No Strings Attached

Women. Couldn’t even give a guy a chance to spring a surprise. Had to be all distrusting and suspicious…though, in this case, suspicion was not unwarranted, Eric had to admit. “Trust me, princess. I know how to treat a date. And if we were dating, I’d be more than happy to show you what you’ve been missing.”

“I know exactly what I’ve been missing,” she mumbled. And he swore he heard her add, “Cary Grant.”

Eric frowned. The girl needed help. “Tell me something, Chloe. If you can’t find a man you’d like to keep company with, why don’t you quit dating instead of setting yourself up for disappointment?”

She was quiet for a long minute, staring straight ahead through the windshield. He was about to give up and turn the conversation to the weather when she finally said, “I don’t set myself up for disappointment. I mean, it’s not like I go into a date hoping the evening will crash and burn.” She gave a careless shrug. “It just happens.”

No one crashed and burned every single time. No matter what Chloe said, it just didn’t happen. “How open is your mind then? Because I gotta say, you’re not exactly little Mary Sunshine.”

“How would you know?” she snarled. “We’re not dating, remember?”

“We don’t have to be dating for me to see that you have a hell of a negative attitude.”

Chloe closed the front pouch of her knapsack; the jerk of the zipper sounded like she’d ripped a jagged hole in the air. “You can let me out anytime. I can get myself back to my car, thank you very much.”

Eric hated to do it. He really did, but he whipped the car in a U-turn and headed back to Haydon’s. He wanted her company, the company she usually offered, or had offered before she’d hit this personal downhill slide.

She was smart and she was funny. Her sharp tongue could slice a man into shreds. Her eyes could throw daggers at any part of him left standing. Her mouth could grind the fallen pieces into the ground.

But, oh, could she kiss and make it all better.

Which told Eric that part of what drove her was passion, and passion was one mother of a two-edged sword.

What he wanted from Chloe was to see the shine of the blade without feeling the sting of the razor. He had trouble enough with his own morning shave.

He shot up into the sports bar’s parking lot, coming to an amazingly gentle stop.

Chloe reached for the door handle. Eric stopped her with nothing more than an exaggerated clearing of his throat.

“You have something to say?”

“Just a reminder of our deal. And turnabout being fair play and all. You don’t grant my first wish, I don’t feel I have to attend your first function.” He frowned, paused for effect and added, “When was that, anyway?”

“Tomorrow. gIRL-gEAR is hosting an open house.”

“Tomorrow? Well, I’m not sure I’m going to be available. You hardly gave me any notice.”

“That’s because I’ve almost decided not to go,” she said softly, slumping down into the seat, closing her eyes and letting her head hit the window.

Uh-oh. “Did you tell Sydney you were bailing?”

“I haven’t bailed yet. I’ve just been wondering if any of this effort is going to make any difference.”

Not if you don’t change your attitude, he wanted to say, but instead he offered, “I still don’t get why you think you have to go to all this trouble.”

She shook her head, waved him off with the flutter of one hand. “Forget it. I’m just in a lousy mood. Chalk it up to a crappy Friday.”

“Another bad date last night?”

“No, actually. Last night was great. I stayed home, no one but myself for company, and watched old videos. Six hours of my favorite love stories and you’d think I’d be in a better mood, wouldn’t you?”

“If you like love stories. I’d be in a coma.”

“I suppose you spent all night watching a ball game or a fight or whatever sport is in season.” She made the accusation, then pulled off her sunglasses.

Eric had trouble keeping a straight face. “Actually, no. I had a date.”

She opened one eye, slid him a glance, opened the other eye and turned her head enough to look at him straight on. “Do tell.”

“What’s to tell? It was a date.”

“Dinner? A movie? Back to the bedroom?”

This time Eric shifted in his seat and did his best to face her. “That’s your idea of a date?”

“Not mine, no. But that’s what I’m usually offered.”

No wonder she went through men like he went through running shoes, if that was the height of her dating expectations. “And you’re going out with losers, why?”

She studied him for a minute, frowning slightly, her eyes that amazingly cool shade of sunset purple. Her lashes were long; he only noticed because of the way she blinked like that, so lazy and slow.

He didn’t think he’d ever seen her face in the buff, and wondered what she’d look like with her skin scrubbed clean. If she’d look as innocent as she did in his imagination. The same imagination that was making hard work of the lower half of his body.

She wore her makeup well, considering she used more than a lot of women. And he wasn’t sure he’d noticed until now how perfect she looked in the colors. Soft and feminine…like the bunches of wildflowers that had popped up all over the field at Stratton Park, where they were headed.

Or had been headed until Chloe got a bad-mood burr up her butt.

It probably wasn’t fair of him to hijack her this way, but she’d agreed to the terms of the deal and he was looking forward to seeing her sweat. It would do her good to get rid of those built-up stress toxins.

It would do him good as well to see her get all huffy and insulted at having to play ball. He needed the reminder that they would never get along as a couple. She stirred his blood wildly, but dinner and a movie and back to the bedroom was not his idea of a good time.

He loved it when a woman understood his passion for getting out and getting physical. The ones who shared his idea of having fun were the ones he enjoyed most in bed. They didn’t worry about wrinkles and tangles and makeup running in the sun and the heat.

And they brought that same energy and stamina, not to mention their strong warrior-woman thighs, to bed. He wondered about Chloe’s stamina. He wondered about her thighs.

Finally, he snapped to the fact that she still had her gaze trained fully his way. “Well?”

“I’m not intentionally going out with losers. You can take my word on that.”

“I thought all women had some kind of—” Eric waved one hand “—hormonal radar thing going. To lessen the chance of winding up with a jerk.”

“Do all men have one? Or, if they do, does the one they have work one hundred percent of the time?”

Eric ran cupped fingers back and forth over the curve of the steering wheel. “I guess that’s the better question, isn’t it? My gaydar never fails me. I’m not as lucky with my laydar.”

Shifting into a more comfortable, the-better-to-see-you-with position, she repeated, “Laydar?”

“Sure,” he said, and grinned. “The wiggly little stick that tells me if I’m going to get laid.”