The Rules of Engagement

by Ally Blake

  At the slow, deliberate slide of his hand as it found a happy place in the small of her back, her skin prickled and burned. She pressed deliciously into the hard planes of his body.

  And as his lips landed upon hers, insistent and hot as hell, every sound near and far slipped away on a tide of liquid warmth.

  He lost his jacket along the way, and his tie. She hoped her shoes had made it inside the apartment but she wasn’t quite sure. All she knew was an almost primal need to get horizontal.

  They tumbled backwards through the dark apartment, bumping into couches, lamp tables, a fake potted plant. The folded edge of a twist pile rug almost tripped her up completely.

  When something wobbled off some surface and crashed, Dax jerked in surprise, but Caitlyn just grabbed him by the chin and kissed him harder.

  Not needing to be told twice, he wrapped his arms around her, lifted her bodily off the floor and found the way to her bedroom without bumping into anything, as though he had some kind of sexual GPS built in.

  The moonlight pouring through the sheer curtains at her bedroom window was oh, so thankfully brighter, giving her a perfect view of Dax’s supreme male body. His shirt and trousers were gone leaving him in black cotton boxers. She felt herself smiling at how conservative his underwear was considering what they were about to do. Then he breathed deep through his nose, like a stallion sensing a mare in heat, and took a step her way and what they were about to do took precedence over every other thought.

  He found the zip of her little cocktail dress, lowered it slowly, and her vertebrae collapsed in upon themselves in empathy.

  Clothes off, protection on, the backs of her knees found the edge of her bed and she sank back, he moved with her. Big, strong, firm, confident, and heartbreakingly beautiful.

  Only he would not be breaking her heart. And she would most definitely not break his. As though that was the final permission she needed she reached up, slid her hand behind his neck and pulled him down to kiss her.

  The slip and slide of skin on skin made her breathless, as if her body couldn’t process both oxygen and the mad tumble of sensations pummelling her at the same time. Maybe it was the heretofore untried naughtiness of a one-night stand. Maybe because it was a one-time deal she’d given herself permission to just let go.

  Maybe it was Dax.

  Then he was inside her. It was sudden, shocking, but she was more than ready. Her legs wrapped around him, she needed the feeling intensifying inside her more than she’d known she could. As if this was what she’d been waiting for her whole life. Not that romantic mushy stuff she’d lived on, but this.

  His lips created havoc wherever they touched, ravaging her to the point of bonelessness. Making her feel defenceless, vulnerable—

  No! This was about her taking back control over her emotional life.

  Finding a last vestige of strength, she spun him around until she was on top. His hands found her hips, his thumbs sliding across her hipbone, the tremors shuddering through her all but cutting off any kind of ascendancy she might have had.

  She ran her fingernails down his chest, over the solid undulation of slick brown skin. And when his desire-filled eyes closed, and he needed to open his mouth to take in enough breath, she felt formidable. Renewed.

  Sensations built, cutting off all thought and feeling bar the desire flooding through her, hot and relentless.

  Then all sensation contracted to the size of a pin-head. To some tiny point deep in her core. As swirls of blood-red heat crashed through her mind, through her body, bombarding her senses with more pleasure than she could process, the only vaguely coherent thought was that in her whole short life she’d never known it could feel like that.

  Never.

  This from the first guy she’d ever looked at and said, This is a one-time deal.

  Frankly, considering why she’d gone looking for sorbet sex in the first place, it was more than she deserved.

  * * *

  Caitlyn sat back in the big leather chair, eyes closed as it hummed blissfully beneath her. A thump to her right told her Franny had finally arrived at their regular Sunday morning date at the Shangri-Lovely Nail Bar.

  ‘Good morning, sunshine!’ Caitlyn bubbled.

  ‘How could you start without me?’ Franny grumbled.

  Caitlyn opened her eyes to find Franny hunched down in dark sunglasses, her hair pulled back into a scraggy ponytail, grunting as she jabbed in her favourite settings on the massage chair. ‘You weren’t even home when I left; I thought I might have to go solo today.’

  Franny gave a double thumbs-up to her usual pedicurist indicating a double espresso, in a mug, before glancing pointedly at the half-eaten packet of biscuits Caitlyn had resting atop the glossy magazine she hadn’t yet found a chance between daydreams to open.

  ‘Chocolate chip? At this time of the morning? It’s not as though you worked up an appetite after I left.’ Her eyes swung slowly back to Caitlyn. ‘Or did you?’

  Caitlyn licked a smudge of chocolate from her finger, images of the night before skipping and tripping through her mind like an old silent film. A slideshow of muscled arms, and broad shoulders, and acres of beautiful warm skin turning red beneath her grasping fingernails as she—

  A hot flush landed hard and fast upon her cheeks. ‘Don’t change the subject. We’re here to talk about you and the Leather Jacket.’

  But Franny was pointing at the pretty pink polish the pedicurist was sliding onto Caitlyn’s toenails. ‘Look! You did! You got lucky, you dog!’

  ‘What on earth does my toenail polish have to do with anything?’

  ‘All last week you were red. Sex-starved, man-eater red. And today you pick this tiptoeing-through-daisies pink? Something happened between last night and this morning.’

  Caitlyn blinked, stumped that she’d given herself away so easily. ‘Moody-looking dude in leather jacket first.’

  ‘Fine. As it turns out all that bad-ass leather stopped at the door. His name’s Eugene and he lives with his mother. They breed ferrets. Inside the lounge room. None of which I realised until I did the walk of shame this morning. Past his mum. Who had folded my clothes into a neat pile on the chesterfield in the lounge room—’

  Franny waved both hands madly over her face. ‘I just want to forget the whole thing. Now. Your turn. Did Cutey Patootey come back?’

  ‘No-o-o!’

  ‘Who, then? Not Ivan?’

  ‘The bartender?’ For that Franny deserved no more than a blank stare.

  Franny frowned, clearly stumped.

  Caitlyn hoped she’d stay that way. Hoped she could hang onto the mild buzz she was still wearing like a cloud of exotic perfume all those hours later a little longer before Franny dissected it to death.

  Then Franny’s foggy morning-after eyes focused fully for the first time.

  ‘The Suit! You hooked up with the Suit! You sly dog!’ Franny squealed loud enough the traffic outside the salon would have heard every word.

  ‘Shh. I’m sure everyone else here could care less about the intimate details of my nightscapades.’

  Franny glanced around. ‘Are you kidding me? Why else do you think women come to places like this? It’s hardly rocket science to slap on a dash of nail polish at home. Details. Please. Before I give up men for good.’

  Franny leant so far forward on her chair she almost landed in the tub of water at her feet. Her pedicurist arrived in time, shoved her feet in the water and gave her a quelling stare. Franny looked dutifully chastised. ‘So who is he? Did he live up to all that glorious potential? Are you seeing him again?’

  Caitlyn breathed out long and slow. She wasn’t going to get a moment’s peace until she gave Franny something. Then, staring hard at her toes, she said, ‘Fine. His name was Dax. Dax Something Starting With B. Banner? Bale? He looks even better out of the suit than in it. And, no, we didn’t make plans to catch up again. Happy?’

  Franny grinned as she shook her head and slipped her smart phone from her p
urse and plugged in a few letters. ‘Dax Something Starting With B? Miss March, you sit there with your cute freckles on your little nose looking like butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, but you are so full of surprises.’

  Caitlyn knew exactly what she was about to do. She tried to grab the phone but Franny was quicker than she looked.

  ‘Still!’ her pedicurist demanded.

  ‘This is important,’ Franny said, glaring right on back.

  The pedicurist shrugged and set to sloughing away the dead skin on Franny’s soles.

  ‘Please don’t Google the guy, for Pete’s sake!’ Caitlyn begged.

  Franny snorted. ‘Are you kidding me? In this day and age it’s the first thing you should do the second you learn a guy’s name. Heck, if I’d been smart enough to Google Mr Lame from last night I’d have avoided ever knowing what ferret poo smells like. Trust me. I’m doing you a favour.’

  Caitlyn set her teeth and stared blindly at the small golden cat with its bobbing head on the cashier’s counter. She knew trying to stop Franny was a waste of time. And while she knew it was unlikely she’d ever see the guy again, no small part of her did wonder how a guy who looked like that, and kissed like that, and who’d learnt how to do the things he’d done to her the night before, had managed to get so far in life without being hogtied and hitched at gunpoint.

  When Franny had been quiet for all too long Caitlyn glanced at her to find her eyes growing larger and larger until they looked as if they were about to pop out of her head.

  ‘I knew it!’ Franny blurted.

  ‘What?’ Caitlyn asked despite herself. ‘He’s married. Of course he’s married. Oh, God. How could I have been so—?’

  ‘He’s not married.’

  Caitlyn’s rant came to a halt. The relief flowing through her was totally misguided. Especially since it wasn’t relief that he hadn’t cheated on his non-existent wife. It was relief that he was actually on the market.

  She wasn’t. Sure it had been six months since she’d broken up with George. Not just broken up, she reminded herself, called off her engagement. But she was done with all that: relationships, and dating, and blah blah blah.

  Yet she found herself leaning towards Franny and saying, ‘Then what?’

  ‘Your Dax Something Starting With B was Dax Bainbridge, as in CEO of the Bainbridge Foundation. Heard of them?’

  Caitlyn blinked. Several times. ‘Them yes. A representative of the Bainbridge Foundation is a no-brainer on any launch list, though they never accept. They’re less A-list party-hard types, more old money, right?’

  ‘You should know your guest lists better.’

  Caitlyn crossed her arms. ‘I know everyone who buys sports cars, and everyone who wishes they could buy sports cars. Everyone else is a blur.’

  Franny eyeballed her. ‘You’re really sitting there and saying this guy is a blur?’ Franny turned her phone around and shoved it at her. And Caitlyn found herself staring at a picture of the man who’d driven her wild in bed the night before.

  Dark hair, straight eyebrows, hooded hazel eyes, a haughty nose straight out of a Jane Austen novel, a jaw line that would have sent Michelangelo shopping for marble. God, he really was as gorgeous as she remembered him.

  Her hormones went on such a sudden spree it caused her heart to leap into her throat and stay there. If she’d been wearing a tie she would have loosened it.

  Franny shoved her phone into her massive bag, apologising to her pedicurist with a smile for having dared move. ‘His place?’ she asked.

  ‘Ours.’

  ‘Of course. Home-ground advantage.’

  Franny probably didn’t know how right she was. The thought of having to creep out of bed and get dressed in the same clothes as the night before would have put her in far too fragile a position, and the night before had been about getting control back over her life. Her place had been the right place for sorbet sex. She couldn’t get any funny ideas about possible permanence if it was up to her to kick the guy out.

  ‘So is he the next almost Mrs Caitlyn March?’

  Caitlyn shook her head so hard it hurt. ‘It was—’

  Exhilarating, euphoric, erotic, she thought.

  What she said was, ‘It was a one-time deal.’

  ‘Good,’ Franny said. ‘For the best if it stays that way.’

  Caitlyn nodded absent-mindedly as her leather massage chair began its sequence of thumping rolls down her back.

  They’d had that same discussion a dozen or more times in the weeks since poor George’s ignominious departure from their lives. Franny had even come up with a mantra she was sure Caitlyn ought to have stamped on her forehead, at least for the next little while: Men can be for fun, not only for for ever.

  Which was partly why she didn’t tell Franny that at the last second she’d given Dax her number, scribbling it down on the back of a grocery receipt and shoving it into his jacket pocket as they’d made out like teenagers in her apartment doorway at some ungodly hour of the morning.

  ‘Stop,’ Franny said.

  The pedicurist looked up with a frown. Franny rolled her eyes at her before pointing a thumb at Caitlyn. The pedicurist gave her a knowing nod before heading back to her manic buffing.

  ‘Stop thinking about him. It’s dangerous.’

  ‘Are you kidding me? I can’t move without being reminded of my midnight acrobatics,’ she said out of the corner of her mouth. ‘I can still smell his cologne on my hair. Trust me, it’s not that easy to just turn it off.’

  Franny spun on her big massage chair and looked Caitlyn in the eye, grabbing her by both hands. This time the pedicurist didn’t complain. She looked up at Caitlyn too, eyes questioning, buffer poised over Franny’s toes.

  ‘Cait, my sweet,’ Franny said, ‘listen to me this once. You don’t smoke. The hardest drug I’ve ever seen you take is really strong caffeine. You don’t pick your nose in public. But your one true vice is romance. You get so caught up in it I could dance naked in front of you right now and you wouldn’t see it for the stars in your eyes. You, my friend, are addicted to love. It’s your one and only failing. But as failings go it has potential to be a doozie. It’s a failing that can and has dragged chaos and catastrophe in its wake.’

  Caitlyn squeezed Franny’s hand. ‘I can handle this. He’s not... It was nothing like the others. I promise.’

  ‘If you say so.’ With that Franny slid on her dark sunglasses and proceeded to fall asleep in her chair.

  The pedicurist shrugged, clearly disappointed, and got back to work.

  While Caitlyn picked up her magazine, and pretended to read it while the words chaos and catastrophe swam in front of her eyes. That and the look on George’s face when she’d tried to give back the ring. No shock. No anger. Just resignation, as if he’d seen it coming before she had. Her chest compressed, masking for a moment Dax’s spicy scent lingering on her skin.

  Because the truth was, George wasn’t her first.

  Caitlyn had been engaged more than once.

  Three times in fact.

  Franny might have thought it an endearing character quirk, but she was probably the only one. Caitlyn was fairly sure her mother thought her a strumpet, and that was when she wasn’t thinking her a grave disappointment. Not that she’d ever been given a hint as to what she could have done right on that score.

  She shook off the sense of dejection her mother’s particular lack of affection had always engendered. If ever she needed a trigger to send her running into the arms of the first guy who smiled her way, her mum’s cold shoulder was a good one.

  Sometimes that was all it took—a sexy smile, a second glance, a fleeting nod across a crowded bar—and suddenly weeks had gone by and she was hurtling along the same old path. High on the rush of feeling adored.

  And if someone adored her enough to ask her to marry them? God... Was there any way to feel more cherished?

  Problem was, that was when she realised the view from the top wasn’t what she’d imagi
ned it would be. And there was no way to go but down, the weight of a ring hanging uncomfortably on her finger making the descent all the faster.

  Caitlyn flipped the magazine shut and closed her eyes, wriggling her toes under the fan drying her toenail polish as she tried to take the edge off the chill that had wrapped itself around her.

  That little bit of heat was enough to rip her from the highs and lows of her past and right smack bang into last night.

  To Dax. His name shifted through her on a heady sigh.

  Everything about Dax had been different. He hadn’t looked at her once as if she was all his dreams come true. He was assertive. Yet elusive. All outer cool and inner heat.

  She wriggled in her chair as the familiar slip and slide of desire began to sizzle inside her. Whoever said you needed to love a guy to enjoy sex had either never had great sex with a stranger before, or was justly using the myth to convince teenage girls of that fact.

  And by jumping straight into bed with him she’d missed some of the most addictive steps in the process—the long walks holding hands, the casual touches that heralded so much more, all the intimate stuff she seemed to mistake for love every time.

  Did that mean she had a string of one-night stands with random guys to look forward to in her future?

  She scrunched up her nose and decided not to think about how disquieted that made her feel. Better to just enjoy the gorgeous warm loose feeling she’d been indulging all morning.

  She’d earned it. For she was on the right track to not getting caught in the same emotional trap again.

  * * *

  Dax tossed a Berocca into a glass of water—his third of the day. As he watched the orange tablet fizzing giddily to the bottom of the glass as it dissolved he ran a hand up the back of his neck, ’til his fingers hit hard plastic.

  He took off the baseball cap and held it in his hands, bending the brim. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone into the office in jeans and a baseball cap. If ever.

  What had Lauren said? Something about him never wanting to appear anything less than implacable?