In Bed With the Enemy: Dating and Other Dangers / Dare She Kiss & Tell? / Double Dare

He leaned back on the arm of the chair, hands gripping the towel. ‘So you’re going to say you seduced me?’

‘Is that what you think happened?’

‘You made all the moves, honey.’

Well, not quite. But she knew what he meant. She’d given the green light. ‘Only because you goaded me into it.’

‘So you still don’t want to take responsibility? When are you going to be honest and admit that I don’t use women? That I have fun with women who are as up for it as I am. Women. Like. You.’

Yeah, she was one of the masses now, wasn’t she? And as pulled under his spell as they’d all been. ‘Not all women realise you’re only up for “fun”. That’s why they’ve all flocked to warn others about you.’

‘I don’t cheat, Nadia. I don’t ever offer them anything.’

‘You do. You just don’t realise it.’ He offered the sun and stars and the moon and all the excitement in the universe. And then he left a big black hole.

His eyes darkened. ‘So what? Unconsciously somehow I’m a jerk? Is it my fault they weave some kind of fantasy after one round of sex?’

That was a mistake she refused to make. And to avoid it she had to get out of here and away from him right now. She would not be thinking about him ever again. Not seeing him ever again. How had she ever thought she could get away with sleeping with him and come out unscathed? ‘It’s all about expectation. Do you make it clear from the beginning that it’s only three dates?’

‘I did with you.’

‘You know this situation is different. This is a total fabrication. You and I would never have met ordinarily.’

He stood and the towel dropped from his hips. She closed her eyes. When she opened them again his shorts were back on and she could breathe.

‘I bet you don’t usually say, Hey, let’s go out a couple of times, maybe fool around and then let it fizzle,’ she said rawly.

‘I don’t know it’s going to fizzle.’

‘And yet it always does.’ Like hell he was actually hunting for something more.

‘I make it clear I’m not looking for anything serious.’ He pulled his shirt on with vicious movements, trying to justify the unjustifiable. ‘I don’t like complications.’

‘Why is that, exactly?’

‘Because I don’t like scenes like this. Why are women always so complicated?’

‘All humans are complicated, Ethan. Even you.’

‘I’m not. I have very simple needs.’

‘All basic instinct?’ she asked. ‘You just haven’t grown up yet. You don’t want to deal with whatever it is that makes you such a commitment-phobe.’ She tried to stuff her foot into a boot and realised something was in the way. She put her hand in instead and pulled out her damn knickers. She looped her hand through one leg of them and bent to pull the boot on.

He swore. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘What does it look like?’

‘You’re not going to skate home,’ he spat. ‘Absolutely not.’

‘Fine.’ She ditched the boot effort and stood upright again. ‘I’ll get a cab.’

‘I’m driving you.’ As barefoot as she, he snatched up his keys from the floor and stomped to the door.

Silently she followed.

He had a car as flash as his apartment and didn’t need directions, so the trip was fast, the conversation nil.

‘We have one more date.’ Scathingly he broke the pulsing atmosphere as he pulled in front of her house. ‘Friday suit you?’

Never in a million years. As far as she was concerned this whole mess was over. She was getting out of it now. ‘I can’t do Friday,’ she said, just as snappily. ‘I have another date.’

‘Oh, you do?’

‘Well, this isn’t exclusive or anything, Ethan,’ she lied, cauterising her heart with her burning, words. ‘Do we really have to suffer through another date?’

‘Oh, yeah, those screams were real sufferance, Nadia.’

He’d gone sceptical and she didn’t blame him. But she wanted this to be over. She didn’t want to have three dates and be out. It would be two and she was through. No more. Kicking him to the kerb now was the only way to ensure he’d never want to hear from her again. And then she could get over this massive, massive mistake. So, with a calculated, completely fabricated indifference, she got out of the car and walked. She clutched her blades to her chest to hold in her huge hurt heart.

‘So you’ve had all you wanted? It was just curiosity driving you?’ Ethan called after her from the open car window.

She could hear the sarcasm—and the scorn. She kept walking, hating herself more than he hated her.

‘Hey, Nadia, who just used who?’

CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_e85eba02-1bbf-5d7f-8810-b9f8006c2f00)

ETHAN shoved his foot on the accelerator and the wheels screeched as he shot away from the kerb. He hated complicated, and this was beyond that. This was a mess. And why? Ordinarily he wouldn’t mind at all about a date coming to its conclusion. But this hadn’t been the usual flirty goodbye—this had been cold, sudden and frankly vicious.

Yes, he liked sex. He liked it and he’d had a lot of it. But he’d never had sex like that before. Not so intense and angry and hot and funny all at the same time. He’d never before been so hot he almost hadn’t made it. Not so on the edge and up in the stratosphere—so good his guts were still twisted. And all he wanted right now was more. With her.

He’d not intended it to happen. Before the date this afternoon he’d been determined to play it easy—tease but don’t take. That was the whole point of this damn deal anyway. Oh, of course he’d wanted to—but he’d thought he had a little more self-control. Clearly he didn’t.

He got back to his flat and stalked to the shower to cool off. He was confronted by his massive bath, overflowing with bursting bubbles, and water all over the floor. Yeah—he’d turned the taps on before, gone back out to the lounge to scoop her up and put her in it with him so they could have lazy, floating, spa sex to recover. Only she’d been back in her tee and desperate to get away from him, spitting insults. Her fury completely unjustified when he had not scorned her. Quite the reverse.

Furiously he mopped up the mess and took a shower. Stewed over the last hour. So she’d had what she wanted and apparently she didn’t want it again. Didn’t want anything else. Didn’t give a damn. Hell, she couldn’t have spelt it out more clearly—all she’d wanted was a quick shag on the floor.

By rights that should be nothing for him to get upset about—wasn’t that exactly the uncomplicated kind of hook-up he enjoyed? So why the hell was he feeling so bitter and twisted?

Because he wanted more. He wanted her again—now. But he also wanted to spar some more, and alternately laugh with it. He totally got off on the challenges she threw his way. He liked just being near her almost as much as he liked being in her. He shivered, his skin going goosefleshy despite the fact he was now standing under a jet of hot water. He crashed out of the shower, shrugged into some clothes and went to make coffee, still feeling cold despite the warmth of the late afternoon. Sick. That was the problem. Summer flu or something. That was the reason for the whole body ache.

Nadia hid in her house—blinds down like a bat avoiding the last of the sunlight. She dreaded Ethan’s next blog post. How honest was he going to be? And how honest was she going to be? She couldn’t regret having sex with him, but it had been reckless and no way could she do it again—despite the itch already spreading in her veins.

She clicked “refresh” on his blog for the forty thousandth time. It was official. She now had OCD. But still there was nothing. Blog silence. She showered and slipped into one of the “limited edition”—five hundred had been the minimum order—WomanBWarned tee shirts she’d had printed, and that were now stacked in a box tower in the corner of her room. She’d sold four. But that was a start, right?

Ugh. She turned her back on them and hurried back to the lounge to check his blog again. Then, when there was nothing, her e-mail. There were several posts to the forum that she should respond to. Later.

She opened a message from Megan, which included a picture of her sailing around some idyllic Greek isle with Sam.