Write It Up!: Rapid Transit / The Ex Factor / Brewing Up Trouble

She smiled, and he smiled back, and suddenly, two hundred and forty seconds wasn’t nearly enough. And then she realized she was wasting them by just sitting there ogling him. Oh, wait, no, she wasn’t. There was no way a second could be wasted, provided she was within viewing range of Daniel 9.

“So tell me a little bit about yourself,” she said.

“Well, I don’t like piña coladas,” he told her, “or getting caught in the rain.”

“Excellent,” she concurred. “I’m not much for either myself. So what do you like? Raindrops on roses? Bright copper kettles?”

“I can handle those,” he said, “as long as you don’t make me go bicycling through the Alps with a bunch of kids wearing lederhosen made out of curtains.”

So he was familiar with The Sound of Music, Julia thought, putting another mental gold star by his name.

“What do you like to do in your spare time?” she asked.

He lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “I don’t know how to say it without sounding really boring,” he said.

“Try me.”

And, gosh, smart guy that he was, he totally picked up on her double entendre, because his smile this time was a little suggestive. Oh, goody.

“The usual stuff,” he told her. “Movies, music, books, eating out.”

“Sports?”

“Some,” he said. But he didn’t start frothing at the mouth the way some guys did, which was a definite bonus. “I like to watch the Rangers when I get a chance.”

Hockey. A manly man sport. Cool.

“And since I grew up in Indiana, I’m really into college basketball.”

A small cry of delight escaped Julia before she could stop it. “I grew up in Indiana, too,” she told him. “What part?”

“Indianapolis,” he said, obviously as pleased by the discovery as she was. “How about you?”

“Evansville. So do you miss Bobby Knight as much as I do?”

“Hell, yes,” he told her. “I don’t care what anyone says about him, he was the best damned coach that team ever had.”

They launched into an enthusiastic dialogue about college hoops, which was inescapably what Hoosiers talked about when meeting for the first time outside Indiana. Or inside Indiana, for that matter. All too soon, the bell was sounding, announcing the end of their date and Daniel 9’s departure.

“Dammit,” he muttered, sounding genuinely hacked off.

Oh, they really did have so much in common, Julia thought. She was peeved by the bell, too.

“Intermission’s coming soon,” he said as he stood. “I’ll be looking for you, if you don’t mind.”

“I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’ll find me with little trouble,” she assured him.

He grinned at that, lifted a hand in farewell and walked away. But not without looking over his shoulder and meeting her gaze. Six times. Not that Julia counted or anything.

The men who visited her table in the next half hour might as well have had names followed by the number zero, so lacking in everything were they when compared to Daniel 9. Nevertheless, Julia made a few perfunctory notes and decided a couple of them might be worth checking off at night’s end, if for no other reason than to provide her with some amusing anecdotes for her story.

When the long bell sounded to announce intermission, she couldn’t get out of her chair fast enough. She should have been starving for hors d’oeuvres and badly in need of another appletini, but she tucked her notes into her tiny purse and headed for the women’s room instead. Not that her bladder was her primary concern. She needed to check herself in the mirror, to make sure she was at her dazzling best. Then she would find Daniel 9 and keep him occupied for the entirety of intermission. With any luck at all, he’d give her an anecdote—or something of an entirely different nature.

CHAPTER TWO

DANIEL TAGGART WAS FIGHTING off a major wiggins at the lusty look he was getting from Edna 12, a woman old enough to be his mother, when the long bell signaling intermission finally rang. With a hasty farewell and without a second thought, he retreated to the men’s room, wanting to regroup before he went in search of Julia 6.

What a tasty little morsel she was going to be. In fact, of all the women he was going to, ah, meet while researching and writing his article for Cavalier magazine, she might end up being the most luscious treat. He quickly scanned the list of dates he’d had so far tonight. Man, the way things were going, she’d be his only treat from this batch. Not that he hadn’t checked off a number of names. But few of them were women he really, truly wanted to, ah, meet. Even for the sake of his article.

He was thankful—and not a little surprised—that the subject of careers hadn’t come up while he was talking to Julia 6. So far this evening he’d managed to muddle his way through that mine-filled swamp by lying through his teeth. No way could he tell these women his editor’s most recent assignment was a story about the potential for racking up one-night stands through speed-dating events. That was guaranteed to ensure no-night stands with the women Daniel was targeting for his story.

There was something about Julia 6, though, that made him think she’d be difficult to lie to. He couldn’t imagine what. He’d gotten extremely good at lying to women, even before he attended his first speed-dating party a week ago.

As if he needed something like speed-dating to fuel-inject his love life. Not that his love life contained anything remotely resembling love.

Sex life, he corrected himself. There. That was more like it. And Julia 6 was going to be a very nice addition to it. Even better, he suspected, than the two women with whom he’d had success at the event last week. And certainly better than the other women he also planned to score with at tonight’s.

When Daniel emerged from the men’s room, he scanned the crowd until he located Julia 6, at the exact moment she spotted him. They grinned at each other the moment their gazes connected, and, as one, they began to cross the room toward each other. They met precisely in the middle, but not before Daniel noticed what extraordinary legs she had under her short, frilly dress, and how nicely they complemented her incredible breasts.

What was weird, though, was that his gaze kept traveling upward and landed above her neck, and that was where it ultimately stayed. Yeah, her face was as extraordinary as the rest of her, but it was something in her wide green eyes that really captivated him. Not the gaudy, glittery shadow he’d seen turning up on so many women lately, but the fact that the gaudy, glittery shadow seemed so out of place on her. Even weirder was that Daniel usually liked to see women wearing a lot of makeup, but now he found himself wanting to know what Julia 6 looked like without it.

The dress, too, as nice as it looked on her, made him wonder what she looked like out of it. And not naked out, but wearing-something-more-casual out. Which was the weirdest thing of all.

“How many names have you checked off so far?” he asked when they came to a stop in front of each other.

She didn’t even look at her list before telling him, “Only one.”

“What a coincidence,” he said. “I’ve only checked off one name, too.” The lie left an immediate bad taste in his mouth, surprising him. What the hell was up with that? Why did he feel so guilty all of a sudden? He was only doing his job, for chrissakes. “I wish we could leave right now,” he added. That, at least, was the truth.

He could tell by her expression she felt the same way. In spite of that, she said, “I can’t. I really need to see this through to the end.”

“Me, too,” he told her. Then, because for some reason he felt that it was necessary to embellish his lie, he added, “For my buddy, I mean. But we should be out of here by eleven,” he added. “What are you doing afterward?”

Her eyes widened in surprise at the invitation. “I, um, I really don’t have any plans,” she said.

“Let’s have a drink.”

She expelled a soft little sound of surprise that he found strangely erotic. “O-okay,” she agreed.

The bell rang to notify everyone that intermission was drawing to a close, and Daniel really needed another drink before facing round two. “Just meet me downstairs in the lobby when it’s over,” he said. “You need a drink before you head back into the fray?”

Her expression made him think she was a little flustered by the speed at which things between the two of them were progressing. Which was good, he thought. Why should he be the only one here who felt muddle-headed?

She nodded. “Please. An appletini.”

“Not a cosmo?” he asked. After all, that was what all the other women he’d met tonight had been drinking.

She shook her head this time. “Too trendy. I don’t like to be like everyone else.”