“I cannot believe you decided to come bowling when you could be on a date right now with Mack Stone.” Ashley shook her head at her as she pulled her hot-pink bowling ball out of the ball return.

Kindra rubbed her eyes. Her friends had been grilling her for the last forty minutes about her forthcoming night with Mack. And that was after a similar interrogation from Ashley earlier at lunch.

Trish, who was wearing jeans and a deep red shirt that matched her bowling shoes, set down her beer with a snort. “Seriously, Kindra, why play with bowling balls when you can be playing with Mack Stone’s balls?”

“Trish!” Kindra felt herself flushing. She was squeamish when it came to balls, what could she say?

Ashley and Trish laughed. Even Violet, who was even quieter than Kindra, looked amused.

If they only knew how much she wanted to play with Mack Stone and all his body parts, they would be beyond shocked. They would stop breathing.

“I didn’t want to let the team down. I’m going out with Mack tomorrow night.”

“We wouldn’t have minded,” Violet said, patting her leg as she sat down on the bench next to her.

Kindra knew her friends wouldn’t have minded. And she was actually the worst bowler of the four of them, so they would hardly miss her. But she’d been glad for the excuse. She needed twenty-four hours before she could face Mack.

If she faced Mack. Part of her was still wondering if she should cancel the whole thing and go back to anonymous online fun.

She knew what she was getting with Russ. Safe, clean, uncomplicated. He didn’t even know her last name or where she lived. Russ claimed to live in North Carolina which was a perfect distance from Ohio. Far away. She would never have to encounter Russ in the elevator at work or be cornered by him in her office.

Ashley stomped back from her turn, hands on her hips. “Spare. That’s the third one in a row.”

“I think I’m going to cancel,” she blurted out.

Trish dropped her bowling ball on the floor. It crashed, spun and landed in the gutter. “Crap, Kindra! You made me throw a gutter ball!”

While Trish’s ball rolled slowly down the lane, her friends rounded on her.

“You’re nuts,” Ashley said.

“Certifiable,” Trish said.

Kindra turned to Violet. “What do you think?” Violet would probably be on her side.

Violet brushed her long dark hair out of her face. “I don’t blame you. He sounds like the kind of guy I wouldn’t want to go out with. I like the gentle type.”

“You like the dorky type,” Trish said disparagingly.

Though Trish and her bad boy types weren’t exactly Kindra’s style, she had to agree that Violet went for quiet and uninteresting. Sort of like mild salsa. Why even bother? You’d be better off just biting a tomato.

“That’s not true.” Violet pulled on her sweater decorated with miniature pumpkins and shook her head.

Violet was even better at camouflage clothing than she was. Granted, it was October, and slightly cool, so perhaps knitwear might be warranted. But the pumpkins? Kindra couldn’t figure that out. She was not into revealing clothes personally, tending to favor conservative skirts at work and yoga pants on the weekends, but never once had she felt the urge to wear tiny pumpkins on her breasts.

“Well.” Trish waved her hand. “From what Ashley says about this guy, he’s hotter than hot, so if you cancel you’re just plain crazy.” She grinned. “Or chicken shit.”

It was true. She was chicken shit. And she had sworn to herself on her twenty-sixth birthday in July that she was going to stop being like that. She was going to take charge.

That had been the reason for going out and finding Russ, since real men hadn’t been working out for the last decade or so. Of course, Russ was real, he just wasn’t actually physically there with her. Or maybe he wasn’t who he said he was and then was he real? But at any rate, the point was, she had put her foot down on being chicken shit.

And here she was doing it again.

She squeezed her eyes closed. The feel of Mack pressed against her came rushing back.

“Fine, I won’t cancel.”

“Alright!” Ashley gave her a high five and said, “Now what are you going to wear? Because if you wear leggings I will beat you.”

Eliminating work clothes and leggings or yoga pants didn’t leave her many options. “Jeans?” she asked, biting her lip.

Trish said, “It depends on the jeans.” She tossed her thumb towards the lane. “Violet, you’re up.”

Ashley eyed her long and hard and said, “Don’t worry. We’ll fix you up. By the time we’re done with you, Mack Stone will be eating out of your hand.”

Her hand was not what she wanted Mack to be eating out.

Kindra mentally groaned. Help her, she was turning into a total pervert. And liking it.

When seven o’clock rolled around on Saturday, Mack was nervous and horny. Not necessarily in that order.

Nervous, because he wanted to do this right.

Horny, because, well, because he was going to have sex with Kindra.

As Mack drove through the West Park neighborhood of neat and tidy houses, he wondered again why a woman like Kindra had sworn off sex. He didn’t doubt for a minute that she had. The look on her face had been too serious.

It could be as simple as a sour relationship or just that no man had ever taken the time to give her pleasure. It made him angry that there were men who would just take and never give a thought to a woman’s pleasure. He wasn’t satisfied until the woman he was with was satisfied.

If Kindra had suffered through a string of lousy lovers, it was no wonder she was disinterested. He could fix that. He could satisfy her. He’d given himself twelve hours after all.

Mack pulled into the driveway of a white Cape Cod with gray shutters. It was tiny, but well-kept and there were a couple of pumpkins sitting on the front steps. He’d never pictured Kindra as the homeowner type.

They had worked together a lot over the past year, and about the only thing he could say about her for sure was that she was intelligent. She did her job well. Quickly and with little fuss.

Other than that, he couldn’t claim to know her at all.

He wanted to know her. And not just in the physical sense. He was drawn to her, attracted to that flash in her eyes that popped up from time to time.

Parking his black SUV in the driveway, he got out and rang the doorbell. He waited. And waited. He rang the bell again.

Rocking on the balls of his feet, he peeked in the window. He couldn’t tell if she was home or not. Had he been stood up? That hadn’t happened to him since… ever.

The door flew open. Kindra hovered there, her face pale and her eyes huge. Her hair was still tightly bound in a clip, and she wore no makeup that he could tell, but she had on a short skirt.

It hugged her hips and ended with a naughty little slit in the middle an inch or two above her knees. Mack swallowed hard. He’d seen Kindra’s legs plenty of times at work. But covered to the knee and sticking out from under a conservative black work skirt.

Now her smooth, creamy legs were very bare, making his hand ache to run along her calf. She wore sandals with straps and her toenails were painted a chestnut color, giving rise to images of her feet sliding across a white sheet.

Above the skirt rested a navy-blue tank top. Which was not revealing in any way. But given that Mack was used to having all of Kindra covered in layers of business boring, this was enticing.

The cotton top was straining against her lush chest. He stared in appreciation. Kindra had been hiding some great tits.

“Hi,” she said breathlessly.

“Hi,” he said with a glance up, then couldn’t stop himself from zeroing back in on her chest. Why had she been covering those up? It defied logic.

Her arms covered her chest and a pink hue tinted her cheeks. Her embarrassment was evident. It was also arousing.

With a smile, he reached out and pulled her arms away with a light tug. “No, don’t cover up. I’m enjoying the view. You have a beautiful body.”

She tugged her arms back. “You’re making me uncomfortable.”

“I’m going to see it all anyway, sooner or later.”

“Later,” she whispered.

“So, you haven’t changed your mind?” He needed to hear her say it, having had twenty-four hours to think about it, that this was what she wanted to do.

Her chest rose and fell. Her hand crept up to fiddle with the clip on her head. Finally, she took a deep breath and said, “No. I haven’t changed my mind.”

Thank God. Mack tried not to fall on the ground and kiss her feet in gratitude. But hell, for a second there, he had feared for his sexual safety. If she had said no, he might have actually suffered some real damage from lack of release.

He smiled at her. “I’m glad. Now are you ready for dinner?”

They didn’t talk on the ten-minute drive to the restaurant in a trendy rejuvenated old neighborhood. Kindra seemed to be concentrating on breathing, and keeping her legs crossed and far away from him. Mack was concentrating on driving and accidentally-on-purpose bumping her with various parts of his body as often as he could.

A thigh brush here, an arm rub there. At one point he stretched all the way across the front of her, brushing everything, to retrieve his sunglasses from the glove compartment. Kindra sucked in her breath and froze.

Whether or not it was arousing her, he couldn’t tell, but it sure had him hot and bothered.

Mack had called Mojo’s ahead of time and had requested the smallest table in the darkest corner. As he guided Kindra to the table, his hand on the small of her back, he was happy to see they had followed his instructions.

Once seated, they were sitting almost next to each other, plants and shadows separating them from the nearby tables. Their knees were touching.

Mack slipped his hand under the table and stroked her bare knee. Smooth and soft.

She jerked it away.

Now he intended to find out exactly why Kindra had chosen online sex over the real thing. And what would be his best strategy to please her. To make her moan. To have her begging for more.

He shifted as his black jeans swelled beneath the table. Damn. If he kept this up, he was going to knock the whole table over with his dick.

“So how does a nice girl like you wind up trolling for sex online?” he said, going with the element of surprise.

Kindra nearly swallowed the lemon wedge in her iced tea. Eyes watering, she coughed and sputtered. She should have known Mack would be curious and questioning. He certainly was at work, and it made him a good designer. But they weren’t talking about mobile compatibility here, they were talking about sex.

But this was not like a normal date.

Mack Stone was a cut-to-the-chase kind of guy. Working with him had shown her that. The encounter in her office the day before had confirmed that.

He was also a flirt and something of an expert on women. Everywhere he went, there were bound to be one or two dangling after him, giggling and smiling and offering to fetch and carry for him.

To Mack, this was probably just mild, everyday kind of stuff. Eat dinner, talk about sex, then do it. But for her, little Kindra Hill, this wasn’t exactly the kind of conversation she had on a regular basis. She didn’t talk about sex.

Well, if you didn’t count Russ, that is. But that was different. That was like an outlet, a hobby. Some women scuba dived, some women knitted. Kindra talked dirty to Russ.

Which somehow made her seem frighteningly illogical. Maybe it wasn’t too late to take up chess or spelunking. Tennis could be fun.

In answer to his question, she said carefully, “I’m not sure that’s any of your business.”

His ice-blue eyes never left hers. “You’re my business. For tonight anyway. I want to know you.”

Kindra shivered and wished she hadn’t let Ashley talk her into wearing this tank top. It was clingy and totally ridiculous for October, even if it had peaked at seventy degrees that afternoon. She had worn a casual blazer with the tank top at home, but the cut was so narrow, it had made her feel like she was encased in a strait jacket, so she had taken it off.

Now she wished she were covered in head to toe fleece. Loose fleece. A fleece sack. A fleece onesie, even. Then maybe she wouldn’t feel like Mack was looking at her and seeing her naked.

Of course, the whole point was that she wanted him to see her naked. No—correction. She wanted to see him naked.

But getting from here to there was the hard part. She almost wished he had just shoved her against the wall and gone deep the minute she had opened her front door. They could have forgotten all about this wine and dine part.

But that would make her a really cheap date. She was supposed she should at least spend the guy’s money first. She didn’t think Mack ever had to put any effort into getting a woman into his bed. She really should make him work for pussy. A flush started hiking up her face. She wasn’t so good at this in-person business.

“Well,” Mack said. “If you’re going to talk dirty, you should at least find someone who knows how.”

While this sounded interesting, Kindra was aware that though they were in a dark corner, they were still in a public place. With other people around. Mack’s voice sounded really, really loud to her.

She opened her mouth to shush him.

“I mean, that guy is completely unoriginal. Come on.” His voice rose another notch. “I want to lick your nipples until you come like a rocket, hot and wet…”

Yikes. Did he want a microphone in case the chef didn’t hear? Or maybe he could take out a billboard ad or start an Embarrass The Shit Out Of Kindra website. She darted a glance around and nearly hid under the tablecloth when she saw that two different tables of people were gawking at them.

Mack was oblivious to her horror. Or the shocked looks of their fellow diners.

“That sounds like he just typed a passage right from a porno.”

Kindra fisted her hands and whispered, “Mack!” Couldn’t he see she was mortified?

“Now if I was going to say something to you, it would be something like ‘I can’t sleep without seeing you in my dreams, spread out across my bed, your hair tumbling around you.’”

Wait a minute. Hold the phone. She looked at him in surprise. Was he trying to get poetic on her? That wasn’t part of their bargain. She couldn’t handle him saying lover-like things as if he actually cared about her. It would be too much like what she really wanted.

She sat up straight, startled at her thoughts. What did she really want? Sex with Mack, right? Nothing else.

Right?

Mack brushed against her knee with his leg and she felt it reverberate through every inch of her body.

“No? Not your style? How about ‘You’re a beautiful woman and I want you so bad I ache to taste you with my tongue.’”

Kindra had known she was no match for him. This confirmed it. He seemed to be teasing her, a little smile playing around the corner of his mouth. She sat stock still, afraid to move, afraid to say something needy and grasping, which is how she suddenly felt.

Vulnerable.

“Not doing it for you?” Mack smiled patiently. “Do you like it dirty? I can talk dirty to you, Kindra. How about… you’ve got a sweet little ass and I can’t wait to fuck it.”

Her mouth dropped. She swore she felt it clunk down onto her chest. She found her voice. “I don’t think, uh, dirty, is my style.”

Not that she had a style. But Mack using words like that when talking about her was too much. Way too much. So Russ used it with her all the time. But Russ wasn’t real, Russ was like her computer screen had just gotten really smart and was talking with her. Real, but not real at all.

Russ wasn’t looking her in the face. With gorgeous blue eyes and muscles rippling in his short-sleeve cotton shirt. Russ didn’t have a low, powerful voice that made women want to stand up and howl at the moon.

Russ wasn’t Mack. Oh, so real, and oh, so close.

Mack grinned. “Dirty’s not your style? Not yet, anyway.”

If she were inclined to be honest, which she wasn’t, she kind of liked it when he talked like that. But nothing was going to make her admit that. Not in public. If he tried really hard in private, using all his powers of naked persuasion, she might concede the point.

The waiter stopped next to them, brandishing plates of food. “Oh, look, our dinner is here!” She beamed at the waiter, then took a nice long swallow of her iced tea.

Maybe she should have accepted the wine Mack had suggested instead. She was a little tense.

When the waiter moved away, leaving the steaming fajitas in front of her, Kindra busied herself with filling and rolling up a tortilla.

As Mack did the same, he suddenly asked, “How old are you?”

Pausing with a pepper on her fork, she looked at him. He wasn’t looking at her, but was cutting his chicken. It was a harmless question.

She answered, “I’m twenty-six.”

“How long have you been in this position?”

“Position?” she asked. She hadn’t kept records of how long she could maintain a sexual position. What the hell, did he think she was a gymnast?

“Yes. At work.”

Right. Work.

“Four years.” Kindra took a bite of her fajita and savored the spicy flavor.

“So do you own your house or do you rent?”

Was this a loan application?

She swallowed her food and said suspiciously, “Why do you ask?”

He shrugged and leaned back against his chair. “I’m just trying to get to know you, that’s all.”

Well, stop it. That was the last thing she wanted.

This was supposed to be like the live version of Russ. Anonymous. Sex for the sake of sex. Mack would try and prove his point, she would get to fulfill a year-long fantasy and everything would be awesome. On Monday they would pretend this had never happened, and life would go on.

Instead of telling him that, Kindra found herself saying, “I just bought the house six months ago. I was tired of living in an apartment.”

“I know what you mean. I have these neighbors who are always yelling at each other. And I’d like to get a dog, but my building has this ten-pound rule. What kind of a dog is under ten pounds?” He shook his head. “Not any kind of dog I’d want.”

The image of Mack with a bichon popped into her head. She giggled before she could stop it.

“What?” He paused with his fork halfway to his mouth.

“Nothing.” She put her napkin in front of her so he wouldn’t see her smiling.

“Tell me.”

“Okay.” She dropped the napkin. “I was just picturing you walking a bichon. With bows in its fur and a little hot-pink sweater.”

Mack’s lips twitched. “Hey! I don’t think so.”

Kindra laughed. “You could call her Bitsy. She could ride in your backpack with your laptop.”

Mack looked amused. He grinned and said, “You’d like to see that, wouldn’t you?”

“I’d love to,” she said with relish, not stopping to temper her words. For a minute, she’d forgotten that he was Mack Stone, and she shouldn’t be herself with him. She had forgotten that over the years she’d learned it was better to fade into a corner than draw attention to yourself.

Her philosophy at work had been put up and shut up. Do her job and leave the office politics to those who were capable of handling it.

Hide the bod and the brain.

It had worked.

But it also left her feeling unfulfilled and restless. Daring. Reckless.

Capable of throwing herself into a steamy one-night stand with Mack Stone.

“I like you, Kindra,” Mack said, his tone changing from amused to aroused.

Her laugh cut off. His hand was on her knee. My God, he was stroking up her leg, past her thigh, to her…

A gurgling sound left her mouth.

“Mack.”

Did that ridiculous breathy voice belong to her? She’d never heard that kitten purr emerge from her mouth in her life.

Flustered and hot, Kindra tried to back her chair out to remove herself from his reach. She hit the wall.

Mack’s hand settled onto her inner thigh above the knee, stroking lightly back and forth. Her skirt was bunching a little. He was barely even leaning to reach her and she felt a little like a fish on a hook must feel. She could thrash about, but that would only make it worse.

Besides, it felt… good. Naughty. If anyone was glancing their way, it would look like he was resting his hand on her knee under the table. No big deal, people did that all the time.

Gripping the table, she strove to act normal. Mack was eating more chicken with his free hand, his face a delicious combination of feigned innocence and wicked intent.

She wanted him. His fingers were a vicious little tease, so close yet so far, and she was having trouble breathing. Her nipples were beading painfully against her tank top, and she ached and throbbed.

With a deep breath, she reached for her fajita.

Mack pinched her inner thigh lightly, sending a jolt of heat surging between her legs. Her hand jerked and the fajita fell on the table, beef tumbling out.

Mack, his blue eyes clouded with desire, said, “I think we’re skipping dessert, aren’t we?”

He had reached the front of her panties and he was stroking, stroking, stroking.

Yeah, yes, uh-huh, that would be correct. Dessert was the furthest thing from her mind.

Would it look pathetic if she called for the check now?

Mack said, “I’m not really hungry. Let’s get this to go.”

She was liking him more and more each minute.