Betting Hearts (13 page)

Or at least, it would have if Burke weren’t completely impenetrable. The jerk. Cass crossed her legs the way she’d seen the Almighty Marilyn do it and mentally stuck her tongue out at the man in the kitchen. At least she’d picked up
that
much from the movies.

All the dishes were put away by the time Cass arrived, so Burke didn’t know how long he was going to be able to hide in the kitchen. And he didn’t in the slightest feel bad about hiding. It was the only thing a man could do when overcome by a libido completely without sense. Opening the door to Cass was like discovering the most erotic Christmas ever, in the middle of April.

She wasn’t supposed to have legs that went on for miles. They certainly weren’t supposed to be shapely and exposed. Even May Belle’s dress was of a sensible length. This little blue number had no idea what the meaning of sensibility was. Or gravity, for that matter. He bet if she bent over at all, anyone behind her would think it was Christmas, too.

He filled a glass with water straight from the tap and gulped it down.

It wasn’t enough. Nothing short of tearing her dress off with his teeth would be. But he couldn’t do it. Hayne made his opinion clear; meaning Eddie probably had the same one. The line in the sand was drawn. A man did not sleep with his friend, especially not a man like him, one utterly incapable of caring for a woman outside of the bedroom. He couldn’t treat Cass that way. He would not touch the friend. No licking the friend, either. If he could get away with not looking at her, he’d do it.

First things first, he was going through her new wardrobe and would probably throw away half of it. She’d only need the clothes for a few weeks anyway. Afterward, she’d go back to being his favorite couch potato, a loudmouth armchair quarterback.

Little Miss Mud Pie. Little Miss Mud Pie. Little Miss Mud Pie.

He kept repeating the phrase in his head as he put the glass on the drainboard and went into the living room. He circled the couch, feeling much better prepared to deal with her, even willing to smile about this idiocy. Until he saw her.

This
wasn’t
Little Miss Mud Pie.

This was Miss Scorching August.

Miss Coconut Body Oil.

Miss Ride ’em, Cowboy.

For the first time in his life, he wished he didn’t wear boots.

“Burke?” She turned those glittering green eyes on him, her irritation having flushed her cheeks. She’d been chewing on her bottom lip again, he could tell. It was wet. Pink. Pouty.

He forced his eyes to look for safer ground. Why couldn’t he find any?

She couldn’t know her skirt lay high enough on her thigh that he could see the lacy tops of her stockings. Who wore garter belts these days? Who knew he liked them? Especially pale, pale blue ones, with tiny satin flowers on the straps where the clasp held onto the lace.

“Burke?” She shifted, thank God, pivoting in her seat and leaning forward. Then he realized the heart-shaped top of her dress didn’t come up nearly enough. The shadow or nipple question reared its ugly head again. What? Wasn’t there enough fabric to make a whole dress?

“Cass?”

She brightened at the use of her name. She braced her weight forward onto her arms, pressing her breasts together, answering the nipple question with strawberry clarity.

“We need to get you out of that thing,” he said, closing his eyes and wiping the beginning of sweat from his brow.
Do not look. For the love of God, don’t look.

“What?”

“The dress. It has to go.” He opened his eyes. He was only human. Even he had to admit there were times when he was weak. Not that he felt good about it. Especially not when she smiled as if he told her she won a jackpot.

“You want me to take off my dress?”

Why doesn’t that sound like what I said?
Shrugging off his apprehension in favor of his salvation, he let it go. “Yeah. I’m sure if we go to the bedroom—”

“Why bother with the bedroom?”

He blinked. “What?”

“I can take it off right here, if you like.” When did she get that sleepy look to her eyes? She never had it before. The green was smoky almost. With her cheeks flushed and her mouth all wet…damn if she didn’t look like she was coming out of his bed.

“But my clothes are in the bedroom.” That sentence might have sounded less stupid if he hadn’t tripped over his tongue twice to say it.

“Who needs clothes?” She stood up, already reaching behind herself for her zipper.

What was going on? She was going to take off that miserable excuse for clothing. In
front
of him? “
You
do! Can’t have you walking around in nothing.”

She stopped moving, her whole body tensing. “Wait a minute. You want me to
change
? Into
your
clothes?”

He nodded, not altogether sure how far her zipper had descended. He only knew he didn’t
want
to know. He didn’t. He waited, hand extended to stop her progress, wondering what in the world had gotten into her.

“I knew it. I knew I couldn’t do this. I just knew it.” She released the back of her dress, bringing her hands around to her face.

The zipper made no sound of movement, so he assumed she hadn’t gotten around to lowering it in the first place. Breathing a sigh of relief, he put his own hand down. “Couldn’t do what?”

“Seduce you. Alice said I could and for a minute there I believed her. I mean, you had that look on your face again. I thought maybe she was onto something. God, I must be out of my mind.”

Burke frowned. She was there to seduce him? Before he could make much sense of it, she turned around, still mumbling to herself, and headed into the hall, rendering him speechless. Rock hard, stupid and speechless.

The zipper made it all the way down her back. As she walked out of the living room, the gaping hole went from her shoulder blades to the small of her back without a stitch of fabric to mar the path.

She disappeared into his bedroom and he made it a point to disappear into the kitchen. Preferably into the freezer.

Chapter Six

Cass didn’t know what she was going to do without a bra, but she didn’t care. So what if everything swung all over the place, Hayne was right about Burke not noticing.

She dug out a T-shirt and dragged it roughly over her head. She cringed a little at the crunching sound of her hair being pulled down by the collar before deciding it didn’t matter. Irritably, she undid the clasps on the stockings, rolling them down her legs as fast as she could. With a sour toss, she flung them in the direction of Burke’s bed. A bit of wiggling later, the satin octopus of a garter belt was over there somewhere as well.

She grabbed another pair of Burke’s sweats, this time dark blue. He never wore them, but accepted them when she gave them to him for Christmas. She should have bought them in her own size. He wouldn’t have known the difference. Purely out of spite, she grabbed his favorite pair of socks—the ones with the reinforced toe and heel in dark blue—and dragged them on. A quick glance in the mirror showed her hair pretty much springing back into shape and her makeup hadn’t smeared. Well, she wasn’t taking that off, so he’d better get used to it.

She stomped back into the living room, finding him waiting by the window. The relief on his face was unmistakable. Cass wanted to punch him. Was her body frightening or something?

“Good, you’re ready.”

She crossed her arms and smirked. “For what? Wrestling?”

“Nope, dinner.”

She frowned. “What does dinner have to do with this?”

“Facts are, a lady has a certain way of eating. You, on the other hand, eat like a man.”

How did he get away with making his every opinion sound like a fact? “I eat like everyone else.”

“Everyone else polishes off two foot-longs in ten minutes?”

She fought the urge to blush. “I don’t have a lot of time when I’m out on the sites.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you need a wet-nap for your entire face afterwards. Table.”

She scowled as she followed his pointing finger to the dining room table where they’d played poker only a few days ago. Yanking out the chair, she dropped into it and waited for him.

“Wrong.”

“What?”
What does he have to be smug about?

“A lady doesn’t yank a chair like it’s the rope in a tug-o-war. She waits for her date to pull it out for her and she slowly sits.”

“When was the last time a guy pulled out a chair for me?”

“When was the last time you expected it? You made me open the door for you last night. We both knew you weren’t going to budge until I did.”

She flicked her hand at him. “That was different. I was having fun. Besides, it was you.”

“By expecting something, you changed how I treated you.” He blinked as if realizing something. “You don’t treat me like other men?”

Did she sense affront there? Good. It was something, at least. “No, I don’t see you as a man at all. You’re Burke. Rhymes with jerk, so it’s easy to classify you.”

He narrowed his eyes, but she refused to let him intimidate her. He could stand there and glare all he wanted. Finally, he sighed. “Just stand up and do it again.
Pretend
I’m a man, okay?”

Cass stood up, knowing she was being petulant and not caring. “Fine. You’re a man. Congratulations.” She extended her hand to him.

He looked at it like she was offering a snake. “What are you doing?”

“I’m a lady, you’re a man. In this particular fantasy land, wouldn’t you walk me to the table?”

He muttered something and walked around her to stand on her left. She started at the feel of his wide palm on the small of her back, its warmth seeping past the fabric faster than she expected. He used fingertip pressure to guide her forward, giving direction with such subtlety she didn’t think to argue with it. Easing out the chair, he gestured for her to sit.

“Don’t flop into it. Slide to the middle of the chair. When you’re ready to sit, don’t. Keep your weight on your toes and I’ll push the chair up to the table for you. Otherwise it will scuff or you’ll be hopping up and down. If you’re wearing a dress like tonight’s people won’t be watching you to see how well you eat. They’ll be timing how many bounces it takes for you to fall out of it.”

She pursed her lips, holding herself back from saying something rude. Appropriate, but rude. Carefully, she did what he said. It was stilted, but she did it. She was proud, for all of the ten seconds between completing the maneuver and his order to do it again. By the twelfth time she sat down, she was back to being irritated.

“I think I have it now.”

Burke shrugged. “What you think doesn’t matter. You want me to help you because I know what men expect. I expect you to have grace in everything. Now do it again. Try to float.”

Float? Like one of your lame ex-girlfriends?
That gave her an idea. Straightening her spine, she went back to mimicking Marilyn. Moving her hips with a little bit of undulation, she left Burke’s hand behind and made her way to the table. She would have been fine, but he never came to push the chair in. She turned behind herself to look back at him, but he covering his eyes with his hand. She sighed, stood and went back to their preset start mark near the couch.

“Never do that again.” His voice grated so low she almost didn’t hear him.

“Why not?”

“Just…don’t, okay?”

Poor guy, he looked a little pale, actually. Finally, she realized this was getting on his nerves as much as hers. Quelling all her irritation, she reminded herself there was a lot more to a meal than walking to the table. She had better get through it.

They never did get to eat. Four hours of learning how to sit, how to hold your utensils like they were eating implements instead of weapons, proper napkin placement and how not to kick your partner under the table had a way of sucking the hunger right out of a guy.

Burke watched Cass walk out to her car muttering something about pizza. She did what he told her and kept her hips to herself during the entire lesson, thank God. It was easier teaching her proper boxing stances than it was to do this. Even now, her natural ability to physically mimic anything she saw had him feeling uncomfortable. Getting punched in the eye had to be better than the punch in the gut he got watching her wave her ass like a red flag in front of him. She managed to get lighter on her feet and he managed to keep his hand within legal limits of her spine.

The sooner this dumb bet was over, the better.

Exhausted, he turned off his lights and headed to his bedroom wanting nothing more than to drop face first onto his pillow and sleep like a brick. Which was exactly what he did.

Discovering a mouthful of lace.

Stunned, he reached out for the bedside lamp, clicked it on and stared at his pillow. Apparently, it had new friends. A little pale blue buddy made out of nothing more than every male fantasy ever had. Next to it were two hastily strewn stockings, scenting his pillow with a wisp of vanilla. When did she start smelling like vanilla instead of mud? He groaned, not daring to touch them.