The Dating Game Read online

  David wasn’t surprised to see a sizeable crowd outside, but he’d never been turned away from a bar in his life and tonight wasn’t going to be the first time. And Sarah …? Well, looking the way she did, they’d be salivating to get her inside. She was perfect for the place—hip and cool and magnetic.

  He pulled her to one side. ‘We have to enter separately so people inside don’t think we’re a couple.’

  Sarah snorted. ‘There’s not enough Botox in the world for people to believe that.’

  David’s jaw dropped and stayed that way for a full five seconds.

  ‘Nah, you don’t look a day over forty,’ she added and then, laughing, bumped his arm with her shoulder. ‘Negged you!’

  And David couldn’t stop himself from grabbing Sarah and hugging her hard and tight against his chest. A laugh rumbled through him as he kissed the top of her head. ‘Frankly, brat, you make me feel a hundred and forty.’ He released her as suddenly as he’d grabbed her. ‘Now stop hugging me and get in there.’

  ‘Hey, you hugged me!’ she protested.

  ‘Purely avuncular.’

  ‘I don’t think you know the meaning of the word “avuncular”.’

  ‘Avuncular: of or pertaining to an uncle.’

  ‘Then Arrivederci, Zio Davide.’

  ‘No Francesca impersonations, please. And stick to the ground floor level so I can find you easily. It’s like a garden in there, so no hiding behind trees, okay?’

  ‘As if I’m going to hide! I’m on the hunt, my man, on—the—hunt!’ She laughed, waggled her fingers at him, poked out her tongue for good measure, and headed for the entrance.

  David waited outside for ten minutes, using the time to get his wayward body under control. Hell, his wayward brain!

  Hey, you hugged me!

  Yep, he’d hugged her. And there’d been nothing familial about it. Uncle, father, brother—nope. He’d just … had to. Had to touch her. After telling himself, over and over for the past three days, that he would not.

  He took a deep breath, trying to clean the scent of her out of his lungs. He’d tried to guess what perfume she’d be wearing the moment he saw her in Midnight Madness. Vanilla, or jasmine? But it had been orange blossom that had infiltrated his senses when he’d joined Sarah and Erica at that poky bar table. Who would have guessed he could be so enthralled by a scent?

  It had taken every ounce of self-control he had to centre his attention on Erica, which didn’t make sense, given Erica’s intriguing beauty. Long black hair, dusky skin, dark eyes, eye-popping curves. Confident, glamorous, sexy. If her boyfriend wasn’t on his knees each night thanking every known deity for the gift of her, he was a fool. Erica was dark midnight to Sarah’s bright sunlight—and David was a midnight kind of guy.

  And yet … he had no idea what Erica had smelled like. It may have been peach or mint or skunk, for all David knew; his head had been too full of orange blossom to notice.

  It was … disquieting.

  Disturbing, bewildering, perturbing.

  Oh, shit! He really was starting to think like Sarah! Like there was a thesaurus implanted in his brain! He’d be talking in italics and exclamation marks next! Oh dear God! He was already thinking in italics and exclamation marks!!!

  He had to find some balance, a way to get him back to where he’d ended up on Wednesday night: keep it light, keep it funny, keep it cute, keep your fucking hands off.

  The impact of the orange blossom, the need to hug—those were just symptoms of sexual frustration, because he hadn’t done anything to scratch his itch the way he’d planned on Thursday or Friday night. Not for any deep and meaningful reason; he just hadn’t felt like going out when the time came. He’d been too busy playing with paint colours, experimenting with creams, golds and blues for the portrait—which, all right, were Sarah’s colours, but he was painting her, so there was nothing untoward in that.

  The point was that of course he should have expected some testosterone overload, being catapulted into close proximity with two beautiful women in his sex-starved state. Especially given the way they were dressed. Sarah in that clingy, sparkly purple number and the silver high heels. Erica in the … in the … what? Erica in the what? What had Erica been wearing?

  Shit, shit, shit! He had no freaking idea.

  Okay, time to acknowledge the truth. He’d been around two beautiful women, but only one had sucker-punched him.

  And Sarah, strictly speaking, wasn’t beautiful. She was too bird-like to be beautiful. Bright and cute and alert did not equal beautiful. Edgy was not the same as beautiful, either—and she was edgy, all right, with that short cap of hair, the question mark eyebrow and her swashbuckling walk. She had a way of sucking the air out of a place, like she needed every last molecule of it herself just to exist, and you were happy to cede the air to her just so you could watch her.

  Not beautiful … and yet his reaction to her was torturously visceral. Not only did she seem to trigger some weird olfactory reaction that had him snuffling like a truffle pig, but she had his gut churning, his blood humming, his dick straining, his breath jamming, whenever he was close to her.

  He wouldn’t be able to see Sarah every Wednesday night if he didn’t get himself under control. And he needed to see her every Wednesday night for the portrait. The portrait was the raison d’etre for their whole … relationship, for want of a better word.

  Relationship. Alliance. Connection. Association.

  Shit! There he went again. Thesaurus head!

  A shout of laughter startled him out of his thoughts, and he watched as a group of three young guys, elbowing each other as they pointed out a couple of girls walking ahead of them, entered the bar.

  Laughing guys.

  Carefree guys.

  Young guys.

  David stopped pacing. One of those young, laughing, carefree guys may suit Sarah.

  He did some quick mental calculations. There were five painting sessions to go. If she landed one of those guys tonight and he stuck around for three weeks and one day, then when the last session rolled around, they’d be close enough to the end of their allocated time without David having laid one more finger on her—because one thing he knew about himself was that he wasn’t a sharer (and thank you for that valuable lesson, Rebel).

  If he worked hard on the portrait, he might even be able to finish it ahead of schedule so their goals would be safely synchronized: he’d have his painting, her curse would be lifted, and they could bid each other a satisfied farewell and move on with their lives.

  Relieved at the way he’d set the parameters of their relationship within their allocated time frame, he entered the bar full of purpose. Time to go man hunting.

  Almost immediately, he saw Sarah. She was hunched in a corner being loomed over by a drooling lothario. To say David was thrown by the fact that she’d already snagged a guy without waiting for his guidance would have been an understatement. And especially that guy, whose teeth were practically glistening with saliva. He looked ready to bend her over the nearest piece of furniture right there in the middle of the bar. Heavy on the brawn, light on the brains.

  Sarah was firecracker bright—she had to know she was wasting her time with that grunting caveman. And he was too damn big. If she ended up having sex with that sweaty-toothed thug, he’d crush the life out of her. Well, it wasn’t happening. Not on David’s watch!

  He looked around, trying to find someone better, someone smarter, someone smaller. But nobody looked good enough. Not even those three guys who’d passed him outside; inside Centurion they just looked sleazy, leering at every girl in the place. Why had he thought this bar was a good idea, anyway? It was too crowded, the lighting was annoyingly hazy, the music too damn loud, and so what if he could see through the glass walls to the Opera House that was lit up like an underwater fairyland? He could go fucking diving if he wanted to see sea creatures.

  Oh God, he really was old. A cravat, prune ju
ice and a walking frame were just around the corner.

  A drink. He needed a drink. And he needed to butt the hell out of Sarah’s pick-up.

  David forged a path to the bar, bought himself a glass of wine and eased himself into a position from where he could watch things unfold between Sarah and the barbarian, in line with his role as her wingman-slash-tutor, without making a dickhead of himself.

  A resolve that lasted five minutes, which was when Boofhead put his hand in the small of Sarah’s back … and left it there.

  Goddammit! It didn’t look right there.

  Almost before that belligerent thought had finished forming, David was halfway across the floor.

  ‘Sarah!’ he exclaimed as he reached her, long-lost buddy style, bold the exclamation mark. ‘Erica and I were just talking about you.’

  She looked startled, but like the trouper she was, played along. Leaning a little closer to Cro-Magnon Man (he was going to have to talk to her about when ‘the lean’ was and wasn’t acceptable), she said, ‘Erica’s a good friend of mine and Lucas’s girlfriend,’ in the guy’s ear. His waxy, hairy, goddamn ear!

  The brute whispered something to her, too low for David to hear, taking the opportunity to stick his nose in the little kiss curl of hair behind Sarah’s ear. Bastard wanker.

  Sarah turned to David, looking pleased with herself. ‘Lucas, this is Gareth,’ she said.

  Gareth moved his hand from Sarah’s back to shake hands, then returned it—and David had to actively fight against lifting the guy by the scruff of the neck and depositing him a foot away from her. Because David knew all the moves. The back-touch. The jut and angle of the pelvis. The stick of a rancid proboscis in a girl’s hair on the pretence of leaning in close to hear her over the atrocious music that was coming out of the goddamn speakers!

  Breathe, David, breathe. ‘I have a message from Erica for you, Sarah,’ David said, forcing an apologetic look onto his face for Gareth’s benefit. ‘Sorry, mate, but it’s private.’

  Again, Sarah easily rose to the challenge, turning to Gareth with her own apologetic look—a look that seemed a little too genuine for David’s liking. ‘I’m so sorry, Gareth. Just give me a minute to clear this up, okay?’

  Gareth’s lips thinned as he looked from Sarah to David and back. And then he shrugged—yep, he knew his race was run—and melted away.

  ‘And that’s the last you’ll see of him,’ David said with satisfaction.

  ‘You don’t know that.’

  ‘Sure I do—he wants easy prey, and he wants it fast.’

  She looked startled again. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘I know his type.’

  ‘And what “type” is that?’

  ‘Not your type.’

  ‘As in …?’

  ‘As in he’ll sample your “sexual compatibility” and then move on pretty damn fast. He’s not the forever type. He’s not even the three-week type. He’s the one-night stand type.’

  ‘So he’s your type,’ she said, smiling up at him, and then she shoulder-bumped his arm like she’d done outside. ‘Well, at least I achieved my goal.’

  ‘Goal?’ Something close to terror seized him. ‘You didn’t agree to a date with him!’

  ‘No, I negged him.’

  And breathe out slooowly. ‘Oh, you negged him.’

  ‘He wasn’t paying me any attention until I did it,’ she added proudly.

  ‘Okay, lay it on me. What did you say?’ David found himself leaning in close, touching the small of her back, sniffing her, nudging that little curl, just like Gareth the marauding Casanova. Oh God. God, God, God. This was so bad.

  ‘I said, “You’d better not offer to buy me a martini”,’ she said, edging closer to David. Close enough to have visions of bending her over furniture invade his head. He was as bad as Gareth. He was a dirty old man. He should stay the hell away from her.

  ‘What did you say?’

  She looked at him, puzzled, and then leaned closer still, as though perhaps he hadn’t heard her. Holy shit. ‘I said—’

  ‘I mean what did he say?’ Save!

  ‘Oh, well, he asked me why. And I said, “Because my last boyfriend told me martinis made me so naughty, I needed to be spanked”.’

  The laugh burst out of David, surprising him.

  ‘Good, huh?’ she asked, nudging him yet again with her shoulder, as though he was her best buddy, her asexual male girlfriend, which only served to make him feel even more like an ageing sex maniac. ‘And he was about to ask me for my number.’

  ‘I don’t want to burst your bubble, bluebell, but the spanking thing wasn’t a neg and it would work on any straight guy with half a pulse.’ And David’s own pulse was going off like a sprinter at the starting gun, so he was speaking from a position of authority.

  ‘Would it work on you?’ Sarah asked.

  Looking down into her curious face, David found himself picturing her, over his lap, his hand on her tiny backside, not spanking, but sliding, gliding, smoothing. Slipping between her legs, feeling the moisture, hearing her whimper, then moan, then beg him to hurry, to do it, do it now. Please, David, I want you inside me now …

  ‘No,’ he said desperately, putting some much-needed space between them. ‘Nine years ago, maybe, but not now.’

  ‘Nine years …’ She frowned. ‘What happened nine years ago?’

  Damn! ‘Nothing.’

  Pause, while she looked at him. ‘We both know I blush when I lie,’ she said. ‘But do you know you blink twice?’

  No he didn’t know that. Pause—his—and then he simply said, ‘Nine years ago, I grew up. That’s what happened.’

  Her eyes turned keen and inquisitive. She looked as though she’d touch him, and he braced for it—actually braced for it. And for the questions he wasn’t going to answer. But then she gave her head a slight shake, as though dismissing the subject.

  ‘You know, I actually did the spanking thing once,’ she said. ‘And it’s definitely not my scene, so perhaps it’s just as well you interrupted when you did. I’d hate to have to deliver on that if he pushed the issue.’ She looked around the space. ‘Oh, look!’ She inclined her head, and David, following the movement, noted Gareth over near the bar, chatting to a brunette. ‘He’s already moved on.’

  ‘Told you he was an insta-sex guy.’

  ‘There’s nothing to say that tonight’s insta-sex isn’t going to turn into a marriage in six months’ time, with a white picket fence, the first of two-point-five children on the way and an SUV in the garage.’

  ‘And that’s what you want.’ Statement, not question. ‘White picket fence. SUV. Two-point-five kids.’

  ‘At the moment, I’d be happy to get to three weeks and one day! But eventually? Sure. I want the whole perfect life. And I’ll be pretty dirty with you, Dreamboat David, if that brunette ends up with her perfect little world before I do.’

  David tried to block the image of Sarah, married and pregnant with Grunting Gareth’s possessive hand on her stomach, from his mind. But it lodged there anyway.

  She nudged him again. ‘So you’d better redeem yourself by finding me a new man to practise my wiles on.’

  David searched the space, seeking out someone who might suit her, even as his hand returned to the small of her back without his permission and stuck there. Bad.

  ‘How about the blond guy over there?’ she asked, leaning against him.

  David looked where she was pointing. Hell no! He looked further afield. This was getting ridiculous. There had to be someone.

  ‘David? Don’t you think—’

  ‘Him,’ he said, cutting her off as he spotted—at last—a guy who didn’t offend him just by living.

  He was the kind of guy who wore cardigans and worked in accounting. Neither short nor tall, on the slender side, narrow shoulders, starting to lose his hair although he had to be under thirty. Not ugly; he just gave off a slightly dweeb-like aura. Sarah
would be able to control both herself and him. An ideal choice for her apprenticeship.

  ‘Who?’ she asked, confused.

  ‘That one.’ With a subtle point in Dweeb Boy’s direction. ‘The guy on his own at the end of the bar.’

  She looked at the guy, who was nervously raising his beer to his lips, then at David. ‘The one with the incipient comb-over?’

  ‘That’s a bit harsh. But I like that you used “incipient”.’

  ‘Incipient, embryonic, inchoate.’

  ‘All he has is a little potential thinning.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s past potential, but …’ Her tongue came out to touch her top lip, and David wanted to suck her tongue into his own mouth and keep it there for an hour. Bad, bad, bad. He waited, trying not to shift and twitch, but it was hard when his nerves were screaming at him, when every fibre in his body was urging him to say a big fat Fuck it to their whole male girlfriend fiasco of a relationship and seduce her.

  Hell, she’d just said all she really wanted at this stage was three weeks and one day—the husband and kids could come later. Well, she could have three weeks and one day with him, couldn’t she? He could break the damn curse himself!

  In fact, if she decided she didn’t like the look of the dweeb, he’d take it as a sign and suggest they get out of the bar and go to his apartment and work on the portrait. Once she was inside his apartment, he’d find a way to get their conversation onto the subject of kissing and engineer a way to kiss her again, because just at that moment, he thought he’d implode if he didn’t.

  He looked more closely at the balding guy. Yeah, no way was she going to go for him. They might as well pack it in immediately. ‘Sarah, on second thoughts, let’s just—’

  ‘Fine,’ she said, cutting him off as though she hadn’t even heard him. ‘He’s not my usual type, but my usual type hasn’t done me much good so far, has it? So why not go against it? Thank you, Dreamboat.’

  And with that, she gave the tiny excuse for a bag hanging over her shoulder a pat, and headed into the wilds, bouncing on her sky-high heels. What was the deal with the zips down the back of those shoes, anyway? Was she trying to give every guy in the place unzipping fantasies?