by Unknown
So he’d bitten the bullet, packed up his needles and yarn, and come over to Zack’s to watch the game and take his licks from two guys who’d never had to check their balls at the door just to keep from getting their asses handed to them by a woman.
Even if that woman was Ronnie, and she happened to be smokin’ hot when he got her alone, winning this challenge was for the greater good. For his job, his pride, and the pride of every red-blooded male walking the streets of America.
And if that meant taking some ribbing from his supposed best friends, so be it.
He finished a row, dragged another length of yarn from the rolled-up black ball, and turned his needles to start back the other way.
He would be glad when he won this bet and could once again turn the tables on Ronnie. What he would make her do, he wasn’t quite sure.
He’d been contemplating it ever since she’d dropped the knitting bomb on him, but now that they’d started sleeping together, things like collecting litter along major freeways in a string bikini in the dead of winter, or shaving her head and dressing like a Hare Krishna to distribute pamphlets outside the bus station, had morphed into decidedly more sexual tasks.
Entering the Miss Ohio pageant and requiring her to use her amazing mouth for the talent portion. Working at a strip club and doing a little pole or lap dancing—provided his was the only lap she gyrated on. Dressing in skintight black leather and spending a day with him at the Herald, keeping him on the straight and narrow, and putting him to work and treating him like the bad, bad boy he was if he slacked off on the job.
It didn’t take much of that for his Johnnie Walker to sit up and begin to beg, and he moved the length of his knitting down a few inches to cover his crotch. If Zack or Gage noticed his boner, they would no doubt think he got off on playing with yarn, and that was something they’d never let him live down.
Until the end of time, anytime they passed by a scarf, a hat, a pair of gloves or mittens, it would be, Ooh, Stone, does this make you hot? Would you two like to be alone?
No, thank you.
When another commercial came on, leaving Zack without active play to distract him, he took a long pull on his bottle of beer and turned back to Dylan. Reaching for the end of the knitting connected to the needles—and entirely too close to the bulge behind Dylan’s zipper—he said, “It doesn’t look like you’ve gotten very far. What’s it supposed to be, anyway?”
“A scarf,” Dylan replied shortly.
Though he wasn’t sure it looked much like one at the moment. The end was a mishmash of stitches, too tight and then too loose as he’d been struggling to learn, struggling to do everything right.
A few inches up, he’d gotten the hang of things . . . give or take. At any rate, the last few inches he’d done looked better than those first several rows.
But if it was going to be a scarf, he’d better get a move on to finish it. At its current length, it would probably do better as a bib.
“I’ve only got a week left to get this done and show Ronnie that I learned to knit, or my ass is grass. I’m going to work on this thing every waking minute until it’s done, and get my Harrison Award back.”
“Hey, you know us,” Zack replied with a shrug. “We’re just kidding around.”
“Yeah,” Gage said. “I’m kind of impressed myself. You don’t work those things quite as fast as Jenna, but you’re not doing half bad.”
“And you know we always want you to win these competitions, too,” Zack put in. “It wouldn’t do to let the ladies pull one over on us men. Shit, we’d never hear the end of it if they did.”
A moment passed in silent agreement as Zack and Gage both took a sip of their beers and all three of them nodded in deep male accord.
Dylan had every intention of winning this bet, even if Ronnie was doing her level best to distract him with slick, sweaty, mind-numbing sex.
That was something his friends weren’t yet aware of, and he intended to keep it that way for a while longer. The knitting thing was bad enough; he didn’t need them ragging on him for falling into bed with his archnemesis, too. He preferred to take his lumps one at a time, thank you very much.
But without letting them know why he was bringing it up, this did seem like the perfect opportunity to follow through on Ronnie’s suggestion that he try to get an exclusive interview with Zack.
He’d been thinking about it all day, ever since she’d brought it up and the lightbulb had gone off over his head flashing, Duh! I can’t believe it took Ronnie to point out what was in front of my face the entire time! Bang, bang, bang.
That last was the sound of him mentally smacking the heel of his hand against his own forehead.
“Actually,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “I’ve been thinking maybe it’s time to put an end to this one-upmanship business with Ronnie.”
Zack froze with his beer bottle halfway to his lips, and Gage turned his gaze almost in slow motion from the TV to Dylan.
“Come again?” Gage said.
Lifting a shoulder, Dylan kept his attention on his needles and yarn. “It’s getting a little old, don’t you think? We’ve made each other do just about all the zany, ridiculous, humiliating things we can. If we keep this up much longer, I’m afraid we’ll cross the line into true degradation or even something seriously dangerous. I think it might be time to wrap it up and move on.”
“Move on to what?” Zack wanted to know.
I’m so glad you asked, Dylan thought somewhat wryly.
“Well, you know this columnist gig isn’t my idea of a dream job. It pays the bills, and the challenges with Ronnie have kept things interesting, but I’ve been thinking lately that I should maybe make more of an effort to start doing what I really want to be doing before it’s too late.”
“The sports reporter thing, right?” Zack asked. He was nodding, his elbows balanced on his splayed knees. “You’d be damn good at it. I always wondered why you settled for writing about other stuff when your heart wasn’t in it.”
“I guess I figured writing was writing, and that eventually I’d luck into exactly the job I wanted. But since that hasn’t happened quite as easily as I’d hoped, I’ve been thinking I might need to go at it from a different direction.”
“And that would be . . . ?” Gage prompted.
Dylan spared a glance for one friend before turning to the other—the one who could make or break this brilliant idea of his. Or of Ronnie’s, really, but that was a detail he didn’t intend to share at the moment.
Taking a deep breath, he shoved the row of stitches he’d been working on farther down the needle so they didn’t slip off, then set the whole wad of yarn and plastic beside him on the couch.
“It sort of involves you,” he said, holding Zack’s gaze.
“Me?” his friend asked, straightening a few inches as his eyes went wide. “Why me?”
He looked part startled, part guilty, and Dylan wondered what he’d been up to that being singled out worried him.
“Well, you are the hockey star.”
His expression turned even more wary as he glanced back and forth between his two friends, the football game in the background now completely forgotten. “Yeah. So?”
“So . . . ,” Dylan dragged out, “you’re also known for being closemouthed with the press, but since you happen to be one of my best friends, I was hoping you might be willing to bend your rules a bit and grant me an exclusive interview. It could really open some doors for me.”
When Zack didn’t react, Dylan started to worry he’d made a colossal mistake. He wanted to be a successful sports reporter, and his best friend did happen to be one of the biggest stars in the NHL, but he wasn’t willing to risk that friendship just for a glowing addition to his résumé.
“Look,” he said, holding up his hands and leaning back against the sofa, “maybe it was a bad idea. Forget I mentioned it. I—”
“Je-zus,” Zack swore, cutting Dylan off as he fell back into his own chai
r.
Across the room, Bruiser jerked awake at Zack’s heartfelt exclamation. He looked around, realized nothing of interest—at least to him—was going on, and went back to sleep on his giant red-and-blue Rockets dog pillow that was roughly the size of a toddler’s first mattress.
Driving his fingers through his blond hair from hairline to nape, Zack said, “You really know how to shrink a guy’s tea bags, buddy. For a minute there, you had me thinking you were going to ask me to pose nude for Playgirl, or tell me you were gay and wanted to be my love bunny or something.”
Dylan didn’t know whether to be relieved or offended by Zack’s reaction.
On the other side of the couch, Gage was chuckling and using the lip of his longneck in a poor attempt to hide his amusement.
“Sure, I can do that,” Zack continued. “There will have to be some ground rules. You know there are things I’m not going to talk about with a reporter, even if he happens to be one of my best friends. But aside from that, I’d be happy to sit down with you for an interview.”
“Great, man. Thanks, I appreciate it.”
A jolt of achievement and no small amount of excitement rolled through Dylan. And he wanted more than anything to pick up the phone and tell Ronnie the good news, tell her she’d been right, and that quite possibly she was the most brilliant person in the entire state of Ohio.
Better yet, he’d like to tell her in person, see her face and that thick mane of soft chestnut hair falling around her face.
But he might be smarter not to mention the Mensa IQ thing. After admitting how he felt about her writing, he didn’t want to stroke her ego any more.
Besides, if he was going to stroke her, he could think of about a dozen other places he’d rather focus his attention on.
With a grin, Dylan imagined how hard Ronnie would punch him if she could read his mind right now. Not that he wasn’t strong enough to take it . . . and then wrestle her to the ground and kiss the mad right out of her.
“You got something else on your mind, man?” Gage asked, interrupting his thoughts and the mini fantasy that had begun to play out in his head. “ ’Cause you look way too happy about a lousy interview with ‘Hot Legs’ over there . . . unless, of course, he’s right about you buttering him up to be your boyfriend. No pun intended.”
“Well, pooh,” he said, making his voice go high and slightly effeminate. “You found me out. It’s true, I’ve got a huge crush on this big galoot.” He tipped sideways just enough to curl his fingers around Zack’s knee and give a squeeze.
“Whoa!” Zack jumped up like a diamondback had just shaken its rattles underneath his chair, and put an extra couple of feet of space between them. “Keep your hands to yourself. It’s not funny anymore.”
Dylan laughed and gave his own knee a hearty slap. Even Gage was getting a chuckle out of Zack’s over-the-top reaction.
“Sit down, you homophobic pussy.”
It took a minute for their laughing to die down. When it did, Zack slowly returned to his seat and mumbled, “I’m not homophobic. Or a pussy.”
“Oh, come on,” Dylan said. “If we were in the locker room after a game, you’d let me slap your bare ass and think nothing of it.”
“Yeah, well, we’re not in the locker room,” Zack retorted, brow creased in discomfort, “so hands off my knee, my ass, and everything else.”
Batting his eyes and putting a bit of sass into his voice, Dylan said, “All right, but you don’t know what you’re missing.”
Zack flipped him the bird, drawing more loud guffaws out of Dylan and Gage both.
“So what was the grin about?” Gage wanted to know a few seconds later, after Zack had grumpily turned his attention back to the game and Dylan had once again picked up his knitting.
He shrugged. “Nothing in particular.”
Gage raised an eyebrow and took a slow sip of his beer before leaning back against the soft. He crossed one leg over the other and held his right ankle where it rested on his left knee.
“A guy doesn’t smile like that about nothing in particular,” he commented drily, flicking at the label on his bottle with the side of his thumb. “Does it have anything to do with Ronnie?”
The soft question caused a clench low in Dylan’s gut. But instead of being a clutch of fear or guilt or wariness, it seemed to feel more like possessiveness and . . . restlessness, desperation, even.
“What if it does?” he replied slowly, not meeting Gage’s gaze, even though he could sense both of his friends watching him.
Gage shook his head once, with an indifferent twist to his lips. “Nothing. I was just wondering. We haven’t heard you complaining about her the way you used to, so I thought maybe the two of you had come to an understanding.”
“Or maybe that kiss a couple of weeks ago turned into more,” Zack offered.
Dylan had been friends with these guys long enough to know they weren’t ribbing him now, weren’t looking for a weakness they could exploit. As with Miranda rights, anything he said could and probably would be used against him down the road, but at the moment they were open to a frank and earnest discussion.
It happened sometimes. When Gage was having trouble with his marriage to Jenna and going through his divorce, and again when Zack started toying with the idea of proposing to Grace. Dylan supposed it was his turn in the hot seat.
“This doesn’t go any farther than this room,” he qualified, waiting until he’d gotten the requisite nods—from his best buds, that was as good as a handshake or a blood oath—to continue. “We’ve been sleeping together.”
Gage raised a brow and Zack gave a long, high whistle through his teeth.
“What?” Dylan prompted, a slightly defensive edge to his tone. “No catcalls or lewd comments? No How was she? or Is she good with her mouth?”
“I would, but I’m too afraid of getting a knitting needle to the ’nads,” Zack said.
Dylan cocked his head, waiting for Gage’s reply.
“Not me,” the smart cop said, holding up his hands. “I know better than to flap my gums around a guy who’s got a serious jones for a girl. Haven’t you ever heard ‘When a Man Loves a Woman’? Sam Cooke knew what he was talking about.”
It spoke to the depth of Dylan’s confusion about his relationship with Ronnie that he didn’t correct Gage on his serious jones remark. A week ago, he’d have been all over that, insisting he didn’t have a serious jones for her, didn’t have any sort of jones for her.
But now . . . now, he’d be lying if he denied it. He did have a jones for her. A big one.
He had the hots for her, in ways he’d never had the hots for any other woman. She made him want to—and willing to—do things he’d never wanted or been willing to do before. Made him want her even when she was nowhere around, while he was with his buddies, watching basketball, drinking beer, and knitting, for God’s sake.
At a time when he’d normally be thinking about those three things to the exclusion of everything else, she had his cock half hard behind the confines of his zipper and wondering how soon he’d get the chance to see her again.
But it wasn’t just the sex. He wished it was. Falling for Ronnie had never been part of the plan, but he was very much afraid that’s what had happened.
It wasn’t just the sex he liked about her, it was her skin, and her lips, and her luxurious hair. Her voice, and her smile, and the soft sway of her hips when she walked.
He liked talking with her and listening to her defend her positions to the death, even if 90 percent of the people in the room disagreed with her.
She was one of the most passionate people he’d ever met—in bed, at home, at work, in every aspect of her life.
She was also smart, and witty, and funny, and though it made him uncomfortable to admit it, he was pretty sure he wanted to be with her longer than just the next couple of days or weeks. Maybe even longer than a couple of months.
Scary stuff. And if Ronnie found out he’d been thinking along those lin
es, she’d either laugh in his face or use one of her ice-pick high heels to kick him in the ass and out of her apartment.
“So are things getting serious?” Zack ventured, tossing the remote control he’d used to turn the volume down on the TV back on the glass-topped coffee table, testament to the significance of their conversation.
“I don’t know,” he replied, rubbing his jaw. “No doubt about it, the sex is great. If you think Ronnie looks hot in one of her prim little dress suits, you should see her naked. She could peel the paint off the walls and turn it liquid again.”
“Yeah,” Gage said drily with a wry quirk to his lips. “It’s probably not smart for us to be visualizing your girlfriend naked. That’s an invitation to a bloody nose and loose teeth, if you ask me.”
“And I can’t spare either,” Zack put in, covering the bridge of his nose, which had a small bump from the last time it had been busted by an opposing team member.
“Don’t let her hear you call her my girlfriend or she’ll skin you alive.”
“She doesn’t want to be your girlfriend?” Gage asked.
Dylan rolled his eyes and tapped the flat end of one of the needles he was using against his thigh. “She doesn’t want to be in the same zip code with me. While we’re going at it, she forgets she hates me like a cold sore, but as soon as she comes up for air she’s back to thinking I’m the Antichrist.”
Gage and Zack both chuckled.
“So how do you manage to get her into the sack in the first place?” Zack wanted to know.
“Stealth, misdirection, and heavy doses of cough medicine in her wine,” he quipped.
The guys laughed at that, and the mood in the room lightened a few degrees.
“Frankly, I’m surprised to hear you’ve been tapping that. I didn’t think anyone could melt the Ice Queen,” Zack said with a smirk. “Not to mention, I thought you were one of the things that chapped her ass the most.”
“I am,” Dylan agreed, the corner of his own mouth lifting in amusement. “But you know what they say about there being a thin line between love and hate.”
“You think she’s in love with you?” Gage asked.