by Unknown
But it wasn’t just the visits to her apartment or the usurping of her personal girls-only . . . it really should be girls-only! . . . knitting group. He’d also begun e-mailing her at work. And to add insult to injury, each and every one began with some horrifying BDSM salutation.
Dear Domiknitrix . . .
Mistress Ronnie . . .
Dear Ronnie, O, exalted mistress of yarn and pain . . .
She really wanted to smack him.
It wasn’t just his knowledge and abuse of her personal screen name that made her blood pressure rise, though. Oh, no. It was the fact that he was practically cyberstalking her.
He e-mailed to ask if she was going to be home on a certain day, at a certain time. To which she’d responded with an emphatic No, but was then proven a liar when he showed up, anyway.
He e-mailed to ask about this stitch or that stitch, even going so far as to attach a digital picture of where he’d gone horribly wrong trying to knit a few rows on his own. That, she had to admit, had given her a few moments of sadistic glee. Yes, she was supposed to be helping him learn to knit and knit well, but she wanted to win their bet more, and that required him not to do a good job.
Today he’d e-mailed her about coming over after knitting group, but Ronnie hadn’t responded. She didn’t want him coming over, and she thought she’d be able to avoid him simply by keeping the lights off and refusing to answer the door once she got home. She’d never expected him to show up at The Yarn Barn, and hadn’t thought far enough ahead to realize that he might be at The Penalty Box when she showed up with the other girls.
It was enough to make a girl want to move . . . or at least drive her to drink.
Which was exactly what Ronnie intended to do tonight.
Following Grace and Jenna to a nearby booth, she slipped onto the bench across from them and plopped her carryall down beside her. She’d gotten hardly any decent knitting done tonight at group, too distracted and annoyed by Dylan’s presence to concentrate. And that only pissed her off all the more. At the rate she was going, she’d never finish this damn sweater, and with all the good-natured help Dylan was getting from Charlotte, he probably would finish his project.
She thought it might be the beginnings of a scarf, but wasn’t sure. It hadn’t quite taken shape yet. Unless you considered scary-ass blob a shape.
The truth was, whatever he was working on really should have been unraveled and started over, but he’d done that so many times already, she suspected he just wanted to move forward and learn something beyond casting on before any more time passed.
The next time he showed up at her apartment uninvited, though, she might very well make him rip it all out. It would serve him right, and it would also get her that much closer to winning the challenge.
A waitress in navy-blue hot pants and a Playboy Bunny’s version of a hockey jersey—The Penalty Box’s idea of a uniform—appeared at the table to take their orders.
“I don’t know about you,” Grace said, “but I’m in the mood for something really sweet and different. How about a pitcher of Mudslides?”
Jenna nodded as Ronnie imagined the bartender’s reaction to that request. Before Grace had started hanging out here and dragging her female friends along with her, she suspected Turk had never even heard of half the fruity, girlie drinks they ordered on a regular basis. To him, a mudslide had likely been something he only heard about on the news, followed by the words “still searching for survivors.”
Up until a few months ago, she doubted the Box had even owned a blender. Now—on Wednesday nights, at least—it could be heard whirring away in the background on a regular basis.
“That’ll do for starters, but I’m telling you right now, I’m going to need something stronger before the night is over.”
“Oooh, bad day?” Grace asked as the waitress wandered off toward the bar, scribbling on her notepad.
Grace didn’t know the half of it. Normally, Ronnie would have shared her frustrations with her friends while they were at their knitting group. Frustrations, successes, a few dirty jokes . . .
But thanks to Dylan’s intrusion, she hadn’t been able to talk to them about anything tonight. She felt like an overblown balloon about to explode.
She hadn’t realized until very recently just how much she relied on the Knit Wits to keep herself sane. They were more than just casual acquaintances brought together by a love of yarn and needles. They were friends and confidantes, and maybe even amateur therapists.
Thank goodness. Otherwise, Ronnie was afraid she’d have to go into debt just trying to keep her mental health in order.
“Bad lifetime,” Ronnie muttered in response to Grace’s question.
“Awww.” Jenna reached across the table to pat the back of Ronnie’s hand. “You look positively miserable. What’s wrong?”
Pressing her fingers into her eye sockets until she saw stars, Ronnie said, “He’s driving me insane.”
There was no need to specify who. There was only one man in her life—in the known universe—who could induce a migraine of this size and magnitude, and her friends knew exactly who it was.
“He’s calling me now, at home and at work. And e-mailing me almost daily. If I had known this knitting challenge was going to become such a nightmare, I’d have made him turn tricks on Lorain Avenue or something instead. Dear God!”
The waitress arrived then with their order, and they took a moment to pour three tall glasses of frothy brown Kahlúa-laced drinks.
“This is amazing,” Jenna said after a few strong sucks on her straw.
“Turk deserves an award for his skills behind that bar,” Grace added. Then she turned a pointed glance in Ronnie’s direction. “Maybe you should hang around until after closing and thank him with a little naked slap and tickle.”
Mudslide went down the wrong way and Ronnie choked. “Dear God,” she coughed, covering her mouth with a napkin as she struggled for breath. “That’s disgusting. What is wrong with you?”
“I think she’s been spending too much time with Zack. He’s starting to warp her brain,” Jenna said with a giggle.
Grace rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on. You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. Turk is one fine male specimen.” She wiggled her left ring finger in front of her. “If I weren’t spoken for, I might take a bite out of that luscious ass myself.”
At that, it was Jenna’s turn to go red in the face and nearly choke on her drink.
“Are you sure this is your first drink of the evening?” Ronnie said with a smile.
Grace made a noise that sounded an awful lot like pshaw. “You can’t tell me you haven’t thought about it. He’s a gorgeous hunk of man.”
Ronnie’s gaze slid across the room and over the unwitting subject of their bawdy conversation. And the alcohol in her Mudslide must have started to kick in, because her mind was suddenly right down there in the gutter with Grace’s.
“He is attractive. But he’s roughly the size of an eighteen-wheeler, for God’s sake. I’m not sure I could handle that much man; he’s likely to split me in half.”
“Ronnie!” Jenna gasped.
“Well, one of you should do something with someone,” Grace told them. “I hate to break it to you, but you both need it. Bad.”
Jenna might have been horrified by Grace’s suggestion, but Ronnie certainly wasn’t. She’d be the first to admit it had been too darn long since anyone besides BOB (her battery-operated boyfriend) had made her scream, shudder, or anything else.
Well, except for Dylan. She may not have screamed aloud, but he’d certainly made her shudder.
And the memory of him kissing her made her shudder all over again. Her stomach clenched and she had to shift in her seat to stifle the itch building between her legs.
Shit, shit, shit. She really was in trouble if the thought of having sex with Dylan turned her on more than the thought of having sex with the incredibly hot and masculine bartender.
She glanced at Tu
rk again. Then another decent-looking guy at the bar. One standing with a group of friends at the back of the bar. Zack. Gage.
Dylan.
Shit. Her Orgasm-o-Meter didn’t even flicker while contemplating any of those other men. But aim it at Dylan Stone and she nearly came in her seat.
Slouching down in the booth, she crossed her arms over her chest and grumbled, “Says the woman who’s been getting the long, slow one slipped to her every damn night. Lucky bitch.”
“That’s right. Although it isn’t always slow,” Grace agreed with a wink, while Ronnie wondered if she could drown herself by sticking her head in what was left of the Mudslide mixture in the pitcher on their table-top. “Which means I know of what I speak, and you two should listen to me. Ronnie is so tense, she’s likely to shatter if a stiff wind blows by. And you, Jenna . . . It’s been a year already. You’ve got to get over Gage and the divorce and move on with your life. Find someone, anyone to rip your clothes off and remind you that you’re an attractive, vibrant, multiorgasmic woman.”
Ronnie blinked, meeting her friend’s gaze.
“What?” Grace wanted to know. Then she threw up her hands and leaned against the back of the booth. “You two can’t be mad at me. It’s nothing you didn’t need to hear, and we’ve said way worse to each other. You guys are the ones who told me I was an idiot to date, let alone marry, a professional hockey player because he’d be a jerk and a cheat and break my heart.”
Her voice rose with every word, as though she was truly worried she’d upset her best friends.
But Ronnie was much too preoccupied to be offended. Pushing her glass away, she swallowed hard and lowered her voice. “I’m not going to sleep with Turk or anyone else. But there is something I need to tell you.”
Row 8
For the first time in as long as Dylan could remember, high-pitched, trilling laughter was not floating over from the girls’ booth. He’d seen Ronnie come in, along with Grace and Jenna, and had been watching her from the corner of his eye ever since.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her mouth. The taste of her. The feel of her. That brief, powerful kiss that had knocked him for much more of a loop than he ever would have expected.
Sometimes he thought he could still feel her lips moving beneath his, her body pressed against him like a second skin.
Zack and Gage were in the middle of a heated debate over last week’s game where the Cougars beat the Rockets four to two. Dylan listened with only half an ear, the rest of his attention on the women across the room.
Rather than tossing their hair and laughing raucously over brightly colored drinks as he was used to seeing, they seemed strangely subdued. Heads bent together, small glasses of amber-colored liquid and a few empty bottles among them, their expressions serious. He was curious about what they were discussing, and even attempted to read the women’s lips until he was forced to admit that wasn’t one of his strong suits.
Several minutes later, a waitress came to clear their table, and the ladies began digging in their respective purses for money to pay the tab.
When Ronnie slipped out of the booth to stand, she faltered a little, reaching out for the edge of the table to steady herself. Grace moved to her side to take her elbow and whisper something in her ear. Ronnie shook her head and turned, taking a few careful, measured steps toward the bar entrance.
Before he’d even thought through what he was going to do, Dylan pushed to his feet and started forward. Grace was saying something else, and Ronnie nodded, but he broke in, not wanting them to finish what he was pretty sure they were talking about.
“Hey,” he said, sounding too chipper even to his own ears.
All three women lifted their heads and turned in his direction.
“Dylan,” Grace and Jenna both greeted him . . . less than friendly because of their loyalty to Ronnie, but still polite because of his relationship with their significant or formerly significant others.
Ronnie merely glared.
Even from where he stood with a foot or two of empty space separating them, he could tell she was drunk. Not hold-on-to-the-grass-to-keep-from-falling-off-the-earth drunk, but definitely too inebriated to drive herself home.
Getting right to the point, he said, “Looks like somebody had too much to drink. Can I offer you a ride home? Your place is right on my way.”
Well, if he took the long route.
For a moment, no one responded. Ronnie’s mouth turned down in a frown, then Grace piped up.
“That would be great, thank you so much. I really wanted to go home with Zack, but I wouldn’t feel right about not seeing Ronnie home safely first.” She actually reached out to grab both Dylan’s and Ronnie’s arms and link them together, presumably to keep her tipsy friend from toppling over.
He expected Ronnie to pull away, to immediately yank her arm back and maybe even shake it to dispel the cooties she might have picked up by touching him. Honest to God, she was the prickliest, most tightly wrapped person he’d ever met. But instead, she left her hand where it was and only her fingers moved, curling into talons that dug into his forearm.
“You’re leaving me?” Ronnie nearly shrieked at Grace in what he was sure she thought was a stage whisper. “After everything I told you tonight? What kind of friend are you?”
Far from chastised or offended, Grace merely smiled and leaned in to kiss her friend’s cheek. “I know you don’t think so right this minute, but I’m doing you a favor.”
Then she moved even closer and whispered something directly into Ronnie’s ear.
Ronnie reared back, horror etched into every line of her face. “I’d rather take my chances with Turk!” she bellowed, her voice carrying over the music and other high-volume noises from the crowded bar.
Several Box patrons—including the towering, muscle-bound bartender—turned their attention to her. She lowered her voice and growled, “Traitor.”
“You’ll thank me later,” Grace said, patting Ronnie’s hand before looping an arm through Jenna’s.
Then she turned to Dylan. “She’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep. I hope you can see that she gets one.”
Was that a sparkle in the blonde’s eye? A subtle wink or maybe a thinly veiled suggestion? He blinked, studying her again more closely, but whatever had been there was gone.
He must be imagining things. Maybe he’d had too much to drink himself—though it usually took more than two beers for him to start hallucinating.
But just the hint of insinuation from Zack’s fiancée had his blood firing up and catching the first train south. Helping Ronnie get a good night’s sleep sounded like a good idea to him, and he could think of any number of ways to get her there. Sixty-nine. Around the world. Ride the pony. Even plain old missionary would be fine with him, as long as she was naked and burning beneath him.
“Okay, time to go,” he said, more to himself than to her. He needed to get out of there, out into the chilly night air to cool off before he overheated.
Although she moved with him as he crossed the room toward the door, that didn’t keep her from arguing. “I don’t need you to give me a ride,” she told him. “I haven’t had that much to drink. I can drive myself. Or I can go home with Jenna. Or I’ll wait until Grace and Zack are ready to leave and go with them.”
Dylan cast a look back over his shoulder at the table where the four of them—Zack, Grace, Gage, and Jenna—were now gathered. Grace was perched happily on Zack’s wide knee while Gage and Jenna sat about as far apart as humanly possible while still being seated at the same table.
“I don’t think they want to be bothered with you tonight.”
“Bite me, Stone.”
Reaching for the door handle, he ushered her outside ahead of him, still holding on to her arm in case she lost her footing. He sighed as they made their way down the sidewalk toward The Penalty Box parking lot at the side of the building.
“We’ve been through this. Under the right circumstances, I’d be h
appy to, as long as you promise not to be too rough with me in return. I wouldn’t want to get the spiked heel of one of your domiknitrix boots jabbed in the middle of my spine.”
When they reached his jeep, he unlocked the passenger door and let her in, making sure she was properly seated, all limbs and clothing inside, before slamming the door. She remained silent that long, but as soon as he slid behind the wheel, she was ready with a sharp retort.
“If you’re ever lucky enough to even see my boots, I won’t be putting the heel in the middle of your back, Stone.”
“I don’t know,” he said with a chuckle, his fingers tapping out a meaningless staccato beat on the steering wheel as he pulled onto the street. “I happen to think I could give you a run for your money in the sack. You may have the whips and leather chaps, but I’ve been known to bring a woman to orgasm a dozen times in one night.”
She gave an unladylike snort. “And who might that have been? Bambi, your blow-up doll?”
“No. I assure you, all the women I’ve been with have been very real.”
“Uh-huh. Well, then, I’ve got news for you, Stone. Whichever real live woman you claim to have done that with was faking it. Twelve times over . . . she must have been quite the accomplished actress. Either that or a consummate professional—the kind who charges by the hour.”
He slanted a glance at her, and even in the dark confines of the jeep, Ronnie could see the amused arc at the corner of his mouth.
“You’re just jealous. When was the last time a man made you come more than once in a night? I’m betting . . . what? . . . senior year of high school, junior year of college?”
That was something she definitely did not want to discuss.
And how was it that this man—man, jerk, asshole—knew just what to say to make her head pound and her stomach churn?
Hadn’t she just been brooding over how very long it had been since anyone other than she herself had rocked her world, curled her toes, or made her see the face of God?