Power Play

“His name is Jonah.”

“Nice name. And?”

“And, he’s…” Jonah was looking half guilty, half amused as she stumbled her way through half phrases. “He’s—” What? Why was it that whenever she needed to think fast on her feet her brain froze over. Only one idea came to her and once it had lodged in her brain nothing better came along. “He’s…my boyfriend,” she ended in a rush.

She didn’t know who was more surprised when the words came out of her mouth, her or Jonah.

Or Leanne.

“Your boyfriend?”

“Yes.” She turned her body slightly so she was no longer looking at her brand-new boyfriend. “His name is Jonah.”

“You already told me his name. What I want to know is if you have a boyfriend in town why you never said anything. How come he wasn’t at dinner tonight?”

“It’s sort of complicated.” She tapped her nails on the beer can wondering how she could possibly have come up with such a ridiculous story. “He’s in town for the hockey tournament, so he couldn’t come tonight.”

“And you never told me about him because…?”

She felt her cheeks beginning to heat. She really wished her unwanted roomie would go somewhere else for five minutes and give her some privacy, but he’d even muted the TV so he could eavesdrop better. He seemed as fascinated by her halting explanation about him being her boyfriend as Leanne was.

“I guess I didn’t want to share him.” Now that she’d settled on an explanation, it was easier to embellish. She could absolutely see herself hiding a boyfriend from her family—if she actually had a boyfriend. “You know what the family’s like. Dad would be asking him his intentions and Mom would be pricing wedding invitations and Aunt Alice would probably grill him on his sperm count.” A choke sounded behind her. “That’s why I keep my private life private.”

“Wow. You could have told me, though.” Leanne sounded a little hurt. “How long have you two been going out?”

“Not long.” In fact, she could count her relationship in minutes.

“You left so early tonight, I was worried about you. Now I know why.”

“Yeah. You know how it is at the beginning of a relationship.”

In her peripheral vision she noticed Jonah settle back against his stacked pillows, obviously enjoying her predicament hugely. A certain speculation in his eyes.

Leanne sighed, the sigh of a true romantic. “You mean when you think about them all the time and can’t wait to be together? When you think about sex all the time?”

“Uh-huh,” she agreed weakly. “All the time.”

“How is the sex?”

The whole situation was so ridiculous, with Leanne rhapsodizing about her made-up love life and Jonah doing his best to listen to every word, that she found herself giggling. She turned to Jonah and said aloud, “My cousin wants to know how the sex is?”

His grin was instant and wolfish. The way he looked at her made her suddenly realize it was not smart to tease a wolf. “Tell her it’s fantastic.”

She rolled her eyes. Leanne was cracking up on the other end of the phone. “I definitely want to meet this guy, when you’re not too busy having fantastic sex.”

“I’m sure you will.”

“I’ll meet him at the wedding, anyway, right?”

“Um, it depends on his hockey schedule.”

“No way. He has to come. Tell him.”

“Okay.”

“Now. Or put me on the phone and I’ll tell him.”

She held the phone away from her ear once again, and wished she was home in Portland in her pajamas watching a chick flick on DVD. Anything but this.

Since it was his fault for answering in the first place, she held out the phone to him and smiled sweetly. “Leanne wants to make sure you’re coming to the wedding.”

JONAH ALMOST FORGOT THE PAIN in his thigh watching his roomie trying to explain why a man was answering her room phone. He’d never seen a more incompetent liar. And hadn’t she dropped herself right in it?

“You can stop smirking,” she snapped when she got off the phone. “This is your fault.”

He leaned back against his pillows, his gaze never leaving her face. Cute face, kind of flushed right now, and her lips seemed a little plumper. Maybe they were like Pinocchio’s nose. When she told a lie they plumped up. Or maybe it was talking about sex that did it.

“So, I’m your boyfriend, huh?”

“I’m sorry. It was all I could think of.”

“It’s not so bad,” he said, thinking. “Should keep Buddy the orthodontist out of your mouth.”

She groaned. “That is a horrible pun. And you don’t know my family. They’ll want to meet you.”

He heard the panic in her tone. “Am I so terrible?”

“No. Of course not.” She looked at him dispassionately. “If you shaved and wore decent clothes, you’d be perfectly presentable. But they have this charming quality where if you get to thirty and are still single they panic and try to marry you off. To anybody.”

“Right. But look at the good side. I can be your beard. You don’t want to get married, I don’t want to get married. We’re not really a couple, so nobody’s going to get pressured into anything.”

“You don’t seem very upset about being stuck with an instant girlfriend.” She was nibbling on that pouty lower lip now, a job, he realized, he’d gladly take over. You got to know a person pretty fast when you shared a confined space with them, and he was starting to like this person in the next bed. Even though it was his fault for answering the hotel phone, she seemed to feel guilty for lying about their relationship.

“I can see certain benefits,” he said, settling back.

Her eyes instantly narrowed and she released her lip from between her teeth.

“Not those benefits,” he told her. “I was thinking that if I agree to show up to the wedding, you might take pity on me and give me a massage—” he looked at her “—or two.”

And, because she still seemed a little skittish, he added, “Emily, I’m going to make you a promise. I won’t make a pass at you.”

She didn’t exactly look relieved. It was a big deal for him to promise to keep his hands off a desirable woman who happened to be sharing his hotel room. Instead of looking grateful she seemed—pissed off. He couldn’t imagine she felt insulted. She was gorgeous. Men must make fools of themselves all the time over her. But since he was the first person to admit he didn’t have a clue about women, he continued.

“You’re beautiful. And under normal circumstances, I’d be doing my level best to get you into my hotel room. But since you’re here against your will, I give you my word I won’t try anything.”

She picked up a brand-new set of sweats and disappeared into the bathroom. When she returned, she was wearing the gray fleece, and she’d also gathered a couple of towels and a bottle of some kind of oil.

He was doing his best to concentrate on CNN and not the fact that sometimes his principles really got in the way of his sex life, when she came toward him. She said, “So, you’re saying there’s no way you and I would ever have sex.”