7
YASMINE GAZED UP at the pointy top of the eight-foot-tall Christmas tree. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
Kyle looked from the supersize tree to her. “What?”
“For one thing, we can’t carry that all the way home. And for another, it would take up my entire living room.”
“Oh, right. Well, how about that one?” He pointed to a tree that was maybe two feet shorter.
“Think tabletop.” Yasmine turned and headed for the smallest trees on the lot.
Twenty feet away, on the other side of a chain-link fence, the roar of traffic was a constant reminder that they were still in the city and not an evergreen forest. A car horn honked, a seagull squawked overhead and the scent of car exhaust filled the air. Ah, urban life. Yasmine loved it.
She caught Kyle’s look of disdain as he peered down at the little tree she’d stopped in front of. “What?”
“It’s just so…small.”
“What is it about guys and tree size? It’s like some kind of phallic thing.”
“Freud was a crackpot.”
“I promise, the size of your tree doesn’t in any way reflect on the size of your manhood. Okay?”
He rolled his eyes at her and strolled over to the next biggest tree. “Did you do this with your parents as a kid? Go pick out a tree every year?”
“A few times, but since we spent most of our holidays in Paris, we normally didn’t have a tree.”
“No Christmas tree? Where did Santa leave presents?”
“In our stockings. We always packed those and took them to France every year, and since whatever we got had to fit in our suitcase for the flight home, I always got tiny gifts.”
“We went out to the woods and chopped down trees when I was really little. Later we had a fake tree, one of those perfectly cone-shaped ones with branches so unbendable you could hang bowling balls on it for ornaments.”
Yasmine tried to imagine Kyle as a little boy and couldn’t. She spotted a cute little tree without any major holes and pointed to it. “How about this one?”
He shrugged. “Sure, I guess if you want to prove size doesn’t matter.”
She caught the attention of an employee clad in a green apron, and then they stood waiting for him to help them. “Do you have siblings?”
Part of her wanted to know everything about Kyle, and another part of her just wanted to keep him vague and anonymous, not another guy she could fall for only to find that he was more enamored with her outside than her inside.
“An older brother and a younger sister. We fought all the time growing up, but we’re friends now.”
“I’ve always envied people with siblings, but I guess I had it pretty easy, not having to compete for attention or Christmas presents or anything.”
“It must have been lonely sometimes, being an only child.” He looked at her as if he were seeing her for the first time, and Yasmine got a ridiculous little chill.
She tightened her long green scarf and tugged her denim jacket closed against the damp, cool air. Overhead, clouds formed a dense white blanket.
“I had nannies who were usually lots of fun. Leave it to my mom to hire the very best. But when I saw other kids at the playground with their siblings, I always told myself someday my parents would have more kids. I had this whole imaginary family made up in my head.”
The tree lot employee arrived, and Kyle told him which tree they wanted. He gave them a claim tag for it, and as he took it to the register for them, they went to the huge line that snaked through the left side of the lot and waited.
“I always thought I’d have at least two kids so neither of them would be lonely or have to make up imaginary families,” Kyle said, and Yasmine felt a stab of dread that they’d entered that precarious territory few couples ventured into unless they were getting serious—the kids discussion.
Definitely not a talk to have with a weekend fling.
“I had a sister named Angelina, and a brother named Blaize, and another sister named Anastasia. They were all younger than me, and they all did whatever I told them to do.” Yasmine deliberately kept her tone light to steer the conversation away from serious territory.
“Those are pretty fancy names.”
“Hey, I was a kid who read a lot and watched too much TV. I think Blaize was a soap opera character at the time.”
“What about you? Do you want to have your own kids someday?”
Whoa, there—too much, too fast. Yasmine’s stomach knotted.
“I, um, haven’t really thought about it.”
“Who hasn’t thought about having kids?”
She raised her hand. “Me! Me!”
“So your goal in life is just to work at a virtual-sex software company and live in an apartment alone?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” She smiled, but her heart wasn’t in it, and she was afraid Kyle could tell.
Yasmine had given up on having big, lofty goals somewhere along the way. She’d decided while serving her time in juvenile detention that when she got out, she’d just be happy with whatever life presented her. She didn’t think there would be much point in expecting big things from her future, careerwise, and somehow she’d come to have the same low expectations of her personal life.
“Judging by your reputation at work, it seems like you’re capable of running your own software company instead of just being a programmer for one.”
She shrugged. “I’m not much of a business person.”
Kyle flashed her an odd look but said nothing more. A few seconds later, they’d made it to the cash register, and he insisted on paying for the tree. He propped it on his shoulder for the walk home.
“You look so outdoorsy with that tree slung over your shoulder,” she said as they crossed the street.
“Oh, yeah? Are you into the outdoorsy look?”
“I didn’t think so, but it works for you.” She let her gaze travel from his eyes downward, over his broad chest to his waist and below.
He slipped his free arm around her waist, and she felt his finger hook into her belt loop. The gesture seemed more intimate somehow than she was prepared for, and she had to resist the urge to pull away. She was truly a person with issues when she could sleep with a guy, but when he slipped his finger into her belt loop, all of a sudden she was feeling freaked.
Clearly, she needed help.
“What’s wrong?” Kyle asked, surprisingly attuned to her mood changes.
“Oh, nothing. Guess I’m just getting hungry for lunch.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie.
“Can you make it until we get down to the wharf, or do you need to eat now?”
Yasmine must have been desperate for affection, because that one little gesture of concern for her well-being nearly melted her heart. “I guess I can hold out for clam chowder in a sourdough bowl.”
They made it back to her apartment, dropped off the tree and headed out for the streetcar stop a block away.
As an adult, Yasmine drove everywhere. She hadn’t taken a streetcar probably since her teen years. And standing at the corner, without warning, her chest filled up with a strange longing for something she couldn’t name.
Something about Kyle and the streetcars and this little escape from reality they seemed to have embarked upon made her think too much about the past, about the things she couldn’t change. But she couldn’t let that crap get her down now. She owed herself a weekend of pure escapist fantasy, and she was determined to enjoy every fleeting moment of it.
THE STREET CAR stopped on The Embarcadero not far from Fisherman’s Wharf, and Alex reminded himself for the hundredth time why he was with Yasmine. Not to have fun, and not to forget all his problems, but to find out if she was still a hacker. He’d suggested they go on their little tourist excursion as a way to gain her trust, to get her to let her guard down in a completely different environment than the one in which she usually lived. But it was just so damn easy to lose himself in her company, and he had to admit, he was thoroughly enjoying playing the tourist in his adopted city for the first time.
During the ride to the waterfront, they took in the scenery together, probably looking to all the world like a pair of happy lovers. He felt more comfortable with Yasmine than he should have, and he liked her more than he should have. She was more comfortable in her own skin than most of the women he’d ever known, and her comfort with herself made it easy for others to be at ease with her.
He couldn’t help thinking, in another time, another place, maybe they could have been a real couple. But as soon as the thought formed in his head, he banished it. He knew too well the dangers of wanting what he couldn’t have.
When they reached their final stop, Alex stepped off the street car and extended his hand to Yasmine as she stepped down, too. The weather here was a little windier than it had been at her place, and he was glad now that he’d worn a heavy leather jacket and his flannel-lined jeans. The scent of the ocean mingled with the less pleasant odor of sea lions, and as they crossed onto the sidewalk, they had to keep moving to avoid blocking the steady stream of tourists milling through.
“Where to?” he asked Yasmine once they had a chance to stop and get their bearings.
“Toward the smell of food.”
They wandered a row of seafood vendors until they found one with the best looking bowls, then crossed the street with their sourdough bowls and colds cans of Coke and sat on a concrete platform where people, seagulls and pigeons gathered for lunch. A particularly large seagull landed a few feet away from them and stood eyeing their food, while the less aggressive birds nervously edged closer a few inches at a time.
“You think he’ll attack?” Alex asked.
“It’s not a matter of ‘if’ so much as ‘when.’ We’d better eat fast.”
He looked over and caught Yasmine tossing the seagull a piece of bread. “Isn’t that illegal or something?”
“Shh. I’m buying us time.”
He stole another glimpse of her and his heart swelled in his chest. He’d never wanted a woman so much as he wanted her then, sitting beside him on this cool, damp day. And he’d never been a bigger fool in his life. How had he turned physical desire into emotional desire overnight?
Okay, so it was a natural progression, but he’d been a fool not to anticipate it, not to realize he wasn’t the kind of guy who slept with women indiscriminately. He’d always considered sex a small part of the big picture in relationships.
He focused on the hot chowder and tried to let the more troubling thoughts vacate his mind, but no luck. By the time he’d emptied the bread bowl and started breaking off pieces of it to eat, the thought that he was getting too emotionally involved with Yasmine could not be ignored.
“You look so serious,” she said. She’d finished her soup now and was breaking off more pieces of it and tossing them to the birds. Pigeons scampered around her sexy black boots, hoping to be the next recipient of her goodwill.
Alex forced a smile and took a drink of his Coke. “Just worried that one of these birds is going to dive bomb us if we don’t get moving soon.”
Had he really been stupid enough to think he could resolve ten years of wanting with a few nights of great sex? Had he really believed the situation wouldn’t get any more complicated than it already was?
Damn it, he had. Maybe deep down, he’d known he would be walking into a no-win situation, but he’d fooled himself.
Having tossed her last bit of bread and finished her drink, Yasmine gazed at the row of cheesy tourist shops lining the street across from where they sat. “I think we have to buy some T-shirts, don’t we? Isn’t that the rule if you come down here—you have to leave with a shirt that declares your love for San Francisco?”
“I’m no expert.”
“How about, I’ll pick out a shirt for you, and you pick one out for me?”
“How about we just skip the T-shirt thing? I thought we were shopping for snow globes.”
“Don’t try to distract me with plastic trinkets,” Yasmine said as she took his hand and tugged him toward the strip of shops. “I’m buying a shirt, and that’s final.”
Her hand in his felt right as they walked, felt like the kind of comfort he hadn’t realized he’d been wanting for a long time. He glanced over at her and was struck by the sensation that she recognized him. Fear shot through him, but he did his best to show no emotion.
“What?” he said when she continued to stare at him.
“It’s weird,” she said as they waited at the traffic light to cross. “I occasionally get the feeling we’ve known each other before.”
“Maybe we’ve bumped into each other around town somewhere. I jog in Golden Gate Park pretty often, usually around Stowe Lake.”
Had she detected the slight note of tension in his voice that he’d failed to hide?
“I doubt that’s it. I just can’t think where we might have met.”
Alex’s stomach churned as he scrambled for a way to change the subject. His gaze settled on the nearest shop, its entrance crowded with racks of T-shirts and its display window filled with trinkets, including snow globes. “Looks like we’ve found our destination,” he said.
It worked—instant distraction. Yasmine headed for the nearest rack and grabbed a bright-orange shirt that read ‘Orange you glad I visited San Francisco?”
She held it up and smiled. “This is perfect for you.”
“That’s the dumbest T-shirt I’ve ever seen.”
“Exactly. Now you have to find an even worse one for me.”
Alex gave her a look, but she draped the shirt over her arm and wandered farther into the store. He wanted to find something to dislike about her, something that would bring him back to Earth and show him that no matter how perfect she seemed, she really was a common criminal.
He just needed a little more time. Another day or two would be enough for him to dig up the truth. Either that or fall head over heels in love.
WHO KNEW DECORATING a tree could turn into such an erotic undertaking?
Yasmine watched the tiny white lights twinkling and felt for a moment as though she was a little girl again, filled with the excitement of Christmas Eve. All the possibilities, the promise of goodies to come, the mystery of presents to be puzzled over and opened.
But then she remembered she was lying naked next to a guy she’d known less than a month, and the evening took on a whole different sense of possibility.
After an afternoon of wandering the shops and sites around the Wharf and Pier 39, they’d returned to Yasmine’s apartment and set about decorating the tree, a task that had resulted in each of them getting more undressed for every item of clothing that the tree put on.
“I don’t want to hear a word about my ornaments,” she said when she caught him looking at the tree, a smile playing on his lips.
“I didn’t say anything.” He looked at the cat, perched on the back of the table next to them. “Did you hear me say anything?”
Milo blinked at him.
“You were about to critique, I could tell.”
“I’m just awed by your creativity, that’s all.”
She’d seen a decorating show that used household objects as nontraditional tree decorations and had insisted on trying it herself instead of hauling out her collection of ugly rejected ornaments. So now the tree was bedecked in scarves and belts, earrings and pendants, ribbons and tassels. It looked a little odd, but kind of fun, too.
“Yeah, well. At least you’re a man who knows when to stick with the safe response.”
“Especially when I have a beautiful woman lying naked next to me.” He pulled the blanket from the back of the couch over them and wrapped his arms around her.
Kyle may have been a guy she barely knew, but this was turning out to be the most fun Christmas Eve she’d had since the days of believing in Santa Claus. Then the phone rang, interrupting their perfect moment for the second time that day.
Yasmine reached over him to the cordless phone on the end table and answered, barely able to concentrate on “Hello” when she had Kyle’s chest to ponder up close and personal.
“Yasmine? It’s Cass. Where the hell are you?”
“I’m home, obviously, and your timing today is incredibly bad.”
“You forgot my party.”
“Your party…Oh, right. I told you weeks ago I didn’t want to go,” Yasmine said as she glanced at Kyle.
“And I told you to get your ass over here, anyway.”
“I thought you were joking.”
“I never joke about yuletide events.”
“I guess this means Drew fixed your computer and you were able to let loose in the kitchen.” Which was a scary thought, given Cass’s level of culinary skill.
“Yes, and thanks for sending him. But seriously, I’ll be the only single here if you don’t show.”
Yasmine winced. Cass had been dating her last boyfriend when she’d planned the party, and he’d broken up with her soon after.
“Listen, I’m actually kind of tied up right now.” Tied up—now there was something she and Kyle hadn’t tried yet…. Where were those furry handcuffs, anyway?
“Watching the MTV Christmas special does not qualify as holiday plans.”
“No, I mean, I have company right now.”
Silence. And then, “Oh! You have male company. Who is it?”
“No one you know.”
“You’re being uncharacteristically coy—Wait a minute, it’s not that guy from your office that you bought handcuffs and candy for, is it?”
“It is,” Yasmine said, trying not to reveal too much to Kyle. He didn’t need to know she’d had conversations with friends about him.
“And let me guess. He’s lying right there naked beside you.”
“Um…”
“Yasmine! You slut, I was joking.”
“So you can understand why I won’t be attending your party.”
“No, what I understand is why you’ll be getting your ass over here within the hour. I made a Yule log for you. With decorative leaves and chocolate filling. You will be here to partake. Do you understand?”
“Oh God, Cass, you shouldn’t have. I was joking about the log.”
She’d told her friend the thing she’d missed most about her childhood Christmas vacations in Paris was the b?che de No?l. Her parents had always bought one at a patisserie near the flat where they stayed, and they’d always let her have the biggest piece of the chocolate log-shaped cake. When Cass had issued the invitation to her all-couples-except-Yasmine Christmas Eve party, Yasmine had jokingly said she would only show if there was a big chocolate Yule log in her honor.
“You’re lucky I forgot to start cooking the turkey on time—dinner’s in an hour. You and the office hottie had better be here. Got it?”
“Really, Cass. I don’t think that’s a good idea. And besides—”
“No excuses. You have no idea what a pain in the ass this Yule log was.”
“But…” Yasmine scrambled to think of a new excuse, unwilling as she was to get out of bed at the moment. “He doesn’t believe in celebrating Christmas. He’s a…Moonie.”
“So he can pretend there’s not a tree and enjoy the merriment anyway. Really, babe, this is a multicultural, multifaith affair.”
Yasmine gave Kyle a look pregnant with warning as she said goodbye to Cass and then reached across him again to hang up the phone.
“That was my best friend,” she said. “She’s insisting we show up at her Christmas Eve party, which is already in session and which she apparently was expecting me to attend even after I said I wouldn’t be there.”
Kyle glanced down at his still-present erection. “Do you think we have time—”
“If we’re fast,” she said as she straddled his hips and connected their bodies.
“I can do fast,” he said.
And he could. Remarkably well.
Fifteen minutes later they were both breathless and satisfied, tugging on their clothes and getting themselves looking presentable.
They set off on the eight-block walk to Cass’s apartment in the cool darkness, hand in hand. While Yasmine was happy to have a date, she was a little weirded out by their fast physical comfort. And that holding hands freaked her out more than having sex with him told Yasmine once again that she had definitely gotten her perspective knocked askew.
Instead of examining her problem closer, she opted to prepare Kyle for his impending immersion into her social group.
“Be warned,” she said as they waited for a light to change so they could cross the street. “My friends have mostly settled into happy coupledom. They tend to view singles like us as potential converts, and they see it as their personal directive to spread the gospel of commitment and marriage.”
“And you’re opposed to the whole concept?” he said with a half-smile.
“Well, no. I just think we’re all a bit young to be getting too serious.”
“I guess that’s my problem. I’m already over the hill, eh?”
She laughed. “You’ve been holding your own in the bedroom for being such a geriatric patient.”
“Smart-ass.”
“So what we’re doing isn’t too serious for you?”
“Definitely not. But if I find out you’re sleeping with me just to research some new sex software—”
“Oh no, you’ve found me out! Whatever you do, don’t ever try the upcoming game entitled Old Guy Sex.”
He gave her a swat on the backside. “How did you end up working at Virtual Active? You don’t exactly fit the profile of the typical employee.”
“Yeah, well. Being a notorious former hacker doesn’t endear me to potential employers.”
“A what?”
“A hacker, cracker, system intruder—whatever you want to call it. You probably saw me on the news and don’t remember. I was the first teen hacker given more than a slap on the wrist for accessing government computers.”
“You? I don’t believe it.”
She shrugged. “It’s true. I was stupid. I had no idea how much trouble I was getting myself into. I just thought of it as an interesting puzzle to solve.”
“So you were just breaking into these computers to see if you could do it?”
“Yeah, it’s not like I was stealing information or anything.”
“And they sent you to prison? That’s harsh,” he said, sounding outraged by the whole idea.
“It’s behind me. I don’t think about it much anymore. If I start thinking, I get pissed off.”
“What was being in juvenile prison like?”
“It sucked. I mean, think about it—there aren’t a lot of opportunities for white-collar teen crime. The kids I was in with were there for violent crimes, drug-related stuff, gang banging…It was a far cry from my old private girls’ school crowd.”
“So what did you do?”
“I suffered through, avoided eye contact, got my ass beat now and then.”
“That must have been awful…. Now that you mention it, I think I do remember seeing your story on the news. What did your parents think?”
“They were horrified that I’d broken the law, and they thought I deserved whatever punishment the court gave me.”
“That’s harsh.”
“That’s my good old ma and pa. Always on my side through thick and thin.”
“You get along better with them now?”
“Not exactly. We have our arguments, but mainly I’ve never totally forgiven them for not being a little more supportive back then.”
They walked in silence for a short while, and Yasmine began to wonder if she’d freaked him out to the point of silence.
Finally he spoke up again, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “Did you ever think about not becoming a programmer—maybe doing something outside the technical industry?”
Yasmine shrugged. “No. I applied to what felt like a hundred companies, and Virtual Active is the one that hired me.”
“No surprise there. For an office full of guys who sit around creating virtual sex games all day, you provide some pretty hot inspiration.”
“Ew.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve never realized that.”
“I did—I mean, I do, but I try not to think about it.”
“What about the heroine in Jungle Honey? Don’t you think she looks eerily similar to you?”
Yasmine laughed, her cheeks burning at the sudden realization that he was right. “Oh…my…God. We came out with that game about six months after I was hired.”
“You see? It was just a matter of months before they put you in a furry leopard-print bikini and had you tying unsuspecting tourists up with vines in the jungle.”
“And acting out kinky sex acts with them.”
“And with bananas.”
“Crap.” She covered her face with her hands and tried not to remember who exactly had been on that software development team.
“You don’t plan to spend the rest of your life creating virtual sex software, do you?”
“What’s wrong with that? Maybe it’s my calling.”
But it wasn’t. She had no idea what her calling was. She could only say what it wasn’t.
“You’d be wasting your talent.”
“Hey,” she said, forcing her face into a serious expression. “We create products that touch people’s lives.”
“Especially horny, dateless people.”
“It’s meaningful work.”
“You’re absolutely right,” Kyle said. “It’s only a matter of time before the Nobel Prize people figure that out and create a new award for work in simulated sex experiences.”
“Ha-ha.”
“Sorry, I had no idea you took your work so seriously.”
“You’re new to the business. You don’t have a clue how much time and effort I’ve put into creating realistic-looking male members.”
“Mmm-hmm. You’re right, I have no idea. That must be something you’ve had to study extensively firsthand.”
“Truth be told, I haven’t had nearly enough up-close, hands-on experience with real-life models lately.”
“Maybe you’ve been spending too much time working, not enough time researching.”
“Mmm. Want to be my research buddy?”
“Only if I get to do my own research, too,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. “So you’ve been at Virtual Active since college? About four years?”
“Five years. I made it through college in three years instead of four.”
“Oh, yeah? So you’re a genius or something?”
“I’m just impatient, that’s all.”
“And modest. I’ve heard through the grapevine that you can write circles around all the other programmers in the office.”
“Who’s been telling lies about me?”
“You’re like an urban legend. Yasmine Talbot, code-slinging superbabe.”
A bubble of laughter burst out of her. “Stop. That is not how my co-workers see me.”
But she knew he was right. It wasn’t hard to become legendary among a bunch of guys whose lives—and in some cases sex lives—existed mostly within a computer.
“So what do we tell everyone at this party about us? That we’re shacked up for the weekend?”
“How about that we’re co-workers, and this is our second date—on Christmas Eve because we’ve both been orphaned by our selfish vacation-crazed families.”
“Is that what we call this—dating?”
“We could say we’re just screwing, but…I don’t think there’s an actual word for what we’re doing—or if there is one, it’s not something we should be saying in polite circles.”
“So this Cass? She’s your best friend?”
“Yes, and she’s also on my shit list for making me leave my apartment tonight.”
“I promise we can make up for lost time later.”
She smiled. “I guess there’s really no hurry, right?”
“Right. If we don’t slow down a little, I’m going to be useless by tomorrow,” Kyle said.
They reached Cass’s building, and Yasmine led the way up the steps. They were ushered inside Cass’s apartment by a woman Yasmine didn’t recognize, and the place was filled with merry-looking couples.
Cass immediately spotted them hanging up their coats and headed over. “Hi! Nice to meet you,” she said to Kyle, her smile plastered on and her tone relentlessly cheery.
This was a sure sign that she intended to corner him before the night was through and grill him about his intentions and his pedigree and pretty much anything else she could find out. Later, she’d spill it all to Yasmine like a cat bringing home a prize rodent for its master. Cass did this to all of Yasmine’s dates.
Kyle smiled and shook her hand. “Thanks for having me over,” he said, and it was clear Cass would have no trouble getting him to confess his entire history.
For now, though, she excused herself and hurried off to the sound of crashing pans in the kitchen.
“That better not be my b?che de No?l,” Yasmine called after her.
She spotted a few friends talking near a sparkling Christmas tree and led Kyle in their direction. Would everyone be able to tell right away that they were imposters as a couple? That they were more familiar in bed than out?
She smiled and tried to think happy couple thoughts.
“Hey, Yasmine, I’m on your team for Trivial Pursuit,” a woman she knew as Nora, from Cass’s office, said. “She’s a total brainiac,” she added to her boyfriend, Lionel.
“I was hoping in the spirit of the holidays, we could skip the Trivial Pursuit for once,” Cass called from the kitchen.
“With Yasmine, that’s simply not an option,” Nora said, and she was right. A party was not complete without at least one Trivial Pursuit game, and usually a major argument breaking out over a Trivial Pursuit game.
She introduced Kyle to the group, carefully avoiding giving any more information than his name. Everyone’s gaze raked over him, and she could see a few of them trying to decide which question to ask first.
Nora, never one to tiptoe around the subject, dove right in. “So you two are dating?”
“Um, sort of,” Yasmine said.
“How long?”
She glanced at Kyle, hoping he’d have a good lie for an answer.
“Just a short while,” he said, smooth as could be.
He was cuter than her last boyfriend by a mile, and his casual J. Crew catalog style was far cooler than her previous guy’s affection for black leather pants—which, for the record, could never be removed quickly enough in the heat of passion.
All her friends would probably size up Kyle and deem him the catch of a lifetime, The One, and when he disappeared from Yasmine’s life in another few days or weeks, they’d spend the next ten years shaking their heads and secretly speculating on the exact reasons Yasmine was unable to hold on to men.
Likely they’d deem it related to her sordid past.
She could hold on to any guy she wanted, she supposed, if she actually wanted to keep him around. She glanced at Kyle and wondered if he had potential for more than just a weekend fling. He could hold a conversation, and he was smart and funny and great in bed, and her cat liked him. But there was that whole coworker issue. And the fact that something about him haunted her, left her feeling as though she was hanging out with a ghost from her past.
It was one thing to have hot sex with a co-worker and then have to go about pretending it never happened. But it was quite another matter to get real emotions involved, have a relationship, let the world know they were a thing, and then break up and have to live with all that emotional baggage sitting in the middle of the office between them.
And could he see her as something more than a pretty face? Could he care about her as a person as much as he cared about the way she looked? Did she even care?
No, she’d take the weekend fling and be happy with that. Yasmine knew that complications were to be avoided whenever possible, and that men were attracted to her for one reason alone.
But she watched and listened as Kyle launched into conversation with her meddlesome friends, fielding their nosy questions and behaving like a relaxed boyfriend rather than a guy she was screwing for the weekend, and he almost convinced even her that they were an item.
“Where did you two meet?” Nora asked.
“We work in the same office.”
“Ah, an office romance! I had no idea Yasmine worked with any cute guys. To hear her talk—”
“We’re all a bunch of pasty-faced geeks.”
“I’d hardly call you pasty-faced,” she said, and Lionel cast her a look.
Kyle shrugged. “I do some surfing, get some fresh air now and then.”
Across the room, Cass caught Yasmine’s attention and waved her toward the kitchen. She slipped away from the group and followed her friend.
“What’s up with you?” Yasmine asked as she surveyed the hors d’oeuvre tray Cass was preparing to take out to the crowd for something that didn’t look burned.
“Try not to look too smug, but that guy Drew is what’s up with me,” Cass said as she tried to hide the burned spots on the finger foods with a layer of spray cheese.
“You like him!”
“Well, I can’t say I didn’t like him, but I don’t know him well enough to know if I like him. What I do know is that there’s definitely some chemistry going on.”
Yasmine settled for an overdone mushroom and chewed it up fast to avoid experiencing too much of the flavor. “Let me just say for the record that the spray cheese isn’t going to fool anyone.”
“Aren’t you going to comment on the chemistry thing?”
“I’ll reserve my enthusiasm for your engagement announcement.”
“Don’t even go there.”
“Okay, I’m glad you’re giving Drew a chance. He’s one of the nicest guys I know, and he deserves a good woman. So that means no stomping on his heart.”
“Well, I can promise him some good sex, but that’s about it.”
She decided not to argue. Cass had been more into her ex-boyfriend than she had any other guy, and being dumped out of the blue had hit her hard. Even harder when the dumping happened over another woman. She was well past the rebound period though—it was time for her to move on to a guy who deserved her affection and get over her fixation on pretty, shallow men.
The acrid aftertaste of the mushroom hit Yasmine and she thought twice about bringing any of the cheese-sprayed mushrooms back to Kyle.
“I’d better go rescue Kyle,” she said. “Soon as you’ve had your date with Drew, I want all the details.”
“You’ve got a deal, so long as you give me a full report on Mr. Gorgeous out there.”
“There’s nothing to report. We’re just being weekend sex buddies, I guess.” She shrugged and turned away to avoid any further scrutiny.
Yasmine wandered into the living room, pausing near the doorway to watch Kyle interact with her friends. He was as relaxed as if he were among his own friends instead of a bunch of people eager to find out if he was his date’s soul mate or if he had some monstrous flaw. And she marveled that for once, she didn’t feel on edge introducing her date to her friends. She somehow felt just as relaxed as Kyle looked.
Bizarre, considering how little they knew each other, and how he could still reveal himself as an utter and complete nutcase, and she wouldn’t have any right to act surprised.
In fact, any second now, Yasmine fully expected she’d wake up and realize Kyle Kramer wasn’t nearly as great a guy as he seemed to be.