Temptation had never been so hard to resist

What was it about a wet naked man? Macy wondered. So much clean skin in which to bury her nose and breathe, in which to dart the tip of her tongue and taste.

“Macy?” Leo called. “Are you cooking yet?”

If he only knew, she mused. “I was thinking of bringing a couple of eggs in here and poaching them in this steam.”

Leo’s movements stilled and then she heard the magnetic latch click. The door eased open and Macy got her first unintentional look at his body before she jerked her gaze up to his face.

He wore a grin that was pure ego and conceit. The brief look she’d caught of his body was enough to confirm he had good reason.

Besides, at the moment, she was willing to forgive him just about anything. Water streamed down his face, dripping from spiky lashes, matting his hair to his head with a boyish charm.

The complete picture destroyed her resolve and she stepped into the shower, pajamas and all.

Dear Reader,

I admit it. Fashion fascinates me, as do fads. Who would have thought we’d see the return of tie-dye and bell-bottoms? Or that individuality and flaunting convention could make for such eye-catching style?

I also find myself fascinated by the entrepreneurial spirit and boundless imagination (not to mention energy!) found in so many members of Generation X.

Welcome to gIRL-gEAR, the combination of my fascinations, where you’ll meet a group of six twenty-something women who’ve launched an urban fashion empire and, because this is my fantasy, have set the retail world on fire.

All Tied Up, the first story, follows the Peter Pan adventures of Macy Webb, who wildly embraces her inner child—until she meets corporate attorney Leo Redding, who is all grown up.

If, like Chloe Zuniga, the heroine of the second story, you enjoy those sexy scenes from classic cinematic love stories, you won’t want to miss No Strings Attached.

Finally, join Sydney Ford as she sets sail toward a romance that was Bound to Happen!

Enjoy!

Alison Kent

P.S. To learn more about the girls, the company and the series, visit www.girl-gear.com, where you can always find the latest in fun and games, dating tips and more!

All Tied Up
Alison Kent

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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A big thank-you to:

Birgit Davis-Todd for your enthusiasm and your patience Karen Solem for your encouragement and patience Susan Sheppard for the conversation over dinner on the River Walk—and did I mention your patience? And to Walt, for too many things to mention but, on this book in particular, for your patience with my need for tiramisu and caramel lattes.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Prologue

The gIRLS behind gIRL-gEAR

by Samantha Venus for Urban Attitude Magazine

This month we begin a multipart series introducing the women responsible for the cultural phenomenon that is gIRL-gEAR. (And to think it all began at an Austin, Texas, Starbucks!)

Three years ago, the firm blasted onto the retail scene with urban fashion’s next best thing, and now gIRL-gEAR has had every department store across the country scrambling to catch up. All we at Urban Attitude have to say is, Good Luck!

Let’s meet our first gIRL…Macy Webb—a fitting choice for our initial profile, as Macy works as content editor for the Web site’s discussion forums and advice columns, offering tips on dating and suggestions for singles. And let’s be honest here. Do we doubt for a minute that the gIRLS whose fashion advice we’ve followed now for three years would steer us wrong when it comes to M-E-N? I don’t think so!

Creator of gIRL gAMES and gIRL gUIDE, the site’s fun and advice columns, Macy’s currently organizing a trial run of her latest gIRL gAMES project—a very sexy scavenger hunt. “An after-hours, adults-only, you-find-mine-I’ll-find-yours kind of contest,” she says. The rules will be posted in her next column, due online at the end of the month. (www.girl-gear.com)

MACY WEBB READ the laminated copy of the magazine article tacked to the corner of her drafting board while waiting for her printer to spit out the lists she’d be needing later tonight. When she considered how far the company had come in such a short period of time…She shook her head, amazed that the firm’s partners still possessed a shred of sanity, what with the out-of-control pace of the business.

The six friends who’d founded gIRL-gEAR, hadn’t even met until their senior year at University of Texas, while sharing late night shifts at a new Austin Starbucks. Macy had been a psychology major. Her roommate, Lauren Hollister, had been working toward a degree in commercial art.

Sydney Ford, gIRL-gEAR’s CEO, had managed the coffee shop while studying business and finance. Kinsey Gray, Melanie Craine and Chloe Zuniga, the last of the partners, had been on equally diverse career paths, from marketing to technology to fashion.

Until one fateful night following a late November football game, the six women had assumed they’d go their separate ways come commencement the following June. That night the UT Longhorns had trounced the Houston Cougars in a nearly unheard of Texas windchill of seventeen degrees.

And the teamwork involved in ordering, brewing and serving enough lattes, mochas and cappuccinos to defrost what seemed to be every single spectator, convinced business-minded Sydney that she’d be a fool not to capitalize on a sure thing.

The sure thing had launched with the explosive sparkle and flash of a Fourth of July bottle rocket. Each of the women brought her own individuality and vision to bear on the corporation’s mission statement. Each brought her own field of expertise as well, putting her degree to work to expand the conceptual whole.

Macy and Lauren worked as respective editors of content and design for the interactive e-commerce Web site and mail-order catalog. Chloe headed up gRAFFITI gIRL and gADGET gIRL, the cosmetics and accessories lines.

The gift line, gOODY gIRL, and the technology line, gIZMO gIRL, were in Melanie’s capable hands. Kinsey divided her time between gO gIRL and gROWL gIRL, the active-wear and party-wear divisions.

Sydney had been forced by time limitations and ever-increasing executive responsibilities to hand off the original gIRL-gEAR fashions to the firm’s junior associates, who did their best to keep up with consumer demand.

Thirty-eight months after graduation and two years into incorporation, the six founding partners had revised their five-year business plan for the second time. But even if the corporation’s fireworks fizzled next week, each of the women had a portfolio reflecting an investment in the future.

A good thing for all involved, but Macy didn’t dwell on what might or might not happen. The way she saw things, the future was…the future. Much too far away to think about when there was so much fun to be had now….

1

“I DON’T KNOW, Macy. You think we have enough food here?”

Macy Webb set a tub of tortilla chips and a trough of salsa next to the Crock-Pot of hot chile con queso plugged in on the kitchen bar. She added a festive tower of throwaway bowls in red, yellow, green and blue, and a stack of matching paper napkins. Eyeing the colorful layout, she smiled and, hands at black capri-covered hips, turned to answer Lauren.

“Well, there’s you and me, the other girls, and Anton, of course.” Lauren’s boyfriend was as much a permanent fixture on game night as the gIRL-gEAR partners, who helped Macy fine-tune the ideas for her column.

“And the guys? Who did you invite this time?”

“Ray, Jess, Doug and Eric.” Macy gave serious thought to the combined appetites of five in-the-prime-of-life, twenty-something men. “Hmm. Now that you mention it…”

She took in the long buffet table Lauren had pulled from the loft’s office space into the dining area and covered with a brightly fringed Mexican throw.

Pico de gallo. Chopped tomatoes. Shredded lettuce. Grated cheese. Chafing dishes with pinto beans ala charro and sautéed onions and peppers. A metal washtub of iced Corona longnecks, and fajitas on the grill. It looked like enough, but…

“Margaritas, maybe?” she asked.

Lauren rolled her eyes, shook her head. Healthy strands of sun-streaked blond hair brushed her shoulders. “I was being facetious. We’ll be eating leftovers for a week, at least.”

“Not a problem.” Macy pinched a tiny tomato square from the serving bowl, popped it into her mouth. “I can eat Tex-Mex morning, noon and night.”

“That’s because you have the metabolism of a man. I, on the other hand, have no metabolism, which means I have the hips of a woman.”

“Hips, ha! You and your perfect C-cup boobs. Don’t be giving me any of your metabolism crap.” Macy tugged on the hem of her hot-pink T-shirt, glanced down the scooped neckline in search of cleavage. “Oh. I know. You forgot the guacamole.”

Lauren stopped in the middle of setting out rows of plastic cutlery to lift a delicate brow. “Looking down your shirt makes you think of avocados?”

“If only. More like green grapes. Key limes, if I’m lucky.” Macy adjusted her shirt hem and went to clear a place on the table for the platters of meat. “I owe what bustline I do have to the push-up bras Kinsey stocks. Employee discount be damned. I’ve invested a fortune.”

“Are you sure you’re getting your money’s worth?” Lauren’s expression was the picture of fresh-faced innocence. “I don’t see any pushing up going on at the moment.”

Macy stuck out her tongue. “That’s because my pusher-uppers are all still wet. I’ve been busy with the party and didn’t get my laundry done until this afternoon.”

“That explains the funky-looking delicates hanging in my bathroom.” Lauren headed back to the kitchen.

“My bathroom’s open to the public. Yours is off the beaten path. I didn’t want just anyone fondling my things.” Of course, she might make an exception for the right man. The right man with the right hands and a kiss to knock her socks off.

“Then your things should be safe. No one but Anton has any reason to be in my room. And I’ll make sure the only thing delicate he fondles is me,” Lauren said, returning from the kitchen with her hands full of serving utensils.

“Thanks for rubbing it in. Now I only have you to worry about. You and the guacamole, which I see you have once again managed to forget.” Macy waited for an explanation more reasonable than the one she knew would be coming.

“It’s in the fridge.” Lauren gestured over her shoulder with a tilt of her chin. “Behind the fruit trifle.”

“And you left it there why?”

“I thought we just covered this? Metabolism? Hips?”

Macy considered smacking the grin from Lauren’s face. But that was best-friend rule number one. No smacking allowed.

She took the serving pieces Lauren offered. “So now I have to set the table, get the guacamole from the fridge and grab the chicken and shrimp off the barbie?”

“Cute. Aussie Tex-Mex.” Lauren reached for the platter and barbecue tongs. “I’ll get the meat. The guacamole might not make it to the table if left up to me.”

Grr. “Will you stop already with the food obsession? I’ve seen what you eat. If you ate any less I’d be worried.”

“If I ate any less, I’d be a saint. Which I’m not. And you can keep your unsaintly comeback to yourself.”

Macy bit back the unsaintly comeback on the tip of her tongue. “I was only going to say that I can’t believe you’d worry about calories on game night.”

Lauren stepped through the sliding glass doors and out onto the balcony. She tossed her reply back into the room. “Your game nights are beginning to scare me. It’s like you’re a walking, talking Cosmo poll. Where do you come up with these ideas?”

A walking, talking Cosmo poll? Macy chuckled, even while recognizing the analogy to be a fairly accurate description of the ease with which she created gIRL gAMES and gIRL gUIDE, the fun and advice columns she wrote for gIRL-gEAR’s Web site. Her job was child’s play. She liked it that way, and planned to get away with not working for a living as long as she possibly could.

Meeting Lauren between the table and the balcony door, Macy took the platter of chicken from her roommate’s hands. “Don’t ask me where the ideas come from. They just show up. I test them, work out the kinks, write the columns. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

“Well, I guess that’s all good, since yesterday Sydney mentioned your two columns are still generating the most feedback for the site.” Lauren headed back to the grill.

“Wow! How cool is that!” Macy left the chicken on the table and followed, wanting to hear more.

“Actually—” Lauren gestured with the tongs “—we talked about a new design for your Web pages. I think you need a logo. Maybe a caricature. Or a cartoon-type figure.”

“Hmm. Cartoon is good. A takeoff on my name? A cuddly spider, maybe? Big eyes and long lashes. None of that black widow, Barbie doll, comic-book cleavage.”

“Cuddly, huh? I’ll see what I can do.” Lauren plucked the last of the shrimp from the grill. “Oh, and I think Sydney wants you to write an ongoing serial, too. Where readers vote on ideas or submit suggestions for each installment? Anyway, I’m going to run a few design ideas by Anton later.”

“Wow, super.” Macy pasted on a broad smile. “Hey, what would I do without you and Sydney to take care of me?”

“That’s what best friends are for.”

Macy wandered back into the loft before sarcasm got the better of her. Yes, she was excited. Yes, she was thrilled. She loved her career, after all. But success was blowing in on hurricane winds and she wasn’t prepared for the storm.

It was now that mattered, now that counted. Living for and in the moment. Not worrying about the price of technology stock years down the road. She didn’t want to lose a minute of today planning for the future. Why couldn’t anyone see that?

Lauren stepped inside, catching the balcony door with her hip and giving a gentle shove. With food, drink and all things paper, plastic and edible in place, she lifted a brow at Macy, looked back at the table, then to Macy again.

Macy shrugged. “If you cook it, they will come?”

“You’d better hope they come soon or I see a whole lotta freezer bags in your future.”

As if on cosmic cue, the buzzer signaled the approach of the loft’s renovated freight elevator.

“I don’t know how you manage to do that every time. But there’s something about a gift horse and his mouth that I think applies here.” Lauren scurried toward her rooms at the far end of the loft, her low-slung jeans topped by a billowy gauze shirt a shade lighter than the purple tube top beneath.

“Hey,” Macy called. “Where’re you going?”

“I need to check my stuff before Anton gets here.” And, with a wiggle of her fingers, Lauren disappeared behind one of the hanging panels of hammered brass that separated her living quarters from the loft’s main room.

“Stuff? What stuff? Oh, never mind. Who cares about your stinky ol’ stuff, anyway?” Pouting, Macy headed for the kitchen and the guacamole. She could eat both her helping and Lauren’s, return for seconds and never gain an inch or an ounce.

The only way the avocado salad would make any difference to her figure was if she scooped it directly into her bra. Sort of an edible implant. Kinky, but, hey. A girl had to do what a girl had to do if she wanted to have stuff of her own.

And anyone worth checking it for.

“THIS SHRIMP IS outstanding. Absolutely outstanding.” Eric Haydon shoved another in his mouth and gave Macy a closed-lipped, shrimp-eating grin.

She added a fifth throwaway plate to the stack balanced from fingertips to elbow, added a hint of twisted wickedness to her parting shot. “Just doing what I can to fatten you up for the kill. Hansel.”

Chipmunk-cheeked Eric stopped chewing. Then swallowed. “I was afraid of that.”

“You know, Eric, if you weren’t so easy to tease, well, I wouldn’t tease you.” Macy reached the kitchen alcove separated from the rest of the loft by eight floor-to-ceiling lava-lamp bubble sculptures. She dropped the discarded plates into the trash. “Tonight’s game will be painless. I promise.”

Longneck in hand, Eric leaned a shoulder on a turquoise figure eight. His dark-blue Henley shirt seemed hard-pressed to cover his broad shoulders, but did great things to his eyes. “I’ve figured something out about you, Macy Webb.”

Well, that made one of them, because sooner or later she needed to figure out why he wasn’t her type. “What’s that? That no matter how creatively you beg, I’m not leaving gIRL-gEAR to come cook for you?”

Eric owned his own sports bar, Haydon’s Half-Time, and had been after Macy for months to give up writing and editing to sling his hash instead.

Except Macy only cooked for fun, not for money. Money made work out of play, and what kind of a life was that?

“I wish. But I know you’re not going anywhere.” He finished his beer, tossed the empty bottle in with the plates and utensils. “Can’t blame a guy for trying, though.”

“I don’t blame you. As the object of your culinary pursuit, I have been flattered.” Macy thought for a minute, then puffed out her lower lip. “As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, I’m going to miss being wooed.”

“You want woo? I’ll give you woo.” Eric took a step closer and slowly smiled, allowing his dimples to deepen to maximum impact. Then he leaned down and poured all that macho charm into Macy’s personal space.

She leaned up into his, pulling to a halt before she actually got stupid and kissed the man. “Yeah? You and whose football team? Hmm.” Eyes closed, she held up one finger. “Let me take a minute here to imagine the possibilities.”

“Very funny, Macy.”

“Okay. I’m done.” She opened one eye, then the other, laughed out loud as Eric rolled his.

“You’re sick.”

“And you’re gullible.” She punched him in the shoulder.

“Hey.” He rubbed away the damage. “You know, just for that I think I’ll take one last shrimp and leave.”

“You can’t do that.” She grabbed and ended up with a handful of loose sleeve minus the elbow she’d been aiming for. “I’m already one man short, since I don’t know where Anton is.”

“I knew it.” Eric hung his head, his chin lowered in defeat. “This is going to be one of those games where we have to pair off into couples, isn’t it?”

“And what makes you jump to that conclusion?” Besides the fact that at least fifty percent of her games were designed for interaction between the sexes, and her players knew the odds rarely changed from month to month.

“Two things. The tougher the game, the better the spread. And you have fajitas coming out the wazoo. Second thing. If you’re a man short, that means couples.” He held up a second finger, jabbed it at his chest to make his point. “And there is no Mrs. Eric Haydon in my future.”

“No need to be so touchy, Eric. It’s just a game. Not holy matrimony.”

Eric braced both hands on the edge of the sink, shook his head and looked down.

Macy moved in, massaged circles on his back between his shoulder blades. “Poor baby. Your breakup with Cathy was a tough one?”

“Brutal. Totally brutal.” He pushed back from the sink, stood in the center of the kitchen with his hands at his hips as if waiting for a flying tackle.

Macy didn’t know whether to hug him or push him over with a feather, which she was sure would be all it would take. She did manage to bite her tongue on a chuckle.

If he wasn’t such a Tarzan…Hmm. Maybe that was the problem. She never had made a very good Jane. “You know, Eric, I hate to say it….”

“Go ahead. Everyone else has.”

“Okay then. I told you so. You and Cathy were totally wrong for each other.”

“Well, it didn’t feel so wrong when we got together.” Eric rubbed the base of his neck, looked from Macy to the wildly paint-splattered kitchen floor and back again.

She just waited, one brow lifted while he stewed.

When his juices reached a simmer, he jumped from the frying pan into the fire. “Damn it, Macy. Just spit it out before you choke on your tongue.”

“It didn’t feel so wrong when you got together because you didn’t get out of bed for a week.” She punctuated her pronouncement with a sternly pointed index finger.

“Yeah, so?”

“So?” Were all men so daft? “Man cannot live by bed alone.”

“Aha! Wrong. Man can. Woman cannot.”

Macy was gearing up to set Eric straight when a soft female voice cut into the conversation. “Sounds to me, sugar, like you haven’t met the right woman.”

Both Macy and Eric turned, to find Chloe Zuniga with one hip propped on a bulbous red sculpture.

With a gorgeously full Jennifer Lopez figure, naturally highlighted platinum hair and eyes that changed color depending on her choice of contact lenses, Chloe was fantasy pinup material.

It was only when she opened her mouth that the myth was dispelled. Chloe had a voice as soft as down…and the vocabulary of a wharf rat.

Hand extended, Eric started forward. “Eric Haydon. And you would be?”

Batting ingenuous eyes that said less about her innocence and more about her understanding of artful naiveté, she dispensed a frosted pink, candy-coated smile. “Why, your wildest dream, of course.”

Eric grabbed her wrist, turned his cheek and nuzzled his lips to her skin. And he did it all without breaking eye contact. “Is that a promise I should be holding you to, Chloe?”

Time to stop this conversation’s downhill slide, Macy decided, stepping into the standoff before either of her guests could strip to their skivvies. “Any sign of Anton yet?”

Chloe extricated herself from Eric’s hold, leaving him with a pat on the cheek. She crossed the kitchen to pull a bottle of spring water from the fridge. “He’s here. Lauren sent me to tell you.”

“It’s about damn time.”

Macy breathed a sigh of relief, which Chloe interrupted by adding, “But Doug’s not coming. A bad blueprint on one of the condos, I think was the deal.”

Chloe twisted the cap from her bottle and sipped. “Oh, and Kinsey just called. Her parents came into town this afternoon and insisted she join them for dinner.”

Oh, good aggravating grief, Macy thought, and grimaced. The more feedback on the game, the better to gauge the column’s success. “Now what am I going to do? I planned this month’s game around five couples.”

Eric, of course, found the news to his liking. “Looks like I’m off the matrimonial hook.”

Chloe slid up against Eric’s side, gave him a look from beneath sultry lashes. “Speaking of a matrimonial hook, rumor has it, sugar, that Cathy cut you loose.”

Eric blew out a long tolerant sigh and wrapped a brotherly arm around Chloe’s shoulders. “Chloe, Chloe, Chloe. Seeing as how this is Macy’s party and I’m working to be on my best behavior here, I’m going to let that one slide.”

Macy wished she could slide. All the way into tomorrow, and forget tonight ever happened. “I’m not sure your behavior’s going to make any difference, since it looks like Macy’s party is now Macy’s bust.”

“Actually,” Chloe began, cutting off Macy’s third-person soliloquy, “five couples won’t be a problem. As long as you play, too.”

“Whoa. Wait. You’re not off any hook yet,” Macy said, but Eric had already scooted out of the kitchen. She turned to Chloe. “What do you mean, five couples? Who’s my extra man?”

“Anton’s not alone. He’s got that lawyer with him.”

The floor beneath Macy’s feet became a hungry black hole. “That lawyer?”

“Uh-huh.” Chloe stepped back to follow Eric into the other room. “Are you coming?”

“Yeah.” Macy turned on the kitchen faucet.

Leo Redding. Here.

In her loft.

With her underthings the length of the building away.

Of all times to be without cleavage. “Let me wash my hands. Tell Lauren I’ll be right there. And whatever you do, Chloe, don’t let Eric escape.”

Chloe leaned around a stack of bright, glossy yellow spheres to watch Eric’s retreat. “He does have a cute butt. I suppose it wouldn’t be so bad to play Jane to his Tarzan act.”

“His Tarzan isn’t an act, Chloe. He’s an alpha of the highest order. Head of the pack and all that psychobabble.”

“Such a shame. Swinging from a vine is so uncivilized. Give me a chandelier any day.” Chloe sighed and, when Macy rolled her eyes, gave a quick flutter of her fingers. “I know, I’m going. And I promise no one will get away.”

Macy shook her head and got back to the business of washing her hands. Chloe, the enigma. The bad girl body, the baby doll face. No wonder Eric had gotten all touchy-feely when Chloe walked into the kitchen.

Men. They all had such one-track libidos. Macy could just imagine Leo Redding’s tongue lolling in Chloe’s direction like some expensive…What breed of dog would an uppity attorney own, anyway?

Whatever the pedigree, because he was definitely pedigreed, he’d pant after Chloe’s cute-toy-poodle personality long before he’d share his bone with Macy, the scruffy rat terrier.

She didn’t care. She didn’t care! Why should she care? It wasn’t like he’d ever offered her more than the time of day.

Leo Redding III, Esquire, had first come into Macy’s life a year ago, during changes to the corporate structure of gIRL-gEAR. Having landed the account through Anton’s connection to Sydney via Lauren, Leo had drawn up the required documents for shareholding and ownership. He’d been a total automaton during the group’s corporate dealings.

Sydney, who seemed his perfect female counterpart, declared him unsuitably career obsessed. Neither Kinsey nor Mel had managed to crack his focused composure. Even Chloe’s cotton-candy Chloe magic had only resulted in Leo removing his pewter-colored wire-rimmed glasses to rub the bridge of his nose. She’d declared him to be a big waste of time.

Macy hadn’t known him well enough to disagree. Things hadn’t changed. One thing she did know was that, along with Eric Haydon, Ray Coffey and Jess Morgan—all gorging on fajitas in the loft’s central room—Leo played on the same adult soccer team as Anton. The soccer team meant Macy had a jackpot of single men to draft into service on game nights.

But this was the first time Leo had come to play.

Oh, and then there was his incredibly acute sense of hearing, and matching sarcastic streak, both traits she’d happened to discover when he’d stopped by the loft with Anton one Saturday morning last fall.

The men had been on their way to a soccer game, and Anton had dropped by for Lauren. As much as Lauren loved cheering on her favorite forward, she hated pacing the sidelines alone, and had begged Macy to come along. And Macy had been tempted.

Like any healthy twenty-five-year-old female, she more than enjoyed spectating when it came to a twenty-two-man testosterone tournament. She’d said as much to Lauren. Said as well that she was glad to be a child of the new millennium, where men were equal opportunity sex objects.

And then she’d made the mistake of glancing across the loft in time to catch Leo’s indulgent expression turn to one of annoyance, insult even.

Humph. Leo, obviously, still lived in the past.

But then, after Macy had dodged Lauren’s bullying, walked the three to the freight elevator and reached for the switch to send the car to the ground, Leo had stepped back into the loft and done it for her.

He’d looked at her, studied her, stared down at her, making one-on-one visual contact for the first time in their brief association.

She hadn’t counted on his eyes. He wore wire-rimmed glasses when working, and Macy had to admit they added a je ne sais quoi to his smoothly urbane image.

But he hadn’t been wearing them that morning. He’d been wearing clear contacts, if any at all, because there was no reproducing that shade of pale, translucent, dollar-bill green.

The worry lines at the corners of his eyes had fanned out toward his temples, his expression one of a man enjoying a private, inside joke. He’d never smiled. To this day Macy didn’t think she’d seen him smile.

But he had parted his lips. And she had responded in kind. His effect was like that, his appeal a powerful weapon. She might not like him much in her mind, but her body didn’t share her mental morals.

Using the tip of one finger, he’d lifted her chin, made sure he had her attention, taken her frantic pulse with the stroke of his thumb. “Macy?”

She’d managed a vague, “Hmm?”

“I know about equal opportunity. I’ve handled a lot of cases, and won more than my share. I’m very good at what I do.” His glittering eyes had promised it was no idle boast.

A true believer, she’d swayed forward a telling fraction.

And he’d backed a step away. “But without evidence of a challenge? I’m not about to waste my time.”

The elevator had returned by then and he’d stepped inside. The doors had closed on his mocking expression. He’d taken the easy way out, leaving her breathless and scrambling for a suitable retort.

Well, Macy wasn’t having any of that tonight. Tonight she was forewarned, and no smooth-talking lawyer would get the best of her. Not again, no sir-ree.

Leo wanted a challenge? She’d give him a challenge.

Because when it came to playing games, she was more than very good.

She was the absolute best.

2

ABANDONING THE SANCTUARY of the kitchen, Macy returned to the loft’s main room. She snatched a shred of lettuce from the floor and tossed it on a stack of plates destined for the trash. “Okay. Let’s get started.”

A collective groan went up and threatened to drown out the techno-pop music vibrating the wall-mounted speakers. Walking by the entertainment center, Macy turned down the volume. She hated having to shout over the music, on top of shouting over nine voices engaged in both conversation and complaint.

With the boom-boom faded to a muted thump-thump, the groans became intelligible protests. None she hadn’t heard before.

“It’s too late. Let’s wait till next weekend.”

“Hey, I’m not finished eating.”

“Anyone want to head down to Karma? I think Azrael’s spinning tonight.”

Macy took the objections in stride and overrode each one. First to Jess. “We can’t wait until next weekend. I’m on deadline.” Next to Anton. “You can eat while you play. The two are not mutually exclusive.”

Finally to Ray. “Karma will still be there when we’re finished here for the night, and Azrael never spins before midnight.” Eric she silenced with only a look. No doubt he was still recovering from Chloe.

And then there was the fifth man, the quiet one, the interloper, whom Macy dodged.

She wasn’t sure why Anton had brought Leo along. Or now that he was here, why he stayed. Participation was mandatory for all who set foot inside the loft on game night.

And no matter how hard she tried, or how many times, she could not picture Leo Redding playing her game, her way. Not with all that starch in his collar. Not even on a dare.

He sat sprawled in the huge armchair upholstered in yellow-and-red plaid. But his posture was deceptive, his thoughts clearly focused elsewhere. More than likely on one of his challenging equal-opportunity cases.

Macy enjoyed a private smirk. He had no idea what sort of challenge was about to land in his lap. He’d be leaving here tonight with a new respect for fun and games. If he could actually enjoy himself with a noose around his neck.

It was Saturday night. It was party time. He wore a white dress shirt and, admittedly, a fairly fashionable tie. But it was still a tie. And it was still knotted.

His slacks were dark gray dress wool and neatly pressed, his shoes black tasseled wing tips. Tonight he wore his glasses, the rims serving to emphasize his incredible light-green eyes.

So much for her smirk, she thought, pulling, instead, a grimace. This was not a good start to the evening, noticing his every male detail when she shouldn’t be noticing him as anything but a piece of data by which to measure the success of her game.

“Uh, Macy?” Lauren edged up to Macy’s side, pulling her away from the gathered group, who’d long since quit paying attention. “This bunch is off in the ozone. If you launch your game idea now, you’ll be talking to the wind.”

“So I noticed.” Whatever was in the air tonight could’ve picked a better time to blow. It wasn’t like she was on deadline or anything.

Lauren twisted the cap from her bottle of water, twisted her mouth as she thought. “You’ve got to get their attention. I was thinking maybe…Spin the Webb?”

Macy’s version of Spin the Bottle had never failed to perk up audience interest in the past. Of course, there was the small matter of who to ensnare….

“You know, Lauren, I like the way you think.” Macy pushed her best friend back to the center of the group, all of whom looked more interested in sleeping off the evening’s food and drink than anything she had to say.

Lauren clapped her hands. “Okay, gang. Before Macy tests her newest gIRL gAMES creation on all of us, it’s time for the evening’s first act. Her famous version of Spin the Bottle. Better known as Spin the Webb!”

While Macy attempted a pirouette on the toe of one clunky leather clog, Lauren frowned and patted pockets she didn’t have. “Uh, Mace. I don’t have anything to use for a blindfold.”

Macy twirled to a stop and did a visual search of the room. She gave serious consideration to volunteering Leo Redding’s tie, but decided she might need it later for bondage, uh, leverage.

“No problem. I’ll cover my eyes with my hands.”

That, of course, started another round of mouthy macho maneuvering.

“How fair is that?”

“Yeah. How do we know you won’t peek?”

“Foul! Foul!”

After peering through spread fingers to stare down both Ray and Jess, Macy turned to the last bellyacher, who was sprawled across two of the sofa’s three cushions. “Watch it, Eric. Or Lauren might accidentally spin me into your lap, right on top of your shrimp.”

Eric frowned. “Hey, hey. Watch out who you’re calling a shrimp.”

“I’m talking about the fajitas, you goober.”

“Hey, hey. Watch out who you’re calling a peanut.”

“Pillow, please,” Macy called to Sydney Ford, who’d settled into the heap of mismatched bolsters and cushions cozily stacked against the corner of the entertainment center.

Sydney chose a goldfish-shaped throw pillow, started to pass it over the back of the sofa to Macy, but changed her mind. Instead, she got to her feet and tossed not one, not two, but pillow after cushion after sham in Eric’s direction.

Chloe and Melanie cheered her on, then jumped up and pitched in until all that was left visible of Eric were his feet, his knees and one hand. That hand he used to reach out and grab the rear pocket on Sydney’s long narrow denim skirt. He pulled her over the back of the sofa and down.

With a yelp, she tumbled into his lap. Anton chose that moment to start up the music, a sexy, heavy-breathing number that sent Sydney into a scramble away from Eric, who’d started to bump and grind beneath the heap.

Turning to Macy, Lauren asked, “Who invited him, anyway?” And Macy could only roll her eyes.

“Attention, people.” Lauren clapped her hands again. “The time has arrived for one of you to test your powers of self-preservation while our resident spider weaves her web. For those of you unfamiliar with the rules—Leo—don’t despair. All you have to do is resist her demands.”

“Easy enough,” said the bane of Macy’s evening.

She didn’t even bother acknowledging his insult. She was not about to give him an edge when she had a game to win.

“For any of you thinking of cutting out early, we have a special incentive for you to keep your butts parked exactly where they are.” Lauren’s announcement served its purpose. The gang perked up. “But I’ll let Sydney do the honors.”

Sydney, being the perfectionist she was, checked for misbehaving strands of hair and smoothed both her narrow denim skirt and burgundy silk tank before she spoke.

“A week or so ago, Macy warned me that this month’s game was more involved than previous versions. So I decided to add a participation incentive.”

“Incentive?” Eric stuffed an extra-large red corduroy bolster behind his head and laced his hands together in his lap. “You mean bribe, right?”

“Bribe, bonus, compensation, prize. Whatever. I think it’ll be worth your time to pay attention.”

“That means shut the hell up, Haydon.” Egged on by jeers and wolf whistles, Ray did little more than wink and return the floor to Sydney.

Daring anyone else to interrupt, she took a deep breath. “Here’s my winner-take-all deal. My father, who many of you know, has made me an offer I should refuse. But I won’t.”

Macy waited for reactions as the out-of-left-field comment sank in. She wasn’t disappointed. Those who’d met Nolan Ford were curious, and said so. Those who hadn’t still wanted to hear what the millionaire venture capitalist had to do with the evening’s game.

“Nolan’s going to pay us to play?” Anton made the crack while sorting through Macy’s CDs.

“No,” Sydney answered. “But he’s selling his ketch and giving me the final week to use it. Full crew of sailors included.”

“What I want to do is donate the week to the winner, who is then welcome to choose a destination, within reason, and take along as many guests as the yacht can handle.”

Anton applauded. “All right, Sydney.”

“Oh, my God! Are you kidding?” Melanie’s eyes grew wide.

And at that, Macy leaned over and kissed Sydney’s cheek. When she smiled in response, Macy wrapped an arm around the other woman’s shoulders and whispered, “You don’t have to do this.”

Pressing her forehead to Macy’s, Sydney returned the hug. “Yes. I do. You know how things are with Nolan.”

Macy had more to say, but now wasn’t the time. She left Sydney with another quick peck and addressed the crowd.

“Hey, people. No one is going to be sailing anywhere if I don’t get my way. Anton.” Macy pointed, and he pumped up the volume. “Lauren.” Lauren held Macy by the shoulders and, once Macy had covered her eyes, twirled her to the rhythm of the beat.

Macy barely had time to decide what she was going to ask from Leo before she was pulled to a stop, turned to the right, then back to a stumbling, feet-tangling left.

A deep breath and…it was time.

She lifted her chin, ran her fingers into her hair, her tongue over her lips. Then, with her imagination wearing the underthings she’d failed to wash in time for her body to wear, she looked Leo Redding in the eye.

Big mistake. Big, big mistake.

She’d forgotten about his eyes. How he seemed to see more than a near stranger should see. How what he saw was intimate, private, not at all what she wanted to reveal.

With each step she took toward him, her pulse quickened.

At every bluesy note, her heart beat harder.

From the roots of her hair to the tip of her toes, her blood ran hot, raising a flush on her skin. Leo never looked away, stirring her further. Macy would swear she felt her nostrils flare.

And then she knew what she wanted. To see him smile. To make him smile. As much to prove that she could, that she possessed the stronger will and the necessary feminine wiles, as to add fuel to the fire of her fantasy.

Having drawn even with his widespread knees, she wedged her legs between, leaned forward and planted both hands on the flat arms of the chair. The tips of her fingers brushed the insides of his elbows. His only move was to reach up and remove his glasses.

She angled in closer, lifted one hand and touched a finger to his cheek. “I want you to do something for me.”

Leo raised a brow. In the background, an anonymous hand clapped to Eric’s mouth muffled a smart remark. Macy gathered her wits and her courage and climbed into Leo’s long-legged lap.

“I want you to smile. Can you do that? Can you smile for me, Leo Redding?”

Moving even nearer, she twisted around and settled her seat in the natural dip of his thighs, draped her legs over the arm of the chair, her elbow crooked around his shoulders.

He smelled wonderfully warm and male, and she snuggled up to his body, which felt…oh, he felt like nothing she’d ever known.

His legs beneath her bottom were hard. His belly at her hip was hard. The muscles across his shoulders were solid and hard beneath her forearm. Even the hand, the very large hand resting on her shins, was a study in masculine strength.

Lips parted in seductive invitation, she stroked an index finger over Leo’s cheek and shivered at the prickle of evening beard. She trailed the same finger down a path to his collar, worked loose the knot on his tie.

“C’mon, Leo. I know you can smile. You’ve got all the right muscles.” She toyed with the top button of his shirt, poking the bare tip of her finger beneath the placket to his collarbone.

Still no response. Nada. Nothing. Ignoring the murmurs of the audience, she whispered directly into his ear. “I’ll make it easy on you. A quick grin and we’ll call it a night.”

She pulled back to look at his face, expecting a gradual capitulation. But no, he was stoic to the core. It was time to get down and dirty.

Pouting always worked for Chloe, so Macy gave it a try at the same time she lightly touched her thumb to the edge of Leo’s mouth, drawing the corner upward.

No reaction. Macy held back a scream.

She plied her final weapon, running her fingertips in feathery movements over his tightly drawn lips, begging, with her mouth only inches away, “One smile. Please?”

And then she felt it. A shift. A change. A flare and a flash in Leo’s eyes, and a new sense of his body hardening beneath hers.

A part of her wanted to extricate herself from both his lap and a situation as awkward as any she could recall sharing with a man. A part of her wanted to wiggle, to experience and explore this private intimacy.

She managed, instead, to sit very still and avoid disclosing to the rest of the room what was now so impressively, so solidly pressed to the back of her thighs.

Leo reached for her wrist, removed her motionless fingers from his lips. She blinked slowly and smiled, a smile meant for Leo only, Leo alone. She wanted him to know that, between the two of them, they’d get out of this with no bloodshed, go on to live another day.

And then the man blew the wind from her sails.

He smiled.

Not a humorless grin. Not a slight curl of his lip. Not a sneer or a snarl, but an ear-to-ear, start-my-heart-beating smile. Yet that wasn’t the worst part. The best part. The worst. Because once he’d released her wrist and she’d made ready to hop up from the chair, he cupped the back of her head.

And he kissed her.

Oh, hallelujah, the man could kiss. He tasted like beer and smoky barbecue and a man aroused, and she was starving. She couldn’t get enough when he teased her mouth with the tip of his tongue, rubbed his lips softly, then roughly, over hers.

It was a complicated kiss, meant for show and to prove that he was not relinquishing the win. Mentally, she fought back. Physically, she surrendered.

Desire took full advantage, reaching between her legs to remind her how long it had been, how good it could be. Oh, this wasn’t supposed to happen.

She silently grimaced and broke the kiss—to cheers and applause and ear-piercing whistles. She pulled back far enough to meet Leo’s gaze.

His mouth was slightly reddened and still smiling. But his eyes sparkled with fireworks that were less a celebration and more a signal of an incoming salvo.

Hey, now. She wasn’t the one who’d done all the kissing, much less the one who’d started it. The seduction she’d admit to, and she was willing to be a big girl and swallow her medicine. But she would not take all of the blame.

She shoved a hand back through her hair and kept her voice low when she said, “I’d say that makes me the winner.”

Leo chuckled—a sound deep in his chest that rumbled through his muscles, through his bones and into Macy’s body. “The winner? You’re kidding, right?”

Hmm. That wasn’t what she’d expected. “Why would you think I’m kidding? I got what I wanted, didn’t I? You did smile.”

“No. You got what I let you have.” His smile had totally vanished. “I got what I wanted.”

Is that so, Mr. Hotshot, Esquire? “And what was it that you wanted?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Macy’s subtle shift of weight prompted a convincing surge of pressure beneath her thighs. “Yes. It is. Quite obvious, as a matter of fact.”

Holding his gaze, she waited until the gleam in his own turned smug. She would never let this man have the last word—or the upper hand—again. No matter how strong the physical pull heightening every one of her senses.

With a pat delivered to the center of his chest, Macy hopped off the hot seat. “Unfortunately, Leo, the obvious isn’t…well, much of a challenge, if you know what I mean. Sorry, but I just don’t think I’m interested.”

Watching Leo’s startled disbelief fade into grudging respect, Macy turned quickly, lest the moment be spoiled.

No sense wondering if her fleeting triumph was worth the promise of retribution she’d just seen in his eyes.

THE FAJITAS WERE HISTORY and the conversation had returned to a low drone by the time Leo Redding recovered. He didn’t think he’d given up such an inappropriate hard-on his entire adult life.

And Macy Webb wasn’t even his type. His reaction had to be rooted, so to speak, in that very contradiction. She wasn’t what he was used to, so in effect, he was responding to the mystery of the unknown.

She had this mass of unruly hair, a dark caramel-brown color, streaked to vanilla cream on either side of her face. It was short, hitting her neck between the base of her skull and her shoulders and causing a riot around her heart-shaped face. Last year, when he’d seen her that first time in his office, he’d thought she’d been working on dreadlocks.

But tonight his fingers had slid through the strands without hitting a single snarl. The entire wild-child look was one-hundred-percent natural. He hadn’t expected that, any more than he’d expected her eyes to be so clear, so golden. So compelling and candidly open.

Her weight was as substantial as a miniature marshmallow. But the soft press of her bottom had been plenty enough to get a rise out of his, uh, lap. That and the curve of her mouth. She knew how to kiss, how to use her lips. His primitive side had imagined hearing the slide of his zipper, feeling the slide of her tongue.

If she hadn’t broken his hold when she did, he wasn’t sure he would’ve had the willpower to keep his hand safely in her hair. He’d wanted to explore her body, find out exactly if quality, not quantity, was the myth he believed it to be.

He upended his Corona and drank. He never should’ve come here tonight. He’d spent the afternoon looking at the neighborhood condos and lofts Anton’s architectural firm, Neville and Storey, had restored and designed. He and Anton had been out longer than either intended and, when Anton suggested they join the gang for fajitas, he’d agreed.

He should’ve gone home, but his car was parked at Anton’s Galleria office, and the thought of taking a cab, only to reheat Chinese take-out or order fresh once he arrived, held little appeal. He usually didn’t hang with the guys away from the soccer field. But tonight he’d thought, why not?

Emptying the longneck he’d spent the last ten minutes nursing, Leo leaned back on a tall green pillar half as wide in the center as it was on either end. His vantage point near the kitchen kept him out of the way, but gave him a very clear view of Macy’s goings-on.

He’d overheard fragments of her post-kiss conversation with Lauren, and apparently his arrival had complicated her plans. He couldn’t say he was overly concerned. But, after hearing that, he’d thought about skipping the rest of the evening.

He’d even pulled out his phone to dial Yellow Cab until he’d realized exactly how far out of her way Macy was going to avoid him. When he’d brushed up behind her to reach for this beer, she’d stiffened, then scurried off to organize the game that was apparently the purpose of the evening’s get-together.

Interesting, for a woman not attracted to his…challenge.

“Don’t sweat it. She always wins, you know.”

Leo spared Anton a brief glance before returning to his study of Macy. Why was everyone so sure she had won? It wasn’t as if Leo had cried uncle. “She’s done that to you?”

“Not the smile thing, but, yeah. She convinced me I had a mosquito buzzing around my face. Her deal was that I’d scratch this one spot at the corner of my nose. By the time she was finished, I’d damn near clawed my eyes out.”

Leo chuckled under his breath. “She does have…something, doesn’t she?”

Shoving both hands down in his pockets, Anton nodded. “Most of that something never gets noticed until she climbs up into your lap, if you know what I mean.”

Leo knew exactly. He cleared his throat. “Yeah, well, it’s been fun, but I’ve got a load of work waiting at the office. I think I’ll get the hell outta here.”

“Think again. Stick around here and you may get a second chance to give Macy Webb a taste of her own medicine.”

“Isn’t that what I just did?”

Anton laughed and leaned one shoulder into the same green pillar. “I wouldn’t go that far. But I gotta say, you’re the first one to shut her up using your own mouth.”

“Hmm.” A murmur was all Leo could manage without Anton’s comment bringing to mind the taste of Macy’s lips and tongue, the smooth edge of her teeth, the warmth of her body in his lap.

“Yeah, Lauren was freaking out. I don’t think she’s ever seen Macy kiss anyone quite like that.”

“Like what?” Leo absently asked, then wished he hadn’t.

“The woman looked like she wanted to swallow you whole, man.” Anton lifted a brow as the conversation took a turn for the prurient. “And I don’t think she planned to stop with your tongue.”

“Hmm.” This time Leo’s reticence to respond was rooted in an irritation he had no reason to feel. The kiss had been public; Anton had been a witness. The other man had every right to his curiosity.

It was Leo’s strange desire to retain his privacy that gave significance to an act that had none.

None. The kiss had been nothing but part of a game.

“I gotta say, seeing Macy come unglued like that…” Anton shook his head. “That was some serious shit.”

Leo’s beer bottle was empty. He needed to make up his mind. Should he stay or go? He glanced toward Macy, watched her expression, the childlike enchantment as she joked with Sydney and Lauren. “She doesn’t look old enough for serious.”

“I think that’s a big part of the problem.”

“Her looks?” Leo frowned. Until tonight, until he’d seen her up close and gotten personal, he would’ve agreed. She’d been just another face, one he’d never noticed because he’d always gone for striking instead of subtle, obvious instead of rare.

“No, man. Not her looks. Well, yeah. I guess it is her looks.” Anton shrugged off the quandary. “She’s cute and all that, but she doesn’t look like she’s older than eighteen.”

Leo nodded in agreement and forgave himself the silent lie. After all, he’d just looked into the wild child’s eyes, and what he’d seen was as old as the Garden of Eden, as seductive as the serpent, as ripe as the forbidden fruit.

He made his decision. He wasn’t going anywhere.

Not just yet.

3

WHILE LAUREN ADJUSTED one row of track lighting to spotlight the loft’s hardwood floor, Macy prepared to distribute the sheets of pink and blue paper she’d printed earlier today.

Five for the girls, five for the boys. Ten unique lists for her newest gIRL gAMES adventure.

A scavenger hunt.

An after-hours, adults-only, you-find-mine-I’ll-find-yours kind of contest.

Macy was certain she’d never conceived a more brilliant idea. And if all went according to plan, this month’s edition of gIRL gAMES might possibly be the best yet.

Which would mean more reader feedback. More assignments from Sydney. More input from Lauren on column design.

Hmm. Hoist with her own petard.

Well, she couldn’t worry overly much at the moment. Her focus group had to first pull off this game without killing each other. And she had to remember that tumbling Leo Redding was not the point of play.

It didn’t matter that his hands were the hands of her fantasy. Or that she’d never been more thoroughly kissed. Physical attraction wasn’t the problem. She was still trying to decide if she liked the man. A decision that would have to wait, because it was time to get on with the evening’s main game.

Careers left all of her crew, herself included, little time to party. Her column, gIRL gAMES, was meant to provide the Web site’s readers with social alternatives to bars and clubs.

Yet none of her previous game ideas had offered her scavenger hunt’s possibilities for girl-meets-boy, up-close-and-personal, one-on-one contact.

From a ticklish spot to an erogenous zone to a kinky fetish, the lists for the hunt included additional items equally intimate and more intense.

And the list she’d be assigning herself held a grouping of search items as random as those to be chosen by everyone else in the room.

Well, almost everyone else in the room.

Only Lauren and Anton’s items had been specifically designed. Which made sense, since it was Lauren and Anton’s interaction of late that had sparked the idea for the game.

As much as Macy’s best friend adored her boyfriend and vice versa, elements of the seemingly perfect relationship struck Macy as anything but. And she was doing what any best friend should do under the circumstances. Butting in.

She’d put together two fiercely personal lists, the purpose of which was to put both Lauren and Anton through, well, through hell if the couple truly gave the game their all.

Macy would just have to keep her fingers crossed that she’d be forgiven the sabotage should the plan blow up in her face.

Lists in hand, she wound her way through the center of the loft. She slapped a blue list against Jess Morgan’s reluctantly offered palm, then climbed over Anton’s long legs, looking up to in time catch Jess unfolding his folded blue paper.

“You! Stop!” She first pinned Jess, then Anton, with the sharpest eye daggers she could throw. “Don’t even think about looking until I say so.”

Jess slowly closed his half-opened sheet and, holding the list behind his head in laced fingers, began to whistle.

Anton, guilty until proven innocent, his list in his lap, held up both empty hands. “Don’t think about looking where? At what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Good.” Macy leaned down and dropped a kiss on the top of his head of unruly, sun-bleached curls. “I’ll explain everything in a minute. And don’t think that just because I have my back turned I’m not keeping an eye on you two.”

With that, she moved on, scrambling over feet and furniture to reach the three women whose fate she didn’t already know. Sydney tentatively accepted the pink list Macy offered. Melanie was more wary, finally choosing one of the last two sheets. Chloe scooted to the far side of the plaid chair and had to be coerced.

“Hey.” Macy nudged her hip into Chloe’s shoulder. “We’re all in this girl business together, remember? You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours?”

Tapping the folded edge of her list on her pink-denim-clad knee, Chloe eyed Macy thoroughly from head to toe.

“Let’s see. My departments are cosmetics and accessories. I don’t see where you’re scratching much of my anything, sugar. You have a great natural look, but it’s not helping my numbers.”

“For your information, Miss Cosmetics and Accessories, this natural look costs me a fortune. Your moisturizers and oils and exfoliators and cleansers do not come cheap.”

With a tilt of her head, Chloe acquiesced. “Okay. I’ll give you the cosmetics. But you’re still short-changing me on the accessories.”

Macy stood, stuck out her tongue. “What can I say? It’s hard to accessorize perfection.”

“Before you go?” Ignoring the groans, Macy looked back at Sydney, who held up her folded list. “We do what with this?”

“Oh, right. Just hold on to it. Don’t look. I’ll give instructions to everyone at the same time.”

And with that she glanced across the main room where, circled like a wagon train around the washtub of longnecks, stood the last of her three confirmed bachelors. Blowing out a long breath, she headed that way, presenting the three remaining sheets of blue paper to Eric, Leo and Ray.

“C’mon, guys. Pick a card. Any card.” There were no takers the first time out, so she tried again. “I’m only offering three options here. That means the man brave enough to pick first has close to a fifty-fifty chance of winding up with the female partner of his choice.”

Eric backed up to sit on the arm of the sofa, lifting one brow, but making no further move. Rolling her eyes, Macy took matters into her own hands, folding one of the lists over the neckband of his shirt.

Definitely time to look for a new line of work, she thought, handing one list to Ray and, to Leo, the last.

He took his time slipping it from her fingers. Way too much time, because it was a simple piece of paper and nothing as intimate or suggestive as his slow-motion withdrawal would indicate.

It wasn’t like his long strong fingers were reaching for hers, though she hadn’t yet forgotten their texture or the trail of warmth his touch left behind on her skin.

It wasn’t like the paper held a private invitation, an indecent proposal, a back-alley proposition.

It wasn’t like he was taking anything she hadn’t offered him freely. Was there anything she wouldn’t offer him freely?

She shook off the thought, found what remained of her brain. “Sorry, Leo. Looks like you’re stuck with long odds.”

He looked down at his hands instead of her way, folded the list and tucked the sheet of blue paper into the breast pocket of his crisp white shirt. “Guess I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”

“Hopes up?”

“About playing with you again.” This time he met her gaze, a calculated move, his eyes seeking hers and delving deep, beyond the surface of the game and into territory that was personal and intimate, a part of herself she rarely shared.

Oh, the way he looked at her. Oh, the way he said “again.” A five-letter, two-syllable word that sounded like too much of a good time to turn down now that she knew how he kissed.

She heaved a regretful sigh, part sound effects, part honest bafflement over what he was making her feel. “If that’s the case, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

“How so?”

“This is my game, remember? I could’ve made sure we ended up on the same team if I’d known you were so anxious for my company.”

“Not above cheating?”

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.” She shrugged, then nodded toward the list he’d stashed away. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Leo replied. “But I can hold my own.”

“Against these women?” Macy glanced briefly around the room. Leo truly had no idea who he was up against. “I wouldn’t congratulate myself just yet.”

She left him with a wink and then addressed the room, pulling her numbered pink list from the waistband of her capris. “Okay. Here’s how this month’s game works. The sheets of paper each of you hold are numbered from one to five. Inside you’ll find an itemized list you’ll need for the game.”

“What kind of list?” asked Melanie.

“What kind of game?” asked Ray.

“Patience, my children. Patience. Now, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed by my not so subtle color scheme, tonight’s game involves pairing all of us into five male-and-female teams.

“Okay, this is how we play.” Taking a reluctant Eric’s hand, she guided him to the spotlighted foyer, opened the first fold of his list and pointed to the number printed at the top.

“Two. Which means you stand in the second circle and wait for the female half of your team. Now, if I happen to have number two—” she lifted one edge of her sheet “—which I do not, you and I would be partners. I have number three, so I’ll stand here in the third circle.”

Anton pushed up from his usual place on the sofa. “C’mon, Macy. This spotlight business is too over the top.”

A spoilsport in every bunch. “Of course it is. That’s what makes this so much fun.”

“Fun in whose opinion?” grumbled Eric.

Having cheated and checked his number early, Anton moved into the fifth spotlight. “So, what happens once we all pair off? Uh, team up,” he corrected when Eric let out a pained, hand-to-throat choking groan. “Sorry, Eric.”

Macy glanced at Eric, glared at Anton, blew out a breath to bolster her rapidly dwindling patience with the male species.

“If you two are through? Thank you. Now, on each sheet of paper is a list. A list for my gIRL gAMES…scavenger hunt!” The groans barely got off the ground before Macy hurried to squash them. “A kinky, suggestive, sexy and one-hundred-percent adult scavenger hunt.”

“I’m not sure what you have in mind here, Macy, but I don’t plan to visit any sex shops to find whatever it is you’ve come up with for these lists. I don’t care how popular your columns are.” That said, Sydney crossed her arms.

“Give me a little credit, Sydney. This game may be more daring than most, but sex shops? I think we can all flex our imagination beyond the obvious. After all, the brain is the body’s true sex organ.”

“Maybe your true sex organ,” said the holder of blue number two. “Mine’s a few feet lower on my body.”

Macy groaned. “Only a man could made such a crass point.”

“I’ll show you a crass point.”

Chloe diffused the ticking bomb of Macy’s sanity by flashing a pink number two and moving into Eric’s spotlight. “You very well may be showing me, sugar, since it looks like I have your number.”

Eric all but rubbed his hands together with glee. “Sexy and kinky in the flesh. We’re either going to kick ass as a team or else…” His hand-rubbing slowed.

“Or else?” Chloe prompted.

“Or else you’ll be busting my chops.”

Macy felt the corners of her mouth pull into a blossoming grin. Petard or not, she was definitely brilliant. Or maybe just marginally brilliant, she amended, catching Leo Redding’s eye as he watched her watch her number two couple.

Eric and Chloe were already shooting off the first round of sparks due to her cleverly designed plan. But with the match-up of the pink and blue number twos, and Anton and Lauren making up couple number five…Oh, please.

Surely she hadn’t done what she’d just done. What Leo’s expression was confirming she’d done. “I hope none of the rest of you have stooped so low as to cheat. And peek at your numbers before it’s your turn.”

“I did! I did!” Lauren practically hopped into Anton’s circle, interweaving her feet and her legs with his and wrapping both arms around his neck. Anton hugged her back, and a shadow could not have slipped between the two lovers’ bodies.

“This isn’t Twister, you know,” Macy chided. “You don’t have to keep all four of your feet in the circle.”

“But it’s so much more fun this way.” Lauren giggled, snuggling closer to the man who’d already managed to get his hands beneath the flowing fabric of her blouse.

Oh, well, Macy thought. The pair might as well enjoy the calm before the storm. She sighed, remembered Leo, sighed again. “Since no one is paying any attention to my directions, we can do this one of two ways. We either all cheat and peek, or I finish telling you how this works and we go from there.”

“I vote to cheat and peek.” Melanie cast her ballot with one raised hand.

“I second that,” said Sydney.

“Ditto,” Ray chimed in.

Jess nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Macy turned to Leo and waited. “I suppose you share their lemming mind-set?”

“Share? No. Take advantage of? Sure.” He slowly lifted his beer, took a drink, lowered the bottle, maintaining eye contact through the entire slow-motion process.

Did every move he made have to draw her gaze until she hovered on the verge of drooling? She narrowed her eyes. “Bet you don’t know the difference between a lawyer and a vulture.”

“A vulture can’t take off his wing tips.”

Eric laughed before Chloe could stop him. “Give it up, Macy. He’s got you beat.”

Macy ignored Eric’s outburst as Leo once again downed a swallow of beer, calling her attention to his bare forearms and the elegantly expensive, chrome-cased watch fastened to his wrist with a glossy, black leather band.

Fashioned from the hide of a courtroom opponent, no doubt. “You’ve rolled up your sleeves, I see. Ready to sling mud?”

“Ready to get as dirty as I have to.”

Grr, but he was good. Too damn good for her damn good. “Okay, then. If everyone’s in agreement, let’s see who ends up with whom.”

“I like the end of my whom.” Eric leaned down and nuzzled Chloe’s nape.

She glanced back over her shoulder. “I may be standing here with my ass in your lap, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be ending up with anything that belongs to me.”

Eric straightened and squirmed. “How long do we have to stand here anyway, Macy? I’m afraid my backup singers are in danger.”

Reaching up to pat his cheek, Chloe answered, “Don’t ask me to adjust your microphone, and we’ll get along just fine.”

For a minute, Macy felt sorry for Eric. Then her sympathies switched to Chloe. The two were proof positive of that thinly drawn line between love and hate.

Sydney chose that moment to move into circle one. And, not wanting to be the only woman left standing with the boys, Melanie stepped beneath the fourth spotlight.

Ray, Jess and Leo exchanged glances of shared male misery. Ray bit the first bullet, glanced at the number on his sheet and took his place beside Sydney.

His rugged olive-hued brawn and broad shoulders created an interesting backdrop for Sydney’s classic elegance. The two made a perfect couple, and Macy felt a giddy twinge. At least until, in the next second, she registered the remaining odds.

She wouldn’t think about it. She wouldn’t panic. Not until she knew for sure…Okay, 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 run him over with her clever little mind.

And wasn’t that what made a woman worth knowing? If she knew how to flex her mental muscles, she could be guaranteed a man’s appreciative attention to the rest of her body. So why was he standing here playing with himself when he could be upstairs playing with her?

Or at least seeing how many of his game points he could rack up this evening while he had her to himself, before she’d had time to recover from the party or shake off the chemistry they’d stirred. He wasn’t an underhanded cheat, but neither was he above playing all odds in his favor.

Besides, he had nowhere to be tonight, and the idea of going back to the office held less appeal than it had an hour ago. Macy was alone. Lauren had left with Anton, which meant Leo was footloose as well.

He and Macy had taken turns moving their pawns all evening. She didn’t have to know his return was a calculated advance on her queen. And if she learned more than he wanted her to know, well, that was a tactical risk he was willing to take.

He could afford a forfeit or two. He could afford whatever it took to beat Macy Webb at any game of her making.

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