by Lauren Dane
She reached up and traced his mouth with her fingertip. “Why? Do you want to go beat him up?”
“Kind of, yeah.”
“Sexy, but he’s not worth it.” She rested a hand against his chest. “And he was only one of many losers.”
Forest felt anything but sexy at the moment. Rageful was more like it. He wasn’t the type to resort to banging on heads to make a point. He usually preferred to use his brain, but sometimes violence was the right choice. Possibly now.
The idea of someone hurting this woman made him want to punch something. So did the thought of her loving another guy when she’d been rolling around the sheets with him all night.
Forest had a few rules and absolute fidelity was one of them. He’d experienced fallout and pain from the opposite side of that. Watched his father fool around and flaunt it, no matter how much it hurt Forest’s mother. Forest refused to play that game and juggle partners.
He didn’t want to be used as a way to forget some loser, either. “Are you still stuck on this guy? On any of them?”
Jordan stretched up on tiptoes and kissed his nose. “I wouldn’t have slept with you if I were. I’m a monogamy gal.”
A heavy exhale escaped him, taking most of his anger with it. She might be holding things back, but she said the one thing that mattered most. “Any chance you plan to sleep with me again tonight?”
“Subtle.”
“I didn’t become successful by hiding what I want.” While he was at it, he gave her the rest of the information she needed to know. “And, chase or not, I still want you. The desire hasn’t abated at all.”
He lowered his head then and captured her mouth. Her lips danced over his until he deepened the kiss and pulled her in close. Her body cuddled against him, all warm and promising. Calculations ran through his head on whether he could get her back into bed and then him in a shower in time for his seven-thirty breakfast meeting.
Before he could make the decision, she did. She stepped back and swiped his coffee cup off the counter. “If you’re off by eight tonight, come over.”
“After that?”
“I change into lounging clothes and you don’t want to see that.”
Boy was she wrong about that last part.
But the whole offer struck him as a challenge. One he’d accept every time. “Oh, I’ll be here.”
* * *
JORDAN WAS ABOUT to kiss him, maybe do a little exploring using her hands across that impressive chest when the rapid knocking started on the front door. She didn’t have to guess who the visitor was. Elle had already texted saying she’d knock first instead of using her key, just in case.
Forest’s eyebrow lifted. “You get guests at this hour?”
“That’s Elle, my best friend.”
He froze in place. “Do you want me to hide?”
That fast, tension rolled off him. It smacked into Jordan and she had to blink to get her bearings again. “Are you supposed to be a secret?”
His shoulders relaxed. “Just checking.”
No question about it, men were weird.
She turned around and unlocked the door. Elle stood in the hallway practically vibrating with excitement. “Well?”
Jordan sent a silent keep-cool message with her eyes. “Come in and meet Forest Redder.”
He met them in the doorway to the kitchen and held out a hand. “Hello, Elle.”
Jordan remembered for the first time he was barely dressed. He had his dress pants on and the white tee he wore under his dress shirt. It stretched tight across his shoulders and highlighted his trim stomach. She doubted he liked being on display, but he didn’t show any anger or surprise.
To keep Elle from asking any embarrassing questions, Jordan kicked off the conversation. “I was telling Forest about my mom and men.”
“Men in general or hers?” Elle asked.
“Well, he knows there’s a website that ranks the men of D.C.” Jordan walked into the kitchen. She acted like she wanted to find Elle some coffee. Jordan really wanted to stall and see what Forest would say.
Elle followed and took the mug without question. “Not a fan of dating-warning sites?”
“My only point is that sort of thing can’t replace actually getting to know someone.” When the women looked at each other, his explanation sputtered to a halt. “What?”
Elle closed one eye as if she was pretending to think his point over. “How about the guy I dated who wore pantyhose?”
Forest’s eyes bugged out. “What?”
The reaction gave Jordan hope. It meant she wouldn’t be finding out that weird little secret about Forest the hard way. “Or the one I went out with who conveniently forgot his wallet on every date.”
Forest shook his head. “Asshole.”
“Or the congressional aide who wanted to share me with his friends.” Elle blew out a breath. “He didn’t ask, by the way. Just invited them over.”
Forest’s mouth dropped open. “What the fuck?”
Elle shrugged. “They thought I’d consent. My screaming convinced them otherwise.”
Jordan noticed Elle left off the part where the two of them had told the guys’ mothers. Amazing how twentysomething males scattered when they got tattled on via the internet.
“Then you have your basic losers.” Jordan couldn’t believe how long that list was. “Mean, demanding. You know, the type who call you a whore if you don’t put out in the elevator ride out of the office building to start the date.”
“Is it really that bad out there for women?” Forest’s hand jerked and coffee splashed over his thumb. With a good bit of muttering, he put the mug down on the counter.
“Everyone has those private things they like, but it can be shocking to run into whatever fetish is out there when you don’t hold the same interests,” Elle said.
Jordan ran the cold water and soaked a towel for Forest. “One of my favorites is the guy who painted his chest.”
Instead of holding it to his hand, Forest wiped the brown drops on his tee. “To be fair, it’s not my thing but some sports fans are into that.”
Jordan snorted. “Oh, it didn’t have anything to do with sports. He liked to do it under his business suit.”
Forest’s hands dropped to his sides and the towel dragged on the floor. “Oh, come on.”
Jordan nodded. “And I guarantee you know him.”
Elle pointed. “Oh, there’s the one who got home and kicked off his shoes and tried to wear yours.”
With a shake of his head, Forest leaned back against the doorjamb. “Please stop.”
It felt strangely good to rattle off some of the odd dating experiences. Some were hers and some were Elle’s. A few came from the site. But reality was they offered only a tiny taste. They skipped the liars and the really violent ones.
But Jordan was smart enough to know men were not the only ones who liked some off-the-wall stuff. “Women can’t always be a joy, either.”
“Remarkably tame compared to what I’m hearing.” He hesitated as if trying to figure out if he should reveal top-secret information. “You mostly just need to watch for the three C’s.”
Curiosity gripped Jordan. “What?”
“Clingy, conniving and crazy.” He counted them off on his fingers. “They’re all bad, by the way.”
“We’ve met the male versions of those, too.”
Forest blew out a long breath. “You know I want names, right?”
“No, you don’t. You’ll never be able to keep a straight face in a meeting again.”
He glanced at his watch. “Speaking of which, I have one.”
The news sent a cold chill blowing over Jordan. Having him here, relaxed and charming, made her heart do a little dance. The idea of him walking out, even though
he wasn’t walking away from her, left her feeling empty.
But she’d get over it. “I’ll help you get your stuff in the bedroom.”
Elle smiled into her mug. “I’ll wait here.”
Chapter Ten
Subject Request for Alec Cleveland: He seems too good to be true... Good job, decent, smart, sexy and no weird exes hanging around. What don’t I know? —Member 87
Response from Member 13: Alec is one of the good ones. Don’t let him go.
IT TOOK JORDAN another fifteen minutes to get him out. The temptation to drag him back inside hit her the second the bedroom door closed behind him. But having sex with her friend only a few feet away wasn’t Jordan’s thing. Luckily, it didn’t seem to be Forest’s, either.
She’d expected him to be great in bed. There was just something about those commanding business types that worked for her on a sexual level, and Forest always struck her as someone with skills. He sure had those. Everything else was the surprise.
He could hold a conversation that was about something other than his self-proclaimed awesomeness. Then there was the whole black-sheep thing. She knew from her spin around the internet when they first met that he’d been engaged but that it ended with her marrying someone else. That little fact had Jordan wondering what went wrong and what guy could hold more appeal than Forest.
Jordan busied her hands by putting the dirty dishes in the dishwasher and rushing around the kitchen. Not that the constant movement did her any good. Elle was right there, watching it all.
Elle finally piped up. “He’s ridiculously hot.”
That didn’t even come close to covering it. “No kidding.”
“Was he good?”
The things he could do with those hands and that mouth. Nothing selfish about his performance. “Well, I can say this. He doesn’t require an agreement before sex.”
“Well, well, well. Now, that’s more like it.”
“He also knows all about the website. Not my ownership, of course. Its existence.”
Elle’s smile vanished as quickly as it came. “About that—”
“Good job on getting the site in the paper, by the way.” Jordan had read the article online. A membership surge came right after. There were stacks of emails waiting in the business box. At this rate, they’d hit her membership target well before the year expired.
The success filled her with a silent thrill. She wanted to share it, shout it from the rooftops or maybe clue Forest in and see what he had to say. The guy was a business tycoon, after all. Sure, she didn’t know the exact definition of tycoon, but she’d bet Forest would have some business ideas she could consider.
It was a shame she couldn’t talk it all through, but there was no way she’d put the business in peril. Not over a man she’d known for less than a month. She wasn’t her mother.
Elle lifted the lid on a container of stale cookies. One sniff and she snapped the lid back on. “Unfortunately, Ryan is doing an even better job at advertising than I am.”
The battling thoughts about Forest and her business slammed to a halt in Jordan’s brain. “Peterson? What the hell does that moron want?”
“To blame Need to Know for the demise of his company. He’s saying we defamed him and interfered with his business.”
That guy was a total crap weasel. But he could ruin her with nonsense paperwork and she didn’t want that to happen. “That’s insane. We passed on the member reports about his personal life, all of which matched each other, by the way.”
“Agreed.”
“I really want to punch that guy.”
“Ryan implicates Forest in the whole thing. Says Redder Investments colluded with the site owners—us, basically—and made up the information to give Forest some sort of unfair bargaining position on the waterfront project. Ryan paints himself as the martyred hero who refused to give into Forest’s blackmail demands and walked away instead.”
Now Jordan wanted to throw Ryan under a bus. Coming after her was one thing. Blaming Forest was another. “That’s not what happened. I was in the room. Forest dumped Ryan, not vice versa.”
“Looks like your boyfriend and your ex-boss are fighting.”
“Ryan was never my boss.” The thought of that made last night’s dinner churn in Jordan’s stomach.
Gone were the days of her stomping into someone else’s office to do someone else’s work. Yeah, she did the temp stuff, but that was part of a bigger cause. She didn’t see herself as an employee on someone else’s payroll. Not really. She could walk out at any time. Once she was financially independent and pulling in enough money from the site to meet her needs, she never had to take another temp position for extra cash. She longed for that day.
Elle made a humming noise. “Interesting how you ignored what I said about Forest.”
More like practical. “I don’t know what we are or how to define it.”
Jordan didn’t let her mind go there. She had no idea what she shared with the man other than a mutual case of lust. That sort of thing fizzled fast. She kept waiting for the implosion to happen with Forest. It was inevitable with the sort of electricity that burned between them. Had to be.
“Sleep with him a few more times. That will probably help you figure it out.”
She thought about their deal this morning. “Now you sound like Forest.”
Elle nodded with a slow wisdom well beyond her years. “Always knew he was a smart one.”
* * *
LUNCH WAS TWO hours away and Forest already had fifteen files sitting on his desk. What started as an interesting side project, a way to fill a few hours in the evening, had become a necessity. Ryan tied Redder Investments up with this Need to Know website. That made the website Forest’s business. This was no longer only a matter of curiosity.
Wen didn’t knock before barging into the office. He carried a stack of files and wore a frown. Forest couldn’t really blame him. Digging through files and conducting online searches wasn’t really in Wen’s pay grade, but Forest didn’t want the whole company to know he was looking at this dating website. That meant no assistance from the tech crew or the administrative staff.
Wen dumped the contents of his arms on the last open space on the edge of Forest’s desk. He removed a yellow legal pad from inside one and put it on top with a smack. “For you. The top includes a list of businessmen complaining about having negative personal information listed on the site.”
“Is this everything?” Forest scanned the landscape in front of him. The files amounted to hours of work. Normally, he didn’t mind, but he had someone to occupy his extra hours right now, and it wasn’t Ryan Peterson.
“All I can find.” Wen laid a hand on the top of the tallest stack. “The Need to Know website isn’t exactly open about its corporate structure.”
“Ryan is on the warpath.” Forest had hung up from his third angry call of the day a few minutes ago.
Ryan was going down and taking his family’s thirty-year-old company with him, so his desperation leaked into every word and action. There was nothing good about this situation, but his lies involved Forest and Forest couldn’t tolerate that.
“It’s all bullshit,” Wen said.
“Defending bullshit still costs money.” And Forest hated wasting money. He sat back and blew out a long breath. He definitely should have climbed back into bed with Jordan this morning instead of coming in to the landslide of media request for quotes. Denial wasn’t his thing, but it sounded good right about now.
“Imagine how big a deal that is to a place like the website.” Wen absently paged through the few files at the top. “Of course, it might be better if the site goes under.”
After all he’d heard from Jordan and Elle about the D.C. dating world, the thought of shutting down the site pissed Forest off. If it was true
the women out there were wading through that level of bullshit, he wondered why there wasn’t a site before now. Whoever came up with it sat on a potential gold mine. Almost made Forest want a piece of it.
“Why do you care?” Yeah, the place dug too deep and went too personal for his taste, but he understood the need for the service. Hell, he wouldn’t mind having one for fellow businessman on their work practices so he didn’t have to rely on his instincts all the time.
“I’m just saying some people are upset.”
To Forest’s way of thinking, someone was always upset about something. Welcome to reality. “And I’m thinking they shouldn’t act like dicks if they don’t want to be on the site.”
Wen smiled. “You think it’s that simple?”
“Nothing about this situation is simple, which is why I plan to poke around until I find someone affiliated with this website who will talk with me.”
“And if you don’t?”
Not an option as far as Forest was concerned. “I don’t lose, so I’ll find them.”
Chapter Eleven
Subject Request for Cameron Dillard: I know he has a bad-boy reputation, but I thought maybe it was overblown? —Member 401
Need to Know Response: The site almost crashed from the number of members trying to sign on and warn you off.
JORDAN’S HEAD FELL back. Her legs straddled Forest’s thighs and her hands clenched his shoulder and the pillows stacked behind him. She brought her body down one last time and pushed him deep inside.
Naked except for her spiky heels, everything felt right. The comforter bunched around her knees and the soft creak of the headboard still echoed in the room when she collapsed on top of him.
After riding him, guiding her body up and down on him until his breath came out in pants and his hands locked into fists on the sheets next to her, her breathing hammered in her chest. Her bones melted as she slid against him now in the aftermath. All she could feel was the soft caress of his hands up and down her back as his heartbeat thundered under her ear.