he asked himself. Could he really sleep with some woman he picked up tonight for casual sex, just so he’d have a story to write? Well, yeah, since he’d already done it twice. But that was before Julia. Could he do it now? Sleep with some stranger one time and hope that the woman he was beginning to care about never found out? A month ago, he could have answered that question easily, and in the affirmative. Tonight, though…
Damn. He honestly didn’t know.
No names, he saw when he looked down at the list in his hand. No identifying elements at all. Damn. The participants for this event were only assigned numbers. There was no way he’d be able to tell if Julia was among them.
He really needed to stay for this party tonight, he told himself. Because the third one he’d attended—the Sunday night after meeting Julia—had been a complete bust. Not a single woman in the bunch had stirred his libido in the slightest, and he’d gone home alone.
And it wasn’t as if he had high standards. His main requirement in a woman was that she needed to have produced estrogen at some point in her life. His second was that she have a pulse. His third was that she breathe oxygen. His fourth and final was that she not set off his gag reflex. Yet still he’d ended that third party without checking off a single name from his list.
And he’d been so besotted by Julia at the second event that he hadn’t even turned in his name list at the end of the night. Thank God for the two women from the first party or he wouldn’t have a story at all. Thing was, he could barely remember either one of them now. Good thing he’d taken notes.
All the more reason to focus on work tonight, he told himself. He was in desperate need of material. Which meant he had to go to this party and find a few halfway decent—or rather, wholly indecent—women to fill the pages of his story.
As long as, you know, Julia wasn’t here.
Still wary of her appearance, Daniel hovered near the front entry, skirting the wall, keeping one eye on the door, in case she was a last-minute show. But by the time the party finally got going, ten minutes late, there was still no sign of her. Obviously she wasn’t coming tonight, so he’d be free to pick up women at will. And as he’d scanned the crowd looking for Julia, he’d spied a number of attractive women who might work well for his purposes. At least none of them had set off his gag reflex, all clearly possessed beating hearts, and he couldn’t detect gills on any of them. Now, as long as he didn’t see any Adam’s apples or facial hair…
A tall slender redhead caught his eye as he was pondering her hormonal composition, and she smiled at him. Naturally, Daniel smiled back. He waited for that kick to the gut that usually hit him when a pretty woman smiled at him that way, but it never came. Neither did the heated speculation about what she looked like naked that usually came right after the kick to the gut. Nor did the deep-seated sexual anticipation that had his fingers curling over imaginary breasts.
Which could mean only one thing.
He was so far gone on Julia that it was absolutely, unequivocally, irretrievably essential that Daniel get that woman into bed tonight, and enjoy every last inch of her. Twice. At least. Because maybe that, finally, would work Julia Miles out of his system, and put him back on the road to eternal hound-dogging perdition, which was where he wanted to be. Right?
Damn right.
Daniel had neither the time, nor the inclination, to be besotted with anyone. Besotment led to even worse things. Things like commitment and monogamy and chick flicks and remembering obscure milestone anniversaries like the day they discovered a gum wrapper on the street together. He had far more important things to do. He had a sensational story to write. A postadolescent dream job to keep. A lifestyle as an arrogant alpha male to maintain. And it was about time he remembered that.
Instead of remembering how good it felt to have his arm around Julia’s waist. And how nice she smelled. And how her hair caught the light in a way that made it look like liquid gold. And that soft, husky laugh that was just so damned sexy. And that afternoon they discovered the gum wrapper on the street together…
JULIA CAUTIOUSLY WATCHED the retreating back of her sixth speed-date of the night, whose identifying number looked way too much like what would appear under his mug shot, and wondered again what she was doing here. Oh, yeah. Trying to get a story for Tess magazine. She hoped Abby and Samantha were having more luck meeting write-worthy men than she was, and couldn’t quite curb the fear that they might have to scrap the whole story. Or at least her portion of it. So far, the only decent guy she’d met speed-dating was Daniel.
Which, okay, might provide her with all the material she needed for the story, since she’d pretty much decided he was her Mr. Right. But her contribution to the article was going to be pretty short and pretty boring if she didn’t have at least a few good guys she could hold up as examples. 40387—yeah, that was definitely a prison jumpsuit number—wasn’t anywhere close. She riffled through her notes for the night so far and sighed. Neither was any of the other guys.
And for this she’d dressed in a screaming red, lace-trimmed, curve-hugging slip dress? What a waste of perfectly good designer clothing.
She had flipped to a clean page and was tipping back her glass to suck up the last of her appletini—the way things were going, she needed every last drop of vodka she could absorb—when she saw Daniel sitting at the table of some tarty redhead in the corner of the room. Worse, he was smiling at the tarty redhead in much the same way he had smiled at Julia that first night they met. Worse still, he was holding the tarty redhead’s hand. Or maybe the tarty redhead was holding his hand. Hard to tell from this angle. In any event, they were both holding hands and neither seemed to mind very much.
What was he doing here? she wondered as something cool and heavy slithered into her stomach. Why was he still speed-dating when the two of them had been getting along so well? He’d told her that first night he was looking for companionship. So what was Julia? His faithful canine friend?
Okay, so she didn’t have any major claim on him, she reminded herself. And they’d only known each other a week. But they’d seen each other nearly every day this week, and they’d had a lot of fun. And, yeah, they’d done a lot of making out. That was part of the fun. Daniel had been totally affectionate with her, and God knew she’d felt affection—and then some—for him. The night they’d cooked dinner at her place had been one of the most enjoyable Julia had ever spent, even before the lip-locking on the couch. And things had only gotten better after that.
Okay, so maybe she hadn’t been as ready to do the horizontal boogaloo as he was, despite her claims to Tess at lunch Wednesday. That was actually a good sign. It was. It meant Julia cared enough for Daniel to want to make sure she didn’t screw things up with him. Sex could make people weird with each other if it came into a relationship too soon. Which—she had to be honest with herself—Julia had finally decided was what she and Daniel had.
Maybe she should have told him that, she thought now. Well, the worrying-about-things-getting-weird thing, if not the actual relationship thing, since guys tended to get really weird after that word came up. But she’d been afraid even that small mention of her feelings might spook him. Even when things were going really well between a man and a woman, guys didn’t want to cross that emotional bridge as soon as girls did. And if the man and woman weren’t progressing at quite the same pace in their relationship…
Something hot and scary splashed through Julia’s midsection. She had assumed Daniel was getting as serious about her as she was about him. He’d been as eager to see her from one day to the next as she had been to see him. They’d spent their final moments together every night locking lips in a way that indicated they were both fully sprung on each other.
But what if she was wrong?
Why was he speed-dating? she asked herself again. He knew she was still doing it, too. He had to have realized he might run into her at one of these things. But he’d done it, anyway. Evidently because he didn’t care if she saw him here. With a gorgeous, if incredibly tarty, redhead. Smiling at the tart. Holding her tarty hand. Still holding it as both of them stood up to say their goodbyes at the conclusion of their speed-date.