exclusive boarding school at thirteen. He’d been the illegitimate kid with a chip on his shoulder, a jagged crack through the center of his soul and a grudge against the name he couldn’t escape—and Jeff had been the unlucky SOB saddled with him as a roommate. Connor hadn’t given him any reason to cut him a break, but for some reason, Jeff had anyway.
Which was why, for as much as he gave his friend a hard time about being an “in touch” guy...he also gave him the truth. “Yeah, you too... Now, where’s the gymnast?”
* * *
Another two rounds and some forty minutes later, Connor leaned back in his chair watching as Jeff reasserted his status as a testosterone-driven male by smoothly intercepting the cocktail girl he’d been eyeing for the better part of an hour. Connor didn’t even want to think about the rap this guy had laid on her to get those lashes batting and her tray cast aside so fast, but whatever it was, it must have been phenomenal.
Jeff shot him a salute, and the deal was done.
Reaching into this breast pocket, Connor pulled out his wallet, tossed a few bills onto the table and then set his empty glass atop the stack.
The night stretched out before him with all its endless...exhausting possibilities.
He could hit the blackjack tables.
Grab a bite.
Pick up some company. Or not. With this apathetic indifference he was rocking—
“Excuse me.”
Glancing up, he’d expected another waitress ready to clear, but instead it was the blonde in the midnight dress from the other table. The gymnast, who most definitely wasn’t a gymnast if her height and the soft S-like lines of a figure draped in one of those clingy wrap numbers were anything to go on.
Very nice. “Hi. What can I do for you?”
Her smile spread wide as her big blue eyes held his. “This is going to sound like a line. A really, really bad one. But you’ve got to believe me when I say it’s not.”
The corner of his mouth twitched as he readied for what inevitably was the rest of the line. Playing in, he gave her a nod. “Okay, you’ve got the disclaimer out of the way. Go for it.”
She nodded, releasing a deep breath. “I noticed you were about to leave. And I’d be more grateful than you could imagine if you wouldn’t mind walking out with me. So it looks like we’re leaving together.”
Right. “Just looks like we’re leaving together?”
Again her wide smile flashed, and Connor saw shades of girl-next-door. Not usually his type, but for whatever reason, there was something about the look of this one...
“Yes. My...friends saw me notice you earlier and...well...and you don’t even want to know what it’s been like since. I told them I’d come over and see if you were interested because I want them off my back. But I can tell from looking at you, that I’m not the kind of woman you’d be interested in...which is, actually, the only reason I decided to come over. I’d love to get out of here without them following me for the rest of the night.”
She’d been checking him out, eh?
Well, fair being fair, he gave his eyes the go-ahead to run the length of her and back, spending more time along the way than he’d done in his first casual glance. Very, very nice. Even with her scolding finger wagging at him on the return trip.
“None of that. You’re handsome, but I’m honestly working an escape strategy here.”
He shifted, the smile he hadn’t quite let loose earlier breaking free with the realization she was serious. Glancing past her, he noted her friends blatantly staring back.
“Subtle.”
She shrugged delicately. “So far as I can tell, subtle isn’t really their thing.”
He raised a brow. “So far as you can tell? What kind of friends are they?”
“The kind on loan until our bridesmaids’ obligations have been fulfilled, sometime before dawn on Sunday. I hope. They’re my cousin’s best friends from kindergarten.”
Ah. “And they’ve taken an interest in your love life because....?”
Her nose wrinkled up as she scanned the ceiling. “Any chance you might just walk me out of here?”
Connor eased back into his chair, pulling out the seat Jeff had vacated with his foot. “Not if you want it to look convincing. I’ll walk you out of here...in ten minutes.”
The skeptical look said she’d figured out he was thinking about more than the next ten minutes.
As different as she was from the women he usually pursued, she looked as if she really might be exactly the kind of fun this night called for.
The kind who didn’t generally hook up with strangers. The corruptible kind, he thought, feeling less apathetic by the second.
“Ten minutes. We’ll talk. Flirt. You can touch my arm once or twice to really sell it. Maybe I’ll tuck some wayward strand of hair behind your ear. Your voyeuristic friends will gobble it up. Then I’ll lean in close to your ear and suggest we get out of here. Maybe do it in a way that has you blushing all the way to your roots. You’ll get flustered and shy, but let me take your hand anyway. And we’ll go.”
The look on her face was priceless. As though he’d gotten to her with this bit of scripted tripe.
“That’s...um...” She swallowed, her gaze darting around, landing on his mouth and lingering briefly before snapping back to his eyes. “More of an investment than I was really asking for.”
“The better for you.”
“Yeah, but what’s in it for you?”
Connor flashed a wolfish smile. “Ten minutes to convince you to give me twenty. We’ll see where it goes from there.”
The slight shake of her head had his focus honing and his critical skills tuning up. Man, he’d been thinking how much he might like to see her girl-next-door smile turn sultry, but now here she was making him work for her too? It didn’t get better.
“I should probably go. I’m not a casual-encounter kind of girl. And even if you were looking for something more than casual, I still wouldn’t be interested.”
Something about the way she said it had his curiosity standing up for a stretch. “Oh, yeah—how come?”
Her hand lifted in a sort of dismissive flutter, which stopped almost before it began. Then meeting his eyes, she said, “Sorry, it’s a little too personal for a fake first nondate.”
Connor grinned, shrugging one shoulder. “So why not make it a not-quite-so-fake first nondate. Or maybe a fake first date, though if we’re already faking it, we ought to go for a second or third date...when all the good stuff starts.”
Her smile went wide before giving way to a laugh out of line with the girl-next-door everything else about her. The laugh had his head cranking around for a second take. And sure enough, when her eyes were half closed, her lips parted for that low rolling sound of seductive abandon, he was the one left staring.
For a second.
Before he shifted back into gear. “Seriously, I’d like to know.”
He could see it in her eyes, in the tilt of her head and the way her body had already started to turn away. In her mind, the decision was made, and mentally, she was halfway to the door. Too bad.
But regardless, he didn’t want to leave her hanging after she’d mustered the nerve to come over.
“I’ll walk you out,” he said, but she shook her head and smiled.
“Thanks, I’ll be fine, though.”
“Fair enough. I’m Connor, by the way.” He extended