“What are you doing?” Confused, she blinked down at the loose flapping laces of her bowling shoes.
The man was tying her shoes!
It was a simple act, but it felt far too intimate. The considerate gesture placed him firmly at her feet, almost as if he were groveling. She felt, in the moment, like a revered goddess. It was a heady feeling and a deep yearning swept through her.
A yearning that, quite frankly, scared the dickens out of her.
The pulse at her throat ticked and her chest tightened.
Tom’s tousled dark hair was so close she had to squeeze her fingers into fists to keep from checking its silky softness. He was the kind of man who could make a woman completely lose her head, and suddenly all she could think about was getting naked with him. Their kiss last night seemed chaste compared to the images dancing through her head.
But he’d taken a celibacy vow, and now she had a challenge of her own going with Dirk. Her game? Teach Tom an important lesson about being overly competitive. A little competition was fine. Too much brought out an unflattering side. The win-at-all-costs attitude was dangerous.
So why did she suddenly want desperately to win her side bet with Dirk?
“There.” He patted her foot and stood up. “All tied up.”
“Thank you,” she rasped. Her voice sounded different even to her own ears. He had to have heard the strange sultry quality too. “For tying my shoes.”
They were eye to eye.
Her head spun, and her body filled with a river of hot, rippling tingles.
“Jude,” he murmured at the same time she whispered, “Tom.”
The bowling alley ceased to exist. The noises faded and the people disappeared, and it was just the two of them in their own private cocoon.
He leaned in.
She went up on the balls of her feet in her freshly tied bowling shoes.
Sweeping her into his arms, his lips came down on hers.
In bowling parlance, his kiss would have been a strike that scattered the pins into the next lane. He kissed her full on the mouth, his tongue parting her lips, the intensity of it vibrating all the way to her toes.
Last night was nothing compared to this kiss and she wanted to melt against him and savor this moment forever. She was breathless, wanting more, and she hadn’t even had a chance to kiss him back.
“Have a good night.” His words caressed her ears; she’d never heard a voice so compellingly sensual.
She reached out, weak with longing and needing something more from him to cushion their separation.
But he’d already pulled back. “See you tomorrow night for our date. I hope you’ve picked something adventuresome.”
Oh, wow, no. Not yet.
“Wait,” she said.
He paused, his eyes shiny. “Yes?”
“How about we turn the tables on Dirk?” she dared, plunging into the plan that Dirk had outlined on the way over to Evergreen Lanes.
It felt like a double cross and the nice woman inside her balked. But the entire point was to shed her Goody Two-Shoes image and fully live for the first time in her life and that’s what she wanted.
To prove Jaxon was wrong about her. That she wasn’t boring.
One of Tom’s eyebrows jumped up higher on his forehead. “What do you have in mind?”
“Let me get this straight. You’re saying that Dirk thinks by dating me, it will make you jealous and your jealousy will make you want to stake your claim on me. Am I understanding this correctly?”
“He’s used the ploy before.”
“And by staking your claim, it will lead to you giving up on the bet so you can get with me.”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“Hmm.”
His eyes flared with dark intensity. “What are you thinking?”
“Here’s an idea.” Jude paused, knowing she was headed down a slippery slope and hoping she was wily enough to pull off this double cross.
Tom stepped closer. There was a sheen of perspiration on his forehead, and it was all she could do not to reach over and dab it off.
“What if,” she proposed, offering the solution Dirk had fed her on the drive over. “I act super interested in Dirk and get him charged up enough to lose the bet? In other words, the puppet master gets played.”
Tom stroked his chin and he looked pensive. “It’s an interesting idea, but I don’t want you to compromise your own values for our stupid rivalry.”
“You let me worry about me.”
“Are you interested in Dirk?”
Jude studied him. She’d never seen a face quite like his. All his features were ordinary enough—maybe “regular” was more descriptive—but combined they added up to much more than an attractive guy. She’d love to be a sculptor and use him as her model. She could almost feel his masculine beauty taking form in wet clay under her fingers.
C’mon. She was kidding herself. What she really wanted was to stroke his cheek, feel the whisper of his breath on her fingertips, press her lips against his lids—
She was incredibly attracted to him. She couldn’t deny the truth any longer, and because of that, she needed to be careful in how she responded. She could blow the whole thing with the wrong words.
“No. I mean he’s great-looking and charming, but you’re right, he’s a player, and while I am looking for fun, I eventually want more.”
That didn’t calm Tom at all. He shook his head and his brown eyes widened in alarm. “Does this mean you’re actually considering going home with Dirk?”
She heard the panic in his voice and suppressed a smile. This was going to work. “Don’t you want to win that bet?”
“No, no!” He shook his head so vigorously she feared it would swivel right off his body. “Not this way. I don’t want you to sleep with him! Please, don’t sleep with him.”
“Tom,” she said in all seriousness, a bit giddy with her own power, “I’m a nice woman.”
“But you’re working hard to change that.” Seriously, Tom looked positively panic-stricken.
“Not all in one night.” She winked. “Your bet does preclude any sexual activity, right? So self-indulgences are grounds for…er…shall we say, discharge from the contest.”
He didn’t comment on her pun, but he shifted his weight from leg to leg, back and forth in an aggressive sway as if torn between wanting to beat Dirk in the competition and keeping Jude as far away as possible from his horndog buddy.
“Are you saying that you plan to get Dirk charged up enough so that he’ll go home and…” Tom’s entire body tensed.
Jude was feeling decidedly naughty and she couldn’t stop a wicked grin from overtaking her face. She’d set the bait and Tom had taken it. He was hooked.
“Lose the bet without me,” she said, finishing the sentence for him.
12
Last night, watching Jude flirt like crazy with Dirk had just about killed him. As part of Jude’s plan to goose Dirk into losing the bet, she’d invited Tom and Buck to bowl with them, and then she’d proceeded to hang all over Dirk, putting her plan into action.
He hated every second of it and only the thought of Dirk losing the bet kept him from begging Jude to go home with him instead. Dirk did need to be taught a lesson, but Tom wasn’t convinced this was the way to do it.
It ended up being the most miserable two hours of his life.
To his surprise, Dirk had been enthusiastic about Tom and Buck joining them, which raised Tom’s suspicions as to what his buddy had up his sleeve. He didn’t trust Dirk any farther than he could pick him up and thrust him face-first down the bowling lane.
By the end of the evening, he was flat-out sulking and the only thing that boosted his spirits was the thought of winning that bet.
Afterward, as he lay in bed thinking of Jude in that cute outfit, his body hardened and the temptation to drop out of the contest was overwhelming. She filled his head—the sight of her shapely body, the smell of her intoxicating fragrance, the sound of her soft, beguiling voice.
But that was what Dirk wanted him to do, and Tom would be damned if he’d give his buddy the upper hand.
All the next day, he waited for Dirk to text him and tell him he was out of the bet, but Dirk did not. So much for Jude’s plan, apparently. Dirk had a cast-iron constitution.
Yeah, well, so do you.
Unless Dirk was dishonest.
His buddy could be manipulative, and he lived to gamble and take risks, but Tom had never known Dirk to tell an outright lie.
So either Dirk was still the “master of his domain” or…
A startling new—and frankly terrifying—thought seized him. What if Dirk really liked Jude? What if he wanted her for himself? What if Tom was wrong and Dirk wasn’t just using Jude to get him to drop out of the competition?
Those questions plagued him all day long, and it was with great relief when he pulled up to Jude’s apartment complex at six thirty that Saturday evening. Tonight, she’d be with him and not Dirk.
Suck on that, Poomph.
Jude met him at the door, looking like a total knockout in a navy-blue dress and scarlet stilettos. She looked so stunning, he feared he was underdressed in slacks and a sports jacket.
“You look like a million bucks,” he said, stupefied. She’d held nothing back. Her soft dark hair fell in big curls around her shoulders and she smelled like heaven.
“Thank you.” Her eyes filled with appreciation for his c
omment.
“Jaxon is a total fool.”
Her smiled broadened. “Thank you for validating me.”
“I’m not trying to validate you,” he said. “I mean what I say. You’re ravishing.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere.” She winked as she pulled the door to her apartment closed and locked it behind them.
Okay, he needed to nip that conversation in the bud before he got really charged up. “Where are we going?”
“I’ll give you directions when we’re in the car.”
“Ahh, mysterious.”
“I want to keep you interested.”
“Oh…” He eyed her up and down. “You have nothing to worry about on that score. I am beyond interested.”
“How’s the bet going?” she asked as they went down the three staircases together. “Is Dirk still in the competition after last night?”
“Yes.”
“Aww, I’m sorry I failed to get you the results you wanted.”
“Don’t be. I don’t even want to think about Dirk. Tonight is all about you and me.”
“Hmm,” she mused as if he hadn’t said a word. “I guess I’m not as charming as I thought I was. I’ll make another date with him and see if I can turn up the heat.”
“No!” Tom exclaimed so loudly his voice echoed in the confines of the stairwell.
“Don’t you want to win?”
“Not like this,” he said.
“Oh, really? That doesn’t sound like the Tom Brunswick I’ve come to know.”
“Yeah, well, some things are more important than winning.” He surprised the heck out of himself with that statement.
“Since when?” She laughed lightly.
Since she’d been rubbing up against Dirk all night at the bowling alley. Tom ground his teeth, remembering as they hit the first-floor landing and stepped out into the cold November night air.
He inhaled a bracing lungful of chilled oxygen and it helped to clear his head…until he took Jude’s arm to guide her down the sidewalk dusted with snow and a fresh assault of longing blasted through him. Why was he clinging to a decade worth of rivalry when he could let go and explore this chemistry with Jude? All he had to do was call Dirk and tell him he was out of the contest.
