Time to Pretend (3 page)

journals over the years had been well received. “What now, Daniel?” Okay, she used to be good with words.

His lips traced patterns over her cheeks and down her neck, teasing her with their proximity but never coming close enough to actually touch her. Breathing stopped. Her body arched forward in a vain attempt to press against his. All of this happened without her permission and without her approval.

“You tell me, Lainie. Tell me what you want.” She wanted him to kiss her. It was obvious she wanted his kiss.

Her head darted forward, trying to mash her lips against his, but he moved out of range.

“You want me to kiss you, don’t you? I see you looking at me when you think I’m not paying attention. I see the way you’re licking your lips now. You want to devour me. Say the words, Lainie. Tell me you want me.”

He wanted her to beg. He wanted to humiliate her even more. He talked in that low, seductive voice of his. He was smooth and suave.

She knew his kind. The moment she admitted her weakness, he would use it to reduce her to nothing. Alaina refused to submit to him. She would not let him humiliate her.

Taking a deep breath, then another and another, Alaina gathered her wits. “I want you to let go of me, Daniel. I want you to get out of my personal space.”

Disappointment and frustration took turns crossing his face. With obvious reluctance, he admitted defeat and released her wrists and her knee.

The distance between them widened. Remnants of his heat against her body faded. Alaina wanted to call him back. She shivered instead.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs outside the room. Why hadn’t Alaina heard them when Daniel had come down? Hastily, she turned to the counter on the other side of the door. Her purse was there.

Unzipping the top, she dug deep in search of her car keys. The faster she was out of there and in the safety of her own home, the better.

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“Daniel? Are you ready? Did you invite Alaina?” Sophia’s presence did nothing to diminish Daniel’s.

Alaina didn’t turn around to see the negative answer. Deep, cleansing breaths would help her biorhythms return to normal.

Sophia didn’t appear to notice that Alaina was avoiding turning around. “Alaina? A friend of mine is having a poker game tonight.

You’re welcome to join us.”

Finally, Alaina turned to face the siblings. “Thank you. I have plans tonight.” Her smile was tight, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances.

Sophia’s eyes flashed with excitement. “With that new doctoral candidate?”

Alaina forced her smile to widen. “It’s only coffee.” Technically, they did have plans to meet for coffee, but the only topic of discussion was going to be a critique of his proposed research procedure.

“That’s great.” Sophia clapped Daniel on the back. “I told you she’d get up the courage eventually.” Daniel’s look was black. He didn’t respond to Sophia’s enthusiasm.

Alaina excused herself and fled to her car. If she didn’t feel such a strong responsibility for the women in the support group, she would have found a way to stop coming. She had no problem running from a man like Daniel, a man who could completely absorb and obliterate her very existence. But she couldn’t abandon women who had already been hurt by people they trusted.

She arrived home close to ten. The meeting with Robert, the doctoral candidate she was mentoring, had been short and to the point.

Alaina locked herself in her study and tried to transcribe her notes.

Images of Daniel eventually drove her upstairs. She pictured his hands on her body as she turned the setting on her vibrator to high.

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Chapter 2

“You know she was totally lying, right?” Sophia’s assurance did little to alleviate his black mood. Daniel wasn’t a man used to failing with a woman. He didn’t know what it was about Alaina that drew him to her. There were plenty of willing women out there. He just couldn’t seem to reconcile himself to dating any of them. Plus there was Evan to consider.

Evan was picky when it came to women. Daniel had no idea why.

They were plentiful, and they rarely turned either of them down.

Unfortunately, Evan’s standards were nearly unachievable. From the first moment he’d set eyes on Lainie, Daniel knew she was the perfect woman. But if he couldn’t get her to admit she wanted him, how could he ever get her to accept both Evan
and
him in her life?

He’d been so close to getting her to admit she wanted him. Every tiny move her body made, every breath, every sigh, all betrayed her desire. He’d almost had her. He’d come so close to tasting her lips.

She smelled like the mint gum he’d watched her take from her purse earlier when she thought no one was paying attention to her.

She liked to pretend, his Lainie. She liked to pretend she didn’t care whether or not people noticed her. She liked to pretend she wasn’t hiding ten kinds of sexy behind those professional skirts and matronly blouses. She liked to pretend that curly, auburn hair could be tamed with pins and sprays, when it belonged spread wildly across his pillows or tickling his chest as her mouth made its way down his body.

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“I hate when women lie.” Daniel’s lip curled in disgust. “I hate head games, Sophie. Why can’t women just come out and admit what they want?”

Life was difficult enough without all the drama women brought with them. Lainie was supposed to be different. She was older, smarter, and more experienced. She was supposed to be above all that crap.

Sophia laughed as she headed out of the studio and toward his truck. “She went out with you, Danny. You were a jerk to her. Not only did you guys have a huge fight, you cut your date off early to take care of my drama and never called her again. What do you expect?”

“I wasn’t a jerk,” he growled. It hadn’t been the first time Sophia had interrupted one of his nights to deal with her panic attacks. Who knew how much worse—or better—the date would have become without her interference? “I opened doors, and I kept my hands to myself. I was polite and respectful. I took her to her favorite restaurant, and I even remembered her favorite dish and ordered it for her. Scallop-stuffed flounder with the white sauce. How many men are that thoughtful? How many men remember details like that?” Sophia grinned at him as she slid into the passenger seat and closed her door. “Drew would.”

Daniel’s glare didn’t dim in the face of his sister’s amusement.

Sophia’s fiancé was a chef. “Drew remembers everything where food is concerned. Believe it or not, Sophia, most men are only thinking about one thing when they take a woman out.”

“I know, I know.” She sighed. “Am I gonna get lucky?” He snorted. “Luck has nothing to do with it. It’s all about skill and setting a scene.” He broke off when Sophia melted into paroxysms of laughter. As a dominatrix, Sophia set scenes regularly with her submissives, a practice to which Daniel frequently and vocally objected. Falling in love with Drew hadn’t changed that particular
Time to Pretend

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habit of hers. He knew she was dying at the irony of his statement.

“It’s not the same thing.”

“Bullshit,” she said, wiping away tears with the palm of her hand.

“The difference is that I knew when I was going to have sex. And I didn’t have to play the dating games. There was no dinner and no conversation involved. I didn’t have to pretend to be interested in their great-aunt Gertrude’s lack of understanding of how a VCR

works.”

Daniel shot Sophia a look, which melted to a smile the second he set eyes on her. For the first time in far too long, Sophia was happy in a relationship. Meeting Drew was the best thing that ever happened for her. But, damn it, Drew had put up with a lot of crap to winnow his way into Sophia’s heart. Dating shouldn’t be so hard.

“Drew’s great-aunt still has a VCR? I hate to burst your bubble, but a lot of people don’t know how those work. Do you know most of the kids that come to my studio think every TV pauses and rewinds?” Sophia reached over and squeezed his hand. That was another thing Drew had done for her. For years, Sophia neither voluntarily touched anyone nor allowed herself to be touched unless she invited the contact. Daniel turned his palm over and squeezed back.

“Why don’t you just apologize and ask her out again? She’s totally into you, Danny. I think you hurt her feelings.” He had no idea what he had done wrong. The scene replayed in his head repeatedly. One minute, everything was going well. The music and lighting were soft and the flowers on the table were pretty.

Then Alaina’s smile tightened. Eventually, her lips pressed together, and her shoulders stiffened, and her responses became monosyllabic.

She accused him of seeing women as objects, a means to an end.

The moment she said that, he knew the night wasn’t going to end well. It hadn’t. Sophia’s interference hadn’t even mattered.

He shook his head and answered Sophia. “She hates me, and I was sort of an asshole to her before you came down tonight.”

“Now who’s playing head games?” she teased.

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Michele Zurlo

“She accused me of having a date tonight,” he mumbled. He hadn’t been on a date since he’d gone out with her six weeks earlier.

Evan helped temper some of his frustration, but it was a temporary fix. He wanted Alaina. He wanted her to admit she wanted him, too.

“A date? You? What an outrageous assumption.” Sarcasm was an art Sophia mastered early in life. “Did she forget the two of you pledged your troths to one another? Maybe you should tell her you spend all your free time with Evan.” Daniel ignored Sophia’s feigned surprise. He had a three-date rule for most women. Even the few who had made it beyond that limit hadn’t lasted much longer. He was looking for something more. His parents were deeply in love with one another. He wanted what they had. He wanted what Sophia had found with Drew. It was something he’d never felt for a woman, and he desperately wanted to. He was sure he and Evan could have that with Alaina, if only she would give him the time of day.

“Who is this doctoral candidate she wants to date?” He didn’t bother to hide his jealousy. Sophia was his little sister by ten months.

They were as close as any twins could be. She would see through any attempt he made to obfuscate.

Sophia shrugged. “I ran into Alaina last week in a coffee shop in Royal Oak. It was just down the street from Sensual Secrets. She was with this guy, so when he went to the bathroom, I snuck over and grilled her about him. He seemed nice, and he was interested in her.”

“He asked her out?”

Another shrug. “They probably have rules about candidates dating mentors. It makes sense.”

A doctoral candidate. Great. Daniel owned a martial arts studio, but he was no slouch when it came to intellectual matters. He dutifully completed a bachelor’s degree in political science, but he felt no calling to continue with schooling. Alaina was immersed in academia. There was no way he could compete in that arena. That left one thing.

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He glanced over at Sophia, who was checking messages on her phone. “Was he good-looking?”

* * * *

Drew showed up at the game to take Sophia home, so Daniel used that as his excuse to leave early. Evan had a date tonight, but he would be home by midnight. He wasn’t into staying out too late, and he never brought women to his condo. It was thoroughly a bachelor’s pad. Though Evan was a certified builder and he had worked in construction all his life, the furniture inside the condo was Spartan at best, and none of the walls were painted with anything more than primer.

They had been friends since freshman year of high school. As the only two freshmen to make the junior varsity football team, a bond formed between the pair.

Daniel used his own key to let himself inside. The main floor was dark and quiet. “Hello? Evan?”

The answer boomed down the stairs. “Bathroom.” A spark lent a spring to Daniel’s step as he bounded up the steps.

The upper floor contained two bedrooms and a single bathroom. None of them were painted, either. No pictures hung on the walls. Nothing marked this place as a home, yet Daniel felt more at home here than anywhere else.

Wisps of steam wafted from the door. Daniel paused at the entryway, letting the blasts of hot, humid air wash over him. This way, he could blame the ambient temperature for the rise in his body heat. It had nothing to do with the fact that Evan wore only a small, white towel wrapped around his waist. The threadbare scrap, stolen from some hotel years ago, barely hid the corded muscles of Evan’s upper thighs.

Daniel forced his gaze and his thoughts away from the way the cloth molded to Evan’s ass. “I fucked up.”
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Michele Zurlo

Evan rubbed another towel over his short, brown locks, leaving them standing on end. He let the towel fall to the floor and used those blue eyes to level a steady stare at Daniel. “Are you sure about this chick? She sounds like she’s more trouble than she’s worth.” Ice stabbed inside Daniel’s chest. He was already half in love with Alaina. “She’s worth it, man.”

Those broad, naked shoulders lifted and fell. “Why don’t you let me give it a try?”

Daniel shook his head. “If she passes me over, then it won’t matter what you say or do. She won’t accept me back, and we’ll both lose out on something wonderful.”

A sigh escaped Evan. “Struck out with my date, too. Not that I was trying overly hard. She didn’t know the difference between a two-by-four and a floor joist.”

Not many women would, but Daniel refrained from mentioning that. He had no idea whether or not Lainie knew anything about construction. At the end of the day, it wouldn’t matter. She was the kind of woman who would learn about it because the topic was important to someone she loved.

Daniel closed the distance between him and Evan with one step.

He tugged the edge of the towel, but he kept his eyes on the prize as the terrycloth slid to the floor. He followed the thick muscles of Evan’s sun-starved thigh up over his hip. “No woman is worth that much hassle.”