by Nika Rhone
“Sex is the lure,” Des said, “but not the bottom line. You don’t hand out samples; you merely entice.” When she still looked skeptical, he sighed and released her hands, taking a step back and indicating her body, which had gone stiff and defensive from her remembered humiliation. “If you’re looking to grab hold of a man’s attention, you need to think of yourself as a display window in a sweet shop. Let him get a glimpse of what treats await within, and he’ll be coming through your door in no time.”
“Well, he has looked,” Thea said, not entirely sure if he’d meant it to sound quite so sexual, “but he certainly hasn’t, um…wanted to come inside.” She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks as she said it.
“Hasn’t wanted to, or wanted to and didn’t?”
“Um…”
“Oh, he definitely wanted to,” Lillian said. “He nearly died right there at her feet when he got an eyeful of her new bikini.”
“String?”
“Thong.”
Des’s grin widened. “Thea, you naughty puss.”
Feeling as though her face was bright enough to light a runway at Boulder Municipal Airport, Thea wondered what she’d ever done to deserve friends like these. “Not that it helped any,” she said. “He hasn’t been back near the pool since.”
She couldn’t help but wonder if Lillian had been wrong, that it hadn’t been lust in his expression but disgust. Had she turned him off by the way she’d acted that afternoon? Maybe he was thinking that she was a total slut, coming on to him the way she had, and that was why he’d made excuses to get out of their run. Oh God, had she screwed up by throwing herself at him? Again?
“Stop it.”
Thea looked up at Lillian’s sharp command. “What?”
“Stop thinking whatever it is you’re thinking. That look on your face says it’s not anything good.”
“I was just thinking—”
“Don’t! Don’t think you did anything wrong and don’t think he wasn’t interested because he was, in a very definite I’d-kill-to-see-you-naked kind of way.” Lillian grinned at Thea’s shocked look. “I’ve known you a lot of years, T. You’re not that hard to read.”
“So he’s interested in the sweets, but he’s trying to resist the temptation they present,” Des said, tapping his chin thoughtfully. “We can work with that.”
“But now he’s avoiding her,” Amelia said. “How do we get him to want the sweets when he won’t even look in the window anymore?”
“I’m getting a little tired of being referred to as food.” Thea might grumble, but Amelia had come right to the heart of the matter. She could be as tempting as a double-fudge chocolate cake, which she knew was one of Doyle’s favorite desserts, but if Doyle wouldn’t stay in a room with her for more than five seconds, she was just going to sit there on the shelf going stale.
Great. Now they had her doing it, too.
“Simple,” Des replied, ignoring Thea’s complaint. “If the customer won’t come to the sweet shop, then the sweet shop will just have to use a little hard-sell advertising to change his mind.”
“Hard-sell advertising?” Thea wasn’t sure she liked the sound of that.
“Strut, shake, and jiggle,” Amelia murmured.
Nope, she was right. She didn’t like it. Not at all. Especially with the way Des was grinning at her, like he’d just been handed a present he couldn’t wait to unwrap.
Thea sighed.
“I’ll take whatever help you can give,” she said, “but I draw the line at jiggling.”
****
“This is a really bad idea.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“A really, really bad idea.”
“Stop complaining so much and smile.”
“I am smiling.”
“No, you’re grimacing. God, Thea, are you trying to scare everyone away?”
“Don’t I wish,” Thea muttered, but she did her best to rearrange her face into something she hoped more closely resembled the flirtatious smile that graced Lillian’s elfin face. “Better?”
“Oh, much. Now you only look like you’re only attending an execution rather than taking part in one.”
Thea sighed. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes, you can.” A bit of sympathy softened Lillian’s expression. “Des wouldn’t have said you were ready to try out your new talents if he didn’t believe you could pull it off.”
“I know, but…” But it was different to be in a bar full of strangers instead of the raucous but cozy dressing room at Club Platinum where Des had taken her for her “lessons” in body language. But these were men out looking for a woman and as good a time as she was willing to provide, not Des’s performer friends playing at being the victims of her newly acquired flirting skills. But she was terrified of making a fool out of herself, or worse, getting herself into trouble by choosing the wrong person to flirt with. “But…they’re not Doyle.”
“Exactly.” At Thea’s confused look, Lillian said, “This is practice, T. This is where you get to make your mistakes, refine your technique, and, I hope, have a little fun while you’re doing it. Most people get this part out of the way in high school. You’re just a little behind the curve is all.”
“Wonderful. Remedial Flirting 101.”
“Plus,” Lillian added with a sly grin, “your every conquest tonight will be witnessed firsthand by one of Doyle’s loyal staff.”
Following her friend’s gaze toward where Daryl Raintree sat at a table sipping what was either ginger ale or Perrier with lime, Thea felt a real smile start to curl her lips for the first time all night. True, Daryl wasn’t happy with her right now. He would never question her choice of evening entertainment to her face, but she knew him well enough to have read the mild censure in his dark gaze when they’d entered the bar.
Farraday’s wasn’t one of her usual hangouts, catering to a slightly older, less affluent crowd than, say, H2O or Misto. That had been the point. To get outside her comfort zone, away from her usual friends and acquaintances. To have a fresh slate to see if she had managed to retain any of the self-assurance and body language magic Des had worked so hard to drum into her. Threatening letters to her father notwithstanding, she felt perfectly safe with Daryl there, observing from a discreet distance.
She smiled because she knew he would also be filing a report about the evening’s events when they got home. A report that Doyle would read. A report that would include how she was besieged by dozens of adoring men who didn’t have a problem with seeing her as a desirable woman even if Doyle did.
Well, okay maybe besieged was a little too fanciful. And adoring might be a bit of a stretch. Probably not dozens, either. Maybe a few. One or two. But even if she had only one or two men—not boys, but men—paying her a bit of attention, talking, flirting, buying her drinks, that would show Doyle that she wasn’t at all the child he seemed to insist on seeing her as.
Wouldn’t it?
Sighing inwardly, Thea attempted to apply herself to the task at hand. Sipping her rum and coke, she took stock of the men that didn’t already have a woman or two hovering at their sides. From that group she mentally tossed out the ones who were too old, too drunk, or too obviously checking out the waitresses or, worse, the women already with other men.
With her list of possible flirts winnowed down to a mere handful, Thea felt her doubts begin to creep back in again. Could she do this? Should she do this?
“What about him?”
Thea glanced at the man Lillian nodded toward. Standing alone by the blaring jukebox, she could just make out his profile. Tall. Older than her, but not as old as Doyle, maybe late twenties or even thirty, the bar lighting made it hard to tell. The rosy hues thrown up by the neon in the jukebox cast his features into stark lines and shadows, but he seemed good-looking in a Russell Crowe rather than a Tom Cruise sort of way. Jeans, worn but neat, and a white shirt with sleeves rolled past his elbows gave him a slightly more sophisticated air than the beer-logo T-shir
ts and biker boots sported by many of those around him.
Neat, cute, and to all appearances, alone and sober. He would do.
“He’s looked over here at least a half dozen times already,” Lillian said with an encouraging grin. “Your fish is already half-hooked. Now all you have to do is go reel him in.” With that, she sat back in her chair, settling in as though getting ready to watch a performance.
“I can do this,” Thea muttered under her breath. She repeated it to herself like a mantra. I can do this. I can do this. I can—
“Uh, T? You have to actually get out of the chair first.”
Fighting down the flush that burned her cheeks, Thea shot her friend a sheepish look and, through a sheer force of will, got to her feet. One step toward the jukebox. Two. See, she could do this. She was doing this. Five steps. Almost there. Three more steps. Two. Just one last step…
And she was there. Next to him. Close enough to feel the heat of his body. Close enough to smell the slightly spicy cologne he was wearing. Close enough to see that he wasn’t just good-looking; he was Grade A gorgeous. She stared down at the song selections, rummaging through her suddenly blank mind for what the heck she was supposed to do first. Smile? Flutter her lashes? Ask him if he wanted her to have his babies?
“Hello.”
That was it! She was supposed to say hello! Only he’d beaten her to it. That was good, right? It was much better if he was the one to say something first. Less chance of him thinking of her as too forward. Or easy. But what was she supposed to do now? Oh, right…
“Hi.” She managed a small smile, trying for polite and friendly. Either that or she looked like the fish she’d had for dinner hadn’t agreed with her. She wasn’t quite sure which.
“Good selection.” Mr. Jukebox tapped a finger on the glass. “Lots of oldies mixed with the newer stuff.”
Grabbing onto the conversational gambit, Thea scanned the listing. “Maroon Five. I like them.” Did that sound stupid? And what was she supposed to do with her hands? Maybe she should have brought her drink with her.
Mr. Jukebox grinned. “A pretty lady with good taste in music. My luck must finally be changing.”
“Oh, and has it been so bad? Your luck, I mean?”
“Well,” he replied, “there were the two canceled flights, the missed connection in San Francisco, the lost luggage that is probably right now doing a world tour without me, the rental car that got a flat before I’d even left the airport…”
“Okay, okay.” Thea laughed, waving her hands in mock surrender. “Definitely bad. Worse than bad. You’ve got your own personal black cloud following you around.”
“Well, you know what they say. Every black cloud has a silver lining. And I’m thinking that maybe you’re mine.”
Thea blinked. Well, that was…lame.
Mr. Jukebox must have thought so, too, because he winced and shot her a sheepish grin. “I’m a little out of practice, but even for me that was a lousy line. Sorry.”
It hit her then. He was as nervous as she was. For the first time since walking through the front door of the bar, Thea relaxed a little. “No worries. Everyone’s entitled to at least one bad cliché per night.”
“Are you going to use yours now, or were you planning to save it until later?”
“I think I’ll hang onto it. You never know when the urge to cliché might strike.” Huh. Maybe this flirting stuff wasn’t so hard after all.
Mister Jukebox’s face lit up as he laughed. It was a deep, pleasant sound, but it didn’t make her tingle way down inside the way Doyle’s laugh did. Pity, that.
He stuck his hand out. “Nick Hastings.”
“Thea Fordham.” Thea winced at the gaffe as she shook his hand. How many times had Doyle warned her about giving her name to strangers? But there was no flicker of recognition in Nick’s handsome face, so she shrugged the worry aside. It wasn’t as if Nick was going to toss her over his shoulder and kidnap her right out of Farraday’s or anything. And anyway, Daryl was somewhere nearby, just in case.
“So.” Nick gave her a sexy grin and hooked his thumbs in his front pockets. “Do you come here often?”
Yes, this flirting stuff might actually be fun. But it would be even more fun with the right man. If only she got the chance.
Chapter Seven
Thea didn’t want to admit it, but the evening wasn’t turning out half as bad as she’d expected it to be.
After leaving Farraday’s and the cute but not-for-her Nick behind, they’d ventured even further out of their usual comfort zone and into The Hole, where Thea had drinks bought for her by several very nice men who didn’t seem to think she was inept or awkward or any of the things that she always felt every time she tried to get Doyle to notice her the way they were noticing her. In fact, the only awkward moment had come when the guy with the amazing collection of tattoos on his arms had asked for her number and she’d had to say no. Not that it had stopped him from giving her his number, though.
That was when she’d started feeling guilty about misleading the men she’d been flirting with, but Lillian had been quick to disabuse her of that worry. She’d pointed out that everybody bar-flirted and that flirting in no way implied actual intent. Unless you came right out and said yes to someone, they had no reason to expect more.
Thea had been ready to call it a night after that, but Lillian had badgered her into making one more stop, this time at a dance club rather than a bar.
“For variety’s sake,” Lillian said, as they paid the cover and joined the very large crowd straining toward the dance floor at the center of the converted warehouse.
“But I won’t be able to have a conversation with anyone here.” The fact that Thea had to raise her voice to be heard over the music kind of made the point for her.
“Exactly! That means it’s going to have to be all about the body language.”
That had almost made her turn and head right back out the door. Instead, Thea let herself get pulled out onto the dance floor and quickly lost herself in the music, happy to not have to think about anything more important than not stepping on anyone’s toes.
Now, sweaty and out of breath, they found that Daryl had worked some of his bodyguard ninja magic and procured a table for them, one situated close to the wall where the crowd wasn’t as thick and the music not quite as loud. Two unopened bottles of water sat waiting for them.
Thea scanned the immediate vicinity until she found Daryl standing a few yards away against the wall, his height giving him an unobstructed view of the table despite the crowd. Cracking the seal on the bottle, she saluted him in thanks before taking a long drink, once again having to repress a pinch of guilt at making him tag along on her evening out. She knew it was his job, but that didn’t mean she wanted to make that job harder than it had to be, and going clubbing definitely did that.
All for a good cause, she reminded herself. If all of this practice did what it was supposed to and helped her finally have a real shot at getting Doyle to see the real her and not some idealized junior version of herself, it would have all been worth it.
“Hello, beautiful ladies. Would you like to dance?”
Thea glanced up at the two men who had stopped at their table. Both dark-haired and dark-eyed, they looked enough alike to be brothers. It wasn’t until they both grinned that she realized they were twins. Very good-looking twins.
Who did absolutely nothing for her.
“Sure.” Lillian answered for the both of them, bumping Thea as she got out of her chair.
“Love to,” Thea answered after the prompt. Right. Practice.
After Carlos and Miguel, there were Kevin, Leon, and a few others she didn’t even bother to trade names with. That was the beauty of the dance floor. People switched partners at will, no words or names exchanged, just a willingness to share the beat.
Finally, though, Thea tapped out, needing a respite. Lillian was still going strong, so Thea made sure her friend knew where she was heading befo
re she wormed her way through the crowd and back over to the table, which through some miracle of miracles—or maybe it was just the miracle of Daryl—hadn’t been claimed by anyone else.
A plastic bucket of ice with new, unopened bottles of water sat in the middle of the small table, and Thea gratefully cracked one open and chugged half without stopping. She’d forgotten how tiring dancing could be. Not that she’d ever been much of a clubber. Even when she’d been away at college, most of her weekends had been spent in her dorm room working on design projects to help her hone her skills. She’d wanted to be ready to take on any job that came her way once she graduated.
Fat lot of good that had done so far.
“Hey, fancy meeting you here!”
Thea looked up at the half-shouted words of the man who slid into the seat next to her. His easy smile brought out her own, but the look in his eyes made her suspicious. “Peter, hey!” She leaned into the hug Lillian’s brother offered. “I didn’t know you hung out at Blaze.”
“Oh, yeah, sure, sure, all the time.” Peter kept his arm slung around the back of her chair and looked across the table to the other man who had sat down with him rather than meet her gaze. “You remember Seth, right?”
Oh, damn.
She somehow managed to hold onto her smile. “Of course, I do. Nice to see you again, Seth.”
“Yeah, it’s good to see you, too!” Seth Reed was still one of the most solidly built men Thea had ever met. That bulk had served him well back on the high school wrestling team. Now, though, it just made him look like he was living in a world that was built two sizes too small for him. His white-blond hair, always short, was now shorn down into a brutal crew cut. Not his best look. The lack of hair somehow made his head seem even more out of proportion with the rest of his body.