Fool Me Once: A Bad Girl Romance

by Samantha Westlake

  On one hand, I knew as we continued descending the stairs, Ruby just wanted to snare me further. She wasn't going to tell me anything special over dinner, wasn't going to let on whatever she might be planning. She just wanted to squeeze another free meal out of me – and I suspected that, as soon as I agreed, she'd pick the fanciest place that she could find.

  But on the other hand... I told myself that I wanted to take her out to dinner so that I could feel out her plans, try to figure out what she might be intending to do. Yet even as I did my best to convince myself that my intentions were rational, I couldn't keep myself from sneaking a few looks at her ass as we headed down the steps.

  God dammit, it looked fantastic.

  "So," Ruby said thoughtfully as we reached the bottom of the stairs, opening the side door and stepping back out into the main lobby of the building. She took a couple of steps towards the small fountain next to the entrance, peering in at the coins that twinkled up from the bottom. "Am I heading back home to figure out how to cook dinner with whatever Kelsey's got in the fridge?"

  I groaned, but I couldn't turn her away. "No. There's a place nearby that's got some decent food."

  She spun around, beaming at me as if she'd won this round, but I kept my frown firmly plastered across my own face. "But listen, you need to come clean to me, okay? No more secrets. You're not here because you decided to take a job as a secretary, getting paid next to minimum wage while having maximum abuse piled on you by our asshole of a shared boss."

  The smile slipped a little on Ruby's face. "So he's really that much of an asshole to everyone, then? Marcus wasn't joking or exaggerating?"

  "If anything, he left out some of the worst stories," I admitted. "Really, if you're trying to go back to honest work, you could easily find a better job." A sudden rush of empathy hit me. "Why don't you let me help you find a better one?"

  But she shook her head. "Nope. I've got this one, and I'm sticking with it. Right now, the only thing I need help with is dinner."

  I put a pin in the situation, promising myself that I'd return to it later. "Well, let's go." I held out my arm to Ruby. The gesture made me feel a little silly, but she smiled and took it, slipping her own through mine, and I suddenly didn't feel so bad.

  "Are we walking?" she asked, as we stepped outside.

  "It's only a few blocks down. I think we can make it." There was a chill in the air, the sun now down at the horizon and no longer able to provide much warmth, but we only needed to walk a short distance. I figured that we could make it.

  As I turned into an alley, three blocks later, however, Ruby balked for a second. "Are you sure you're not taking me off somewhere so that you can mug me?" she asked, eyeing the narrow passage with concern. "This doesn't seem like the kind of place where they serve food, except maybe for knuckle sandwiches."

  "Come on," I just urged her, grinning as I pulled her further down the alley along with me.

  I opened up the plain green door at the back of the alley, holding it open for Ruby to step inside. She did – and then immediately perked up, looking around at the cozy little hole-in-the-wall restaurant interior.

  "What is this place?" she asked, as I stepped in behind her and let the door shut before it let in any more cold air.

  "Little place called O'Reilly's," I answered. "Owner's a weird guy. He likes cooking food, but he doesn't really do it for money, and he's got a thing against tourists. So he intentionally makes his restaurant hard to find." I shrugged at the expression that Ruby shot me. "Hey, I don't claim to understand it. Damn good food, though."

  The restaurant's single waitress showed us to a table, dropping a couple of menus in front of us. "We've got two IPAs on tap, and nothing else, because Charlie didn't remember to read the barrels before he hooked them up," she informed us. "And no wine, because I drank it all after having to deal with Charlie."

  "Beer sounds fine," I told her, smiling. Ruby echoed my statement, and the waitress drifted lazily away to fetch our drinks. Despite her unhurried pace, she plonked two beers in front of us barely a minute later.

  Normally, I'd be starting to relax by this point. I had a cold beer in front of me, a cute – okay, fine, a beautiful – girl sitting across from me, and the promise of good food on the way. Work was done, and even though it was only Monday, I could still catch a faint glimpse of the upcoming promise of another weekend.

  But that little voice of concern kept on poking me from inside my head, preventing me from feeling at ease. I took a sip of my beer, but kept my eyes on Ruby as she read over her menu.

  "You're going to make me start blushing, if you keep staring at me so much," she murmured without looking up from the burger options. "Why don't you try to relax?"

  "It's hard, when I don't know what you're intending to do," I shot back, glaring at her openly as if daring her to react.

  She didn't. "Right now, I'm intending to order the California Burger, I think. That sounds really good. And maybe some onion rings to share for the table, if you're interested."

  My stomach, not a part of the tension between us, grumbled at the mention of onion rings. They did sound pretty damn tasty right now. "Not what I mean. I'm talking about what you're intending to do at IDS."

  "My job, for the moment." She put the menu down, sighed, and then looked straight back at me. "Can't we just enjoy the moment, have a good meal? Maybe without you staring across the table at me like I'm being interrogated for a murder investigation?"

  I opened my mouth to respond, but the waitress popped up at our table before I could answer. "So, you two, know what you want?" she asked.

  Ruby turned to her and placed her order, and I followed suit as I tried not to grit my teeth. Just focus on the moment, she'd said.

  Well, for the moment, Ruby wasn't going anywhere. I had her here, and maybe she'd let something else slip during dinner if I convinced her to let her guard down. And even though I did my best to keep my eyes up and glaring at her face, the loose-necked sweater that she'd chosen to wear today kept on dropping open revealingly at the front, giving me tantalizing little glimpses of her cleavage. More than little glimpses, to be honest.

  Of course, I knew that was why she'd chosen the outfit in the first place, but I snuck a couple of peeks. After all, I'm a red-blooded guy, and can't resist forever! I'm only human!

  "Fine," I finally said after the waitress left. I forced my face to smooth out, even put on a little smile. "Let's just enjoy the moment. The two of us, out to dinner. Having fun together. On a date."

  Her eyebrows raised. "A date?" she repeated.

  "Isn't it?"

  "I suppose so." She tapped her lips with one finger. "But don't think that you're guaranteed to get lucky on this one, mister."

  At just the mention of that possibility, thoughts of a naked, delectable Ruby bean swarming up in my mind, too numerous for me to swat them all down. "Wouldn't dream of it. Mister Celibacy, that's me."

  "Mister Celibacy, Mister Aristocratic," she replied, her eyes twinkling a little. "So many nicknames, but who's the real Dane?"

  "You tell me a bit more about the real Ruby, and I'll talk about the real Dane," I countered, wetting my lips with another drink of my beer. Despite my best intentions to remain serious, I found myself starting to warm up, enjoy the banter.

  From the look on Ruby's face, she felt the same way. "Where to start," she began, one finger tracing gentle circles in the sweat left on the table by the beer glass. "You know, my last job before this one was working as a fundraiser for an environmental charity..."

  Chapter Sixteen

  RUBY

  *

  "...so he's probably going to be pretty upset when he finds that I gave him the number for the National Rejection Hotline, on top of everything else!" I finished, giggling. "But did he really expect a hitchhiker that he picked up on the side of the road to just jump right into the back of his sleeper cab with him?"

  Across the table from me, over the second half of his absolutely massiv
e burger, I watched as Dane tried and failed to fully hold back his smile. "That wasn't really very nice of you," he managed, even as his lips cracked into a grin.

  "Well, I'm only mean to people who deserve it," I stated firmly. "That's basically my philosophy. If people are nice to me, I'm nice to them in return. But if they try to take advantage of me, or of anyone else... well, they get what's coming to them, don't they?"

  "So that's how you see yourself?" he asked. "An agent of karma?"

  I hadn't heard this term before, but I liked it. "Agent of karma," I repeated, trying it out. "You know, I like that! I can see myself maybe dressed up as a superhero, with a cape and a sexy costume." I puckered my lips at Dane. "What do you think, something skin-tight and ruby red?"

  "Might clash a bit with that blush you have, sometimes," he fired back, even as I saw his eyes pop a little at the idea of me in a tight little revealing costume. Men. They were so easy to manipulate! But most of them weren't capable of still firing back retorts at me, even as their blood rushed to other areas.

  Dane was different in that way, and I kind of liked that about him.

  "What blush?" I asked, frowning. "I don't blush!"

  In answer, he leaned forward over the table towards me. Suddenly, the banked sparks of desire in his eyes leapt up into full flames, so strong that I sucked in my breath at the sight of his face. "You blushed on Friday night, when you were naked on my bed, just begging me to stop teasing and torturing you. Remember that? The way I had my fingers vibrating back and forth, your hands pinned beneath you..."

  My own body betrayed me. I didn't need a mirror to know that my face was burning brightly, blood rushing up to my cheeks at the memory that his words conjured up. "Nope, don't remember any of that," I lied. "Must have been too drunk – or maybe you just weren't very memorable, ever consider that?"

  His lips quirked up in a grin, although the heat of arousal never left his eyes, still pinning me in my chair. "That's not what your body's telling me right now."

  I looked down at said body, which had pushed its chest forward, triggered by the recent flood of memories. I felt heat rising in between my legs, warmth and wetness at the exciting thought of getting to repeat that experience with Dane. "It's confused, and a filthy liar. It doesn't know what it wants."

  Slowly, Dane shook his head. "I'm pretty sure that it knows exactly what it wants," he said, and I bit my lip to hold back the moan that tried to force its way out.

  Suddenly, the little restaurant felt far too intimate, too tight. I tried to stand up, forgetting that I was still in a booth, behind a table that didn't move. Instead, I only succeeded in slamming my knees into the underside of the table, making all of the dishes jump and rattle and sending a bloom of pain through my legs.

  "What's going on?" Dane asked, his face shifting from seduction to confusion as he saw me scrambling to get out from behind the booth.

  "Nothing, it's fine," I tried to say, but the words sounded tight and brittle. I looked around for the door, moving towards it.

  Behind me, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Dane grab a couple of bills from his wallet and drop them on the table. Great. He was paying for me, too. That band of tightness constricted a little further around my chest. It almost felt like an octopus, reaching out to snare me in its tentacles.

  My groping, grasping hands found the handle on the door and pulled. I stepped out, the cold air blowing down the alley making me gasp a little as it hit my face. I heard the door squeak behind me as it started to swing shut, but then reversed direction as Dane came chasing out after me.

  "Ruby!" he called after me, his footsteps splashing in the puddles on the uneven gravel of the alley's surface. "Hey, wait for me! What's going on?"

  "Nothing!" I shouted back, the wind whipping the words out of my mouth. I looked down at my sexy secretary outfit, wishing I'd brought a heavy jacket. I needed to get out of here, bury myself in blankets back at Kelsey's, and then figure out my escape. Working for Karson Walker, at the same place where Dane was... it had been a mistake. Already, I could feel myself starting to settle down, to see this as an unavoidable, unescapable daily routine.

  His hand caught at mine, arresting my escape. "Ruby!" he said again, tugging me back around to face him. "Come on, what's wrong?"

  I looked up at him, intending to tell him that I just needed to get away, that I wasn't the kind of girl who stuck around any one place for long. Not the kind of girl who went on dates, except maybe for first dates (which also turned out to be last ones). I opened my mouth – but these weren't the words that came out.

  "Honeypot," I said thickly.

  He frowned, looking confused. "What?"

  "That was what I was going to do to Karson," I went on, even as I shivered against him. Damn this man for being so tall and strong, even if he was a bit thin. I wanted to just move in closer and hold him, let his warmth transfer over to me. "I was going to honeypot him, convince him to give me access to the company funds."

  "Okay, but why were you running away?" Why was he asking this? Hadn't he just wanted to know why I was around?

  I just shook my head, my teeth already starting to chatter. I didn't have an answer, not one that he would understand. I didn't even know how to tell him about the start of my problems.

  After a second, Dane shrugged – and let his coat slip off of his shoulders! "Well, at least take this," he said, reaching out and wrapping it around me. It felt warm from his body heat, and I unconsciously pulled it closer to my exposed skin. "Now look, do you need to get away right this second?"

  "Yes," I answered, even as I leaned in towards the warmth of that coat. Damn him for taking advantage of my weakness to cold. "Look, I'm just feeling really trapped, all of a sudden. It's not anything that you did, it's just me."

  I half expected him to object to that, to try and argue with me. But he didn't, and instead just nodded. "I suspect," he said, "that this isn't the first time that you've felt this way."

  I tried to smile up at him. "Hey, there's an upside to it. I get to go see all of these different places, always with something new around the corner. Never gets boring, at least."

  "And staying in one place gets boring?"

  I didn't really have an answer for that. How could I explain that, after being in one spot for a while, I felt almost stifled, like a heavy blanket pushing down on top of me, choking me and making it tough to even breathe? It felt like chains, like I was going to end up like everyone else, getting married and buying a house and pushing out children and just turning into a basic housewife like everyone else. I'd always promised myself that I'd be different, that I'd never let it happen to me.

  I was scared of it happening to me – and that, if I didn't keep my guard up, I'd let it happen.

  I couldn't say any of this to Dane, didn't know how to explain it out loud. But somehow, looking up at him, he just nodded, and I almost suspected that he might have some inkling of how I felt.

  "Tell you what," he said, gently slipping one arm around me. I started to stiffen at the touch, but he rubbed up and down on my upper arm through the jacket, and it helped keep me warm, so I let it happen. "Why don't we get out of here, just go back to my place and relax?"

  "Sounds like someone's thinking with his dick, not his brain," I tried to joke, although the words fell flat.

  "Yes, nothing really gets my motor running like the sight of a shivering girl wearing my coat, leaving me out to freeze instead of her," he replied sarcastically, teasing a laugh out of me despite myself. "But no, I was thinking of a different activity."

  "One that involves keeping our clothes on?" I tried, narrowing my eyes up at him.

  He sighed. "Yes. Clothes stay on for this activity."

  I stuck a finger up at him, narrowly missing that hooked nose of his. "You'd better not be trying to get me to come up to the office and do more filing. Now that I'm working there, I expect to get paid for doing monotonous, dull work like that!"

  Of course, I'd also been saying
, just a moment earlier, that I was probably going to run out on my job and head off for a new city, a new place to try and enjoy myself. But Dane didn't point this out, instead letting it slip by.

  "It's not filing," he assured me, reaching out with his other hand to hold both of my shoulders. "Promise. It's back at my apartment, where it's nice and warm, and I have lots of blankets."

  Damn, but that sounded good right now. Sure, his jacket might be shielding my arms and neck from the worst of the chill in the night air, but my legs beneath the hem of the pencil skirt were still exposed, and each gust of wind shot right up between my legs to freeze my ass. I probably had goosebumps appearing in all sorts of unmentionable places.

  "Still sounds like you're trying to seduce me," I wavered.

  This time, Dane grinned at me. "I don't think that would make you say no," he challenged me, and this time his smile sent a little wriggle of delightful heat down to help warm up that previously frozen area between my thighs.

  Okay, fine. I could always take off tomorrow. I didn't have to get out of here right this second – and besides, it wasn't as if there would be any busses running this late. I'd just end up sleeping at the bus station instead of in a nice warm place, like on Dane's couch.

  "So, what sort of activity are we talking about, then?" I asked him.

  "Is that a yes?"

  Instead of giving him the satisfaction of an answer, I punched him in the stomach. "Just get me out of here before I freeze my tits off!" I burst out at him.

  "We wouldn't want that to happen!" The guy didn't need to look so damn happy as he led me back out of the alley, back to where he'd parked his car! He was grinning like a Cheshire cat, looping his arm around me as we walked. And my hand even smarted a little from where it had smacked him in the abs! He probably hadn't even felt the blow.

  Stupid sexy guy, making my thoughts go all wobbly and keeping me here for another couple of days.

  But there wasn't much else that I could do tonight. So I'd go along with Dane, see what sort of twisted game he wanted to play with me, and then I'd get out of here when I was ready, warm, and rested.