Suz settled on the couch and stretched her long bare legs in front of her, and Colby amended his previous thought. Celibacy was torture. Pure fucking torture.
“Fine, I’ll humor you. What’s the emergency?” He sat on the opposite end of the couch and tried to ignore the bare feet and red-painted toenails that were three inches from his thigh. Christ. She even had sexy feet.
“I need a date,” she moaned.
Colby blinked. “Pardon me?”
“You heard me. I need a date, okay?” Annoyance and distress mingled in her eyes. “It’s my turn to placate the folks, and my insufferable brothers refuse to give me a pass.”
Some days when he interacted with Suz, Colby felt like he was in a foreign country where he didn’t understand the local dialect. Today was one of those days.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he informed her.
She dragged both hands through her hair and sighed again. “I told you about the monthly Jones family gathering, remember? Well, the next one is this Saturday, and it’s my turn to bring a date.”
“Still not understanding, babe.”
“My parents are all lovey-dovey, okay? They’ve been married for like a million years, and it drives them crazy that my brothers and I are all still single.”
Suz lifted her bare feet into Colby’s lap, and despite his better judgment, he started kneading them, rubbing his thumbs into the soles.
“Oooh, keep doing that,” she begged. “It feels awesome.”
He kept doing it.
Son of a bitch. He was such a pussy when it came to this woman.
“Anyway, my folks are so desperate for grandbabies and in-laws they go a little nuts whenever one of us shows up with a date. A couple years ago Mike brought a chick from his vice unit, and my mother spent an hour questioning her about the viability of her eggs.” Suz grinned. “The poor woman got so freaked out that her childbearing years might be dwindling that she dumped Mike and eloped with her ex-boyfriend within the month.”
Colby had to chuckle.
“After that, none of us would bring dates if we could help it,” Suz said. “But then we all started getting lectured nonstop about being single, so we reached an agreement last year. Every month one of us takes the bullet for the others and brings someone for my parents to fawn over and interrogate. So now it’s my turn, and I have zero prospects. I can’t just ask any old Joe off the street. It needs to be someone I actually know so my parents don’t catch on that I’m trying to trick them. But it can’t be someone I actually like, because then they’ll scare him off.”
Colby’s spine stiffened. “So you want me to go with you, because I’m not someone you actually like?”
Alarm flitted through her eyes. “Wait. No. I didn’t mean it like that. I was just saying—”
He shot off the couch, his jaw tight enough to crack his teeth in half. “I know exactly what you were saying, Suz. And I don’t fucking appreciate it.”
She stood too, guilt and remorse swimming on her face. “Colby—”
“Don’t Colby me,” he growled. “I’m tired of these games, all right? I made it more than clear what I wanted from you, Suz. Not a one-night stand, and certainly not a pretend date. I want the real thing, and…” He sucked in a breath. “And if you don’t want to give me that, then you know what? Fine. There’re plenty other women who will.”
He stalked out of the living room before she had a chance to answer. Or protest. Or make excuses. Let her stew on this for a while, because God knew he’d been obsessing over it for way too long.
Now it was her fucking turn.
Chapter Ten
For the second time in less than a week, Dean stood at the door to Emma’s suite, his hand poised to knock. This time he hadn’t brought flowers but a bottle of merlot he couldn’t wait to crack open because…well…he was nervous.
Figure that one out.
He felt like a goddamn virgin on prom night, which, fuck it all, he’d already been once. Hell, twice if he counted his own and Emma’s proms. Damp palms, racing pulse, throbbing boner. The last time his nerves had been this out of whack, he’d been about to make love to the most amazing girl on the planet.
Emma.
Jesus, they were going to have sex tonight. Their sparring session earlier had rapidly transformed into some serious foreplay, just as he’d hoped it would. Their chemistry hadn’t faded over time—if anything, it had only become more explosive. He wanted her. So fucking much he couldn’t even think her name without getting hard. And she wanted him, too, otherwise she never would have invited him over tonight.
So why the hell was he nervous?
When the door opened, all the breath left his body and his throat closed up, because holy fuck, she looked incredible. Her emerald-green dress was so short he could see the bottoms of her lacy black garters peeking out, and her smoky eye shadow make her catlike eyes appear bigger. Sexier.