The Matchmaker's Playbook

She wanted David. She deserved David. I’d get her David if it killed me.

While she changed, I pulled up Blake’s profile summary and glanced at David’s class schedule. He had a class in an hour and would most likely be hanging around the gym soon after for a light weight session followed by practice.

“Ready!” Blake appeared in front of me.

I lowered my phone, eyes narrowing as I examined her from head to toe. I circled her like she was my prey, and wished it were actually true.

“Who got you that tank top?”

“You don’t like it?” She looked down and gripped the loose-yet-sexy tank top with a leopard print sports bra underneath. “Gabi loaned it to me.”

That Gabi was really trying my patience. First, she got me sick, and now? Now she’s loaning sexy clothes to her roommate?

“It’s nice.” With a shrug, I turned my head to the left, then leaned over, my face staring directly at her tight ass. “New spandex?”

Blake did a little wiggle. Or actually, her ass did.

When asses wiggled, I had a tendency to pet them.

Because really, that’s what an ass shake was—an invitation to touch, and as a man it was my job to make sure that the ass knew that, yes, I would be paying a lot of attention to it later.

“Great,” I croaked, peeling my eyes away from the gray-and-black tiger-striped spandex. “No.”

“What? You just said ‘great.’” She turned around, her eyes lowered to where mine were still fastened.

“No.” I pointed at the offensive flip-flops. “If you want David, you have to give these to the Goodwill, or better yet, burn them, or”—I paused and added a small smile so she wouldn’t be too offended—“leave them on your doorstep so I can steal them and stash them under my pillow. We’d always have the flip-flops.”

I was turning into a lunatic.

Another reason she needed to get with David sooner rather than later. If I kept this up, I was going to grow ovaries and ask the clerk at Walmart where the tampon aisle was.

“I’m wearing them.”

“No.” I crossed my arms to match her stance. “You aren’t.”

“Make me take them off.”

“You don’t think I can?” We were chest to chest. I could smell her vanilla ChapStick. Her wavy golden-brown hair spilled over her shoulders.

The room was so tense I was surprised I could even breathe.

“Ian.” She purred my name, and I was done for, seriously done for. Damn woman. “Please?”

“Stop that.” I pointed at her eyes. “Stop batting your eyelashes. I’m immune!”

She kept batting them, her smile growing wider and wider, making her look more adorable than sexy. Which was a hell of a lot worse, because sexy you slept with, adorable you kept.

Forever.

I needed to look away. “Damn it.” I rolled my eyes, breaking contact. “Whatever. Just remember, I warned you.”

“Thanks.” She slapped my ass just like I had done to her a few minutes ago. It tingled. It tingled hard. It tingled good.

With a groan, I followed her peppy steps to the door and mentally moved up the timeline. She wanted David?

She was going to get him.

By this weekend.

My heart did a little skip.

I brushed it off as heartburn and rushed her to my waiting SUV, my eyes lingering on her ass the entire way.





CHAPTER TWENTY

“You know”—I smirked—“this isn’t a sting. You can take your sunglasses off. Plus we’re inside, so it kinda makes you look like a loser. Just saying.”

Blake elbowed me hard in the ribs and kept her sunglasses on, lifting her chin high into the air. “But you said not to make eye contact, and that’s really difficult for me. Thus the sunglasses.”

“Dude, just look at his crotch.”

“His crotch?”

“Yeah, he’ll eat that shit right up.”

Blake burned bright red. “I’m not looking at his crotch!”

A girl hurried by us, nearly knocking over brochures for the business program.

Blake covered her face with her hands. “Please tell me I didn’t just say ‘crotch’ that loud, twice.”

“Say it one more time. I promise it will be worth it.”

She lowered her hands and glared. “Any other pointers that don’t involve me staring at his—” She motioned in the air with her hands and coughed.

“His . . . ?” I cupped my ear.

Blake licked her lips, her cheeks still stained red as she said under her breath, “Groin.”

I kept my laugh in, just barely. “I think you can do better than that, Miss Nursing Major. I have an idea, let’s play Name the Parts!”

“No,” Blake hissed. “We aren’t naming body parts in the hallway while waiting for David to just stroll by! What if he walks by when I say—?”

“Penis?”

Her hand slammed over my mouth. “Shh!”

I peeled her fingers away one by one. Strong grip—good to know. “If you can’t say it, you probably shouldn’t be playing with it, you know?”

Eyes wide, she gasped. “I’m not playing with anyone’s”—she lowered her voice to a whisper—“penis.”