Blind Date Disasters & Eat Your Heart Out Read online

  “I don’t even know what ‘this’ you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t you?”

  Then she was falling, as he’d dumped her on the couch. Standing over her, hands on his hips, his chest rising and falling harshly. “I tried to talk to you before you went on either of those ridiculous dates,” he said. “You didn’t want to.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “No. You wanted surface stuff, like how’s the weather and can you redo my town house kind of talk. I’m trying to stick to that, because I understand you don’t want more, but in that dress, it’s nearly impossible.”

  “I didn’t mean to flash you,” she whispered.

  “What did you mean to do?”

  “Make you notice me.”

  “Done.”

  “Make you hot.”

  “Done.”

  Nervous, she licked her lips, and he groaned again. “Maybe you don’t realize the truth here, so let me spell it out. I want more from you than you can give. You’re too busy giving to everyone else. You give them your all and leave nothing for yourself, and I can’t stand it. I want a woman who knows her mind and isn’t afraid to speak it. I want—”

  “I know my mind and I was trying to give it to you,” she said in her defense. “It’s just that I couldn’t hold my breath and talk at the same time, so I chose breathing and you saw what happened.”

  “Yeah, you nearly gave me heart failure!”

  He wasn’t talking to her, as she’d wanted. He wasn’t even lusting at her at the moment, which would have been nice, too. But he was yelling at her, which was better than being ignored, but not quite as good as, say, getting a filling. “What did you mean, you want more from me?”

  “I’m tired of sending you off on dates you don’t even want, then having to rescue you. I’m tired of you saying yes to everyone but yourself. I’m tired of you dressing up for men too stupid to appreciate you. I’m tired of—”

  He broke off and clamped his jaw shut. Then he shoved his fingers through his already unruly hair and turned in a slow circle before facing her again, where she was still sprawled on the couch.

  “Tired of what, Tanner?”

  “Tired of fighting your wall.” He sank to the coffee table next to her. “You have one, you know. Made of stone. It’s probably from watching your father flit from relationship to relationship, or maybe it’s from fighting your mother’s strong will, I don’t know. But whenever I try to get close to you, you add another layer, fill up your moat, and hide behind it.”

  Not only was that true, but he was the first person besides Dimi to know her so well.

  He gentled both his voice and his gaze. “I’m good enough to fix your town house, good enough to give you a hand beating up your dates when they go bad. Probably even good enough to develop a passing friendship with, but that’s all you’ll allow.”

  She let out a disparaging sound, but didn’t know what to say because it was the cold, hard truth.

  “Am I close, Cami?”

  He was so close she could see the specks of light dancing in his amazing eyes. She could see the fair stubble lining his jaw. She could see his genuine frustration, and the fact that he cared enough to feel frustrated in the first place put an unexpected lump in her throat.

  And yes, he was close enough to the truth to have her closing her eyes to it.

  “No, you don’t,” she heard him say, and felt his hands on her face, cupping her jaw, lifting it to him. He waited until she opened her eyes again.

  “Don’t hide.”

  “It’s a habit of mine,” she admitted.

  “Not with me. Don’t do it with me.”

  “I don’t have a choice. You won’t go away like all the others.”

  A shadow of a smile flitted across his mouth.

  His very sexy mouth.

  “I really don’t want to like you,” she said around that lump blocking her air passage.

  Unexpectedly, his smile widened. “See?

  You’re being honest with me.” He nudged her.

  “Did it hurt?”

  “Less than a tetanus shot.” She had to return his smile. “And you should know I don’t want to want you, either.”

  “But you do.”

  “But I do. It’s making me do dumb things.

  Like wear this dress.”

  His eyes were on fire as they slowly, slowly, slid over her body. “That wasn’t so dumb.”

  For a long moment she looked at him, and he looked right back. It was doing funny things to her body. Her skin felt too tight. Her insides had turned to liquid, which seemed to pool in a bunch of places she hadn’t paid much attention to lately. “Tanner…what are we doing?”

  “We’re finding ourselves attracted.”

  “I don’t want to be attracted. I just gave up on men.”

  “When?”

  “Last night.”

  “Don’t give up on all of us.”

  Slowly she shook her head.

  “Go out with me,” he said, having no idea where that command came from. “Let me show you we’re not all jerks. You have needs, stop shelving them and pay attention to what they are.” He thought about her never having had multiple orgasms, but that thought just made him quiver with the desire to show her what she was missing.

  “Tanner—”

  “Just one date, your fantasy date.” He didn’t add the multiple orgasm thing. He didn’t want to scare her off. But he’d really lost it here. He wanted her, in a totally foreign, not purely physical way, though he was still hard as nails from seeing her perfect, rose-tipped, pebbled nipple. Just thinking about it made his mouth water again.

  “How do you know about my fantasy date?”

  “You told me. Well, you told you, when you were talking to yourself on your answering machine.”

  “Oh, God. How could I forget? You listened.”

  “Unabashedly.”

  She frowned. “And I’m not messing up all my dates to punish my father.”

  “No? Then go out with me.”

  “We wouldn’t work together.”

  She was scared, her eyes huge. And suddenly his impatience with her faded. “Just one date,” he said softly. “You’ve been out with some real losers, Cami. Just let me show you how it could be. How it should be.”

  “And then you’ll stop this.”

  “Absolutely.” Probably.

  Maybe.

  Okay, no, he wouldn’t. But for Cami, this was on a need-to-know basis, and she didn’t need to know that. So he smiled. “Want me to prove to you how much you want to try this?”

  She let out a nervous laugh. “I don’t think—”

  He leaned over her and set his mouth to hers. He had no idea what he was doing. Just the thought of Cami was a threat to his string-free heart, but he’d never wanted a woman so much.

  From the very first touch of their mouths, he knew he was in trouble. Heat spiraled through his chest, shooting a straight line of fire to his groin.

  Pure lust, he reminded himself, that’s what this was, and he whispered her name to remember that.

  She parted those soft lips. She tasted like strawberry lip gloss and the promise of something even sweeter. Without thinking—which had become impossible with the draining of all his blood for parts south—he deepened the kiss, using his tongue to touch, swirl, caress and tease hers.

  Without hesitation, she returned the favor, and within ten seconds he’d run out of air. Pulling back far enough to look at her, he slowly shook his head. “You’re right.” He ran a finger over her jaw, along her neck, his gaze dipping to the front of her dress, where her nipples were straining at the thin material, begging for attention that he was dying to give. “You obviously feel nothing for me.”

  “You don’t get it,” she whispered, her lips wet from his.

  “Tell me.”

  “You were right about…the others. I went out with them, with all of them, because I knew I was safe. My heart was safe. I would never have g