Alison Kent – All Tied Up (страница 7)

“Good.” Macy leaned down and dropped a kiss on the top of his head of unruly, sun-bleached curls. “I’ll explain everything in a minute. And don’t think that just because I have my back turned I’m not keeping an eye on you two.”

With that, she moved on, scrambling over feet and furniture to reach the three women whose fate she didn’t already know. Sydney tentatively accepted the pink list Macy offered. Melanie was more wary, finally choosing one of the last two sheets. Chloe scooted to the far side of the plaid chair and had to be coerced.

“Hey.” Macy nudged her hip into Chloe’s shoulder. “We’re all in this girl business together, remember? You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours?”

Tapping the folded edge of her list on her pink-denim-clad knee, Chloe eyed Macy thoroughly from head to toe.

“Let’s see. My departments are cosmetics and accessories. I don’t see where you’re scratching much of my anything, sugar. You have a great natural look, but it’s not helping my numbers.”

“For your information, Miss Cosmetics and Accessories, this natural look costs me a fortune. Your moisturizers and oils and exfoliators and cleansers do not come cheap.”

With a tilt of her head, Chloe acquiesced. “Okay. I’ll give you the cosmetics. But you’re still short-changing me on the accessories.”

Macy stood, stuck out her tongue. “What can I say? It’s hard to accessorize perfection.”

“Before you go?” Ignoring the groans, Macy looked back at Sydney, who held up her folded list. “We do what with this?”

“Oh, right. Just hold on to it. Don’t look. I’ll give instructions to everyone at the same time.”

And with that she glanced across the main room where, circled like a wagon train around the washtub of longnecks, stood the last of her three confirmed bachelors. Blowing out a long breath, she headed that way, presenting the three remaining sheets of blue paper to Eric, Leo and Ray.

“C’mon, guys. Pick a card. Any card.” There were no takers the first time out, so she tried again. “I’m only offering three options here. That means the man brave enough to pick first has close to a fifty-fifty chance of winding up with the female partner of his choice.”

Eric backed up to sit on the arm of the sofa, lifting one brow, but making no further move. Rolling her eyes, Macy took matters into her own hands, folding one of the lists over the neckband of his shirt.

Definitely time to look for a new line of work, she thought, handing one list to Ray and, to Leo, the last.

He took his time slipping it from her fingers. Way too much time, because it was a simple piece of paper and nothing as intimate or suggestive as his slow-motion withdrawal would indicate.

It wasn’t like his long strong fingers were reaching for hers, though she hadn’t yet forgotten their texture or the trail of warmth his touch left behind on her skin.

It wasn’t like the paper held a private invitation, an indecent proposal, a back-alley proposition.

It wasn’t like he was taking anything she hadn’t offered him freely. Was there anything she wouldn’t offer him freely?

She shook off the thought, found what remained of her brain. “Sorry, Leo. Looks like you’re stuck with long odds.”

He looked down at his hands instead of her way, folded the list and tucked the sheet of blue paper into the breast pocket of his crisp white shirt. “Guess I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”

“Hopes up?”

“About playing with you again.” This time he met her gaze, a calculated move, his eyes seeking hers and delving deep, beyond the surface of the game and into territory that was personal and intimate, a part of herself she rarely shared.

Oh, the way he looked at her. Oh, the way he said “again.” A five-letter, two-syllable word that sounded like too much of a good time to turn down now that she knew how he kissed.

She heaved a regretful sigh, part sound effects, part honest bafflement over what he was making her feel. “If that’s the case, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

“How so?”

“This is my game, remember? I could’ve made sure we ended up on the same team if I’d known you were so anxious for my company.”

“Not above cheating?”

“A girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do.” She shrugged, then nodded toward the list he’d stashed away. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Leo replied. “But I can hold my own.”

“Against these women?” Macy glanced briefly around the room. Leo truly had no idea who he was up against. “I wouldn’t congratulate myself just yet.”

She left him with a wink and then addressed the room, pulling her numbered pink list from the waistband of her capris. “Okay. Here’s how this month’s game works. The sheets of paper each of you hold are numbered from one to five. Inside you’ll find an itemized list you’ll need for the game.”

“What kind of list?” asked Melanie.

“What kind of game?” asked Ray.

“Patience, my children. Patience. Now, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed by my not so subtle color scheme, tonight’s game involves pairing all of us into five male-and-female teams.

“Okay, this is how we play.” Taking a reluctant Eric’s hand, she guided him to the spotlighted foyer, opened the first fold of his list and pointed to the number printed at the top.

“Two. Which means you stand in the second circle and wait for the female half of your team. Now, if I happen to have number two—” she lifted one edge of her sheet “—which I do not, you and I would be partners. I have number three, so I’ll stand here in the third circle.”

Anton pushed up from his usual place on the sofa. “C’mon, Macy. This spotlight business is too over the top.”

A spoilsport in every bunch. “Of course it is. That’s what makes this so much fun.”

“Fun in whose opinion?” grumbled Eric.

Having cheated and checked his number early, Anton moved into the fifth spotlight. “So, what happens once we all pair off? Uh, team up,” he corrected when Eric let out a pained, hand-to-throat choking groan. “Sorry, Eric.”

Macy glanced at Eric, glared at Anton, blew out a breath to bolster her rapidly dwindling patience with the male species.

“If you two are through? Thank you. Now, on each sheet of paper is a list. A list for my gIRL gAMES…scavenger hunt!” The groans barely got off the ground before Macy hurried to squash them. “A kinky, suggestive, sexy and one-hundred-percent adult scavenger hunt.”

“I’m not sure what you have in mind here, Macy, but I don’t plan to visit any sex shops to find whatever it is you’ve come up with for these lists. I don’t care how popular your columns are.” That said, Sydney crossed her arms.

“Give me a little credit, Sydney. This game may be more daring than most, but sex shops? I think we can all flex our imagination beyond the obvious. After all, the brain is the body’s true sex organ.”

“Maybe your true sex organ,” said the holder of blue number two. “Mine’s a few feet lower on my body.”

Macy groaned. “Only a man could made such a crass point.”

“I’ll show you a crass point.”

Chloe diffused the ticking bomb of Macy’s sanity by flashing a pink number two and moving into Eric’s spotlight. “You very well may be showing me, sugar, since it looks like I have your number.”

Eric all but rubbed his hands together with glee. “Sexy and kinky in the flesh. We’re either going to kick ass as a team or else…” His hand-rubbing slowed.

“Or else?” Chloe prompted.

“Or else you’ll be busting my chops.”

Macy felt the corners of her mouth pull into a blossoming grin. Petard or not, she was definitely brilliant. Or maybe just marginally brilliant, she amended, catching Leo Redding’s eye as he watched her watch her number two couple.

Eric and Chloe were already shooting off the first round of sparks due to her cleverly designed plan. But with the match-up of the pink and blue number twos, and Anton and Lauren making up couple number five…Oh, please.

Surely she hadn’t done what she’d just done. What Leo’s expression was confirming she’d done. “I hope none of the rest of you have stooped so low as to cheat. And peek at your numbers before it’s your turn.”

“I did! I did!” Lauren practically hopped into Anton’s circle, interweaving her feet and her legs with his and wrapping both arms around his neck. Anton hugged her back, and a shadow could not have slipped between the two lovers’ bodies.

“This isn’t Twister, you know,” Macy chided. “You don’t have to keep all four of your feet in the circle.”

“But it’s so much more fun this way.” Lauren giggled, snuggling closer to the man who’d already managed to get his hands beneath the flowing fabric of her blouse.

Oh, well, Macy thought. The pair might as well enjoy the calm before the storm. She sighed, remembered Leo, sighed again. “Since no one is paying any attention to my directions, we can do this one of two ways. We either all cheat and peek, or I finish telling you how this works and we go from there.”

“I vote to cheat and peek.” Melanie cast her ballot with one raised hand.

“I second that,” said Sydney.

“Ditto,” Ray chimed in.

Jess nodded. “Let’s do it.”

Macy turned to Leo and waited. “I suppose you share their lemming mind-set?”

“Share? No. Take advantage of? Sure.” He slowly lifted his beer, took a drink, lowered the bottle, maintaining eye contact through the entire slow-motion process.