All Tied Up. Alison Kent
it was time to panic. Because as Jess stepped in beside Melanie, Leo took up his position at Macy’s back.
The man whose eyes she wanted to gouge out, whose feathers she wanted to ruffle and pluck, whose clothes she wanted to strip from his body in order to learn the scent of his intimate skin, was going to be her partner.
“Okay,” she said, and her voice squeaked, so she started again. “Okay. This is how this works. The first rule is that you never show your partner the items on your list. Guard it with your life.”
“Got it,” Jess stated.
And Melanie, not to be outmaneuvered by her mate, added, “That’s easy.”
So far, so good. Macy opened her mouth to start again—only to have her next words cut off by Eric’s loud, “Wait a minute here. This doesn’t make any sense. What’s the point of working in teams if this isn’t about teamwork?”
Leave it to the sports fanatic to overanalyze the rules of her game. “What’s the point of a game of chess? A game of racquetball? A one-on-one game of hoops?”
The stadium lights dawned in Eric’s bright blue eyes. “One-on-one, eh? Well, why didn’t you say so earlier?”
Definitely the wrong comeback to make when surrounded by five of the six gIRL-gEAR women, starting with Macy on his left.
Her hands found a perch on her hips. “Because you didn’t stop with the smart-ass interruptions long enough for me to explain?”
Melanie chimed in next. “Because you didn’t trust a woman to come up with a game that would interest a man?”
“Because you didn’t give a woman credit for having an original thought?” Lauren. Always one to support her best friend.
And Sydney. “Because you didn’t think a woman’s competitive streak could really be a mile wide?”
“Because, when it comes to sports, you don’t listen to anyone who doesn’t have a penis?”
The potshot volley, having begun in the third circle, continued down the line—the final salvo too close for Eric’s comfort. At Chloe’s question, he took a step back and raised both hands in surrender.
“Okay, okay. I give. Macy, you’re brilliant.” He offered her a deferential bow. “Abso-friggin-lutely brilliant.”
“And here I thought you’d never notice.” She was beginning to think no one would notice. That she’d been imagining her brilliance alone all this time. The way things had been going this evening, in fact, she felt positively unbrilliant.
So, of course, Leo chose that moment to move in closer, nudging his hip to her backside, reminding her of the pickle her unbrilliance had gotten her into. Here she was, stuck playing a game of her own making with a partner more foe than friend—a petard of an entirely different nature.
His breath brushed the hairs at Macy’s nape. She ignored the sensation, chalked up the contact to his proximity and not to any underhanded attempt to move his first pawn—though she did reserve the right to change her mind and retract the benefit of the doubt.
She exhaled and regained her train of thought. “Okay. Where was I?”
“Guarding our lists with our lives,” he reminded her.
“Right. It’s also important that once you start finding the items on your lists, you keep your findings to yourself. This is not a team effort. One-on-one, remember? The prize goes to only one of you. One of us. Whatever.”
“Anyway, when we get together next month, the one who has found the most items on his or her individual list will be off sailing the Seven Seas. Or at least the Caribbean.” Sensing a cheater at her back, she crushed her paper to her chest.
“Now, I don’t expect it will take anyone the entire thirty days to finish. There might even be some of you who finish up tonight.” She sent a pointed glance down the row toward Anton and Lauren. “But Sydney won’t be awarding the prize until next month’s game night.”
“And I suppose we have to be present to win?”
Macy winked at Ray. “I like the way you think.”
Eric had finally had enough. “Can we look now or what?”
“In a minute.” The crucial moment had arrived. Her players were pumped and primed. Now not to lose them in the details. She pinched together the pads of her index finger and thumb. “Just one more little itty-bitty thing to mention.”
“Uh-oh,” echoed in tones from soprano to bass.
“The items on your list? The kinky, suggestive, sexy and one-hundred-percent-adult items?”
“I told you, Macy. No sex shops.”
Macy was definitely going to have to introduce Sydney to the joys of a certain store she’d discovered on lower Westheimer.
“Actually, Syd, none of the things on your list could be purchased even if you wanted to buy them. Well, I suppose that’s not exactly true, but I’m not going to go there.”
Macy waved away the thought of offering payment to Leo Redding, and dropped the bomb. “You see, the source of every item you’ll need to find to win the scavenger hunt belongs to the member of the opposite sex in your spotlight.”
LEO REDDING STOOD ALONE in the first-floor hallway of Macy and Lauren’s building. The light was dim, the narrow windows being set high in the old warehouse’s walls, and night having long ago fallen. The row of original and restored bare-bulb fixtures cast enough of a glow to allow him to read the list he hadn’t yet taken time to go over.
He had to give Macy credit. The woman had a sense of adventure like none he’d ever encountered. This scavenger hunt of hers was inventive and inspired and…he wasn’t sure he could put into words what all it was.
He knew women well, was used to the sexual subterfuge engaged in by those he dated. He expected no less when he entered a relationship and discovered the unique challenges each partner offered. Sex was always an exchange of power, whether shared in a one-night stand or a when-the-mood-strikes fling.
Which was why this scavenger hunt of Macy’s intrigued him. She had the competitive spirit he enjoyed in a woman. Too bad she didn’t recognize the potential of that energy. Or didn’t apply her ambition beyond living for the moment.
He couldn’t deny the cultural phenomenon of gIRL-gEAR. He’d spent enough time on the firm’s corporate structure to know that Sydney Ford and her partners had hit with uncanny accuracy on urban fashion’s next best thing.
And now, reading the list of a dozen-plus personal items he’d agreed to discover about Macy Webb, he was struck with the logic that drove her individual success.
Beyond her enthusiasm for putting together the game, she knew what buttons to push to get play under way. In this case, the collective testosterone buttons of the five men in the room.
The women of gIRL-gEAR were hot. And if the rest of the guys’ lists were as provocative as Leo’s, he figured winning wasn’t much of an issue when Macy had made the chance to score a prize in itself.
Then he wondered what was on the list of items she would be working to discover about him. He wouldn’t mind if she discovered his preferred brand of long-legged briefs. He’d gladly allow her to find his only childhood scar; the skateboarding accident had required a zipper of stitches to sew up the Frankenstein gash on his hipbone.
And, while she was there with his pants down, he wouldn’t object to her searching out not only the erogenous zone he shared with all men, but his other. The one women loved to discover—at least those who took the time to learn exactly what he liked in bed.
Okay. Here he was, standing in a darkened hallway working on a hard-on. Something had to give. Twice tonight Macy had brought him to the point of wanting to get off and she’d done nothing more than