Dirty Trick (Perfectly Matched 1)

“Not TMI. I’m actually happy to hear it,” he said, making his way into the kitchen over to the coffee pot to pour himself a mug. “You haven’t dated since you moved here, and I was starting to worry. It’s about time you got out there. Someone you met at Chaz’s party or someone you know?”

“Nope. Never met him before.”

“And he was hung, huh?”

She shook her head and glared at Serena. “She said that, not me.”

“So, he wasn’t hung, or?” He looked decidedly less enamored with her tale and she changed the subject quickly. It had been fun rehashing her night with Serena, but with Trick it felt…off.

“Enough about me,” she said, opting to ignore and deflect. “What did you do last night?” Had his shoulders always looked so broad in that black peacoat? She resisted the urge to check her upper lip for sweat. Was it actually possible that one night of sex had turned her into some sort of nympho or something? Because she literally could not stop thinking about it.

“Not too much. Hung out with Alec for a while and then chilled around the house.” He looked away and snapped his fingers, beckoning Gandalf over. The dog hoisted himself from his doggy bed, plodded across the room and laid a slobbery kiss on his jeans-clad thigh. “Hey buddy, want to go for a walk today?” he murmured, rubbing the mastiffs big, square head.

Serena didn’t get the memo that they’d moved on to a new topic, and she slid off her stool. “So did she tell you her mystery man was dressed like a panther? Sexy, right? And he talked like Batman.”

“That sounds like fun.” He turned his attention back to Grace. “How did your ghost costume go?”

“It didn’t. I ended up going as a slutty vampire hunter.”

“Hey! That wasn’t slutty. You looked sexy and kickass. You acted slutty,” Serena said proudly.

Grace punched her friend on the arm and laughed in spite of her embarrassment. “I know I should be ashamed of myself, but I can’t find it in me.”

“Glad you weren’t saying that last night,” Serena deadpanned.

Trick held up a hand for a fist bump and Serena obliged him. “So are you going out with this guy again or what?”

“I’m not sure,” she hedged. It shouldn’t matter one bit between friends but for some reason, she couldn’t stand the idea of Trick thinking that she’d been such a lousy lay that her date from the night before had run out without bothering to set up a second meeting. Still, she hated the thought of lying to him even more.

“He said he’d be in touch,” Serena added. “I don’t know about you, but I think guys who say that and don’t call are the worst kind of scum.”

Trick looked thoughtfully off into the distance and went so quiet that Grace started to wonder if he’d tuned them out to pay attention to the news playing on the TV in the background when he nodded and turned his gaze on Serena. “Agreed.”

Her friends had a short but awkward staring contest, and a kernel of jealousy lodged itself neatly into Grace’s chest. What was going on with those two today? They’d always gotten on well enough. Granted, Serena was an insatiable flirt, but Trick had never seemed interested in the least. Now there was sort of weird tension between them and she wasn’t liking it one bit.

The moment passed and Serena turned to her with a tight smile. “Well, I’ll let you two walk the beasts. Write down all the details from last night and call me later. I expect a full accounting of the whole evening, blow—” she waggled her eyebrows “—by blow.”

She sidled up to Trick and fingered the collar of his coat. “I’ll see you around, handsome.”

A moment later, she was gone, leaving Grace alone with Trick and wondering if her lips were still swollen from last night. She wasn’t sure how to look less sexed, so she waved a hand toward the countertop.

“Why don’t you fill up the thermoses with coffee, and I’ll get my sweatshirt?” she mumbled and scurried down the hallway.

Once she was in her bedroom, she closed the door behind her and leaned on it heavily. What the hell was going on with her? Trick was her friend. Sure, he was dead sexy, and funny, and sweet. But he was also totally off limits. One of the best things about her interlude with the superhero had been that it gave her something to think about and look forward to that wasn’t off limits. So why was it that all of a sudden the only thing she couldn’t stop thinking about was Trick?

What she hadn’t counted on was this re-awakening of her sexuality making it hard to be around him. The things she’d imagined doing with—and to—a nameless, faceless guy during her two year dry spell had been a pale imitation of what she now knew the two of them could actually be doing if she made a move on him.

He wouldn’t say no.

That much, she was fairly sure of. He’d told her many times how pretty she was, and what a shit Vic had been for making her feel bad about herself, but it wasn’t only that. Every so often, when he thought she didn’t know it, she found him fixated on her ass or, more disconcerting, her mouth. His eyes would get all dark for a second, like he was imagining eating her alive. Then, a second later, it was gone, like a figment of her imagination. He’d never been shy about admitting that he loved sex and that he’d had more than his fair share of women. So would he sleep with her? Almost certainly. That’s what players did. And just as certainly, she would fall madly, irrevocably in love with him. It was only her terror of what she’d be left with when he invariably broke her heart that stopped her from doing it.

Would his mouth feel as good as Catman’s? Would he know how to touch her?

The door had been opened. Screw that, it had been mowed down by a tank fitted with a high powered assault weapon, and now it was like Pandora’s Box up in this place. She couldn’t stop thinking about it and all the things she’d been missing and how badly she wanted to do them with Trick.

A warm flush came over her, and she wondered if she needed the sweatshirt at all. She choked back a laugh. How Vic would taunt her now. She’d actually turned into the sex freak he’d always accused her of being. Now that was ironic.

“You almost ready?” Trick called from the living room. She fanned her face with her hand and shook her head at the empty room.

You have no idea.

…

Hung was good.

In fact, of the things a guy hoped for the morning after, hearing that the object of his attentions had told her friends he was hung ranked pretty high on the list. Definitely top three.

Not to mention that Grace was pretty damned chipper this morning. Maybe it was wishful thinking, but she seemed to have an extra swing in her step and a confidence about her that hadn’t been there twenty-four hours ago. All in all, it had been a pretty sweet way to start the day for him, but he was having a rough time of it now.

Trick walked a few steps behind Grace and vowed to keep his eyes on the trail. Easier said than done. If that ass had confounded him before last night, it was the bane of his existence today. Round, juicy and—he now knew—with skin soft as satin. He wanted nothing more in the world than to take a bite.

“How far do you want to go?”

Deeper, he nearly groaned in response, exactly the way she had begged him in the sauna. His cocked bucked against his gym pants, and he struggled to focus.

“Let’s loop around the pond and head back,” he said, hoping his voice sounded normal. “I have to run to the station this afternoon for a quick training on our new night vision goggles.”

“Sounds good,” she said, tossing a quick smile over her shoulder. She seemed happy, but distracted. Thinking about her “date” last night? He found himself fighting back another twinge of totally irrational jealousy. What an asshole. Here he was, lying to his best friend, and he was the one with hurt feelings? Love was a f**king kick in the balls sometimes.

She pushed off, slipping her water bottle back into the pocket of her heavy sweatshirt. She breathed into her hands and rubbed them together.

“Want my gloves?” he asked. “Or my coat?” He started to unbutton it, but she stopped him.

“Nope, you know my stance on wool.”

“Right, I forgot. Only sheep should wear it.”

She liked to say that a sweater made of fiberglass insulation would be more comfortable. Maybe it was the softness of her skin that made it tough on her. His dick hardened painfully when he recalled again exactly how soft that skin had been. Against his fingertips…against his lips. So hot and—

“Alrighty,” she chirped, cheerfully unaware of his perverse thoughts. She wrapped Gandalf’s leash tighter around her wrist then tipped her head forward up the path. “Onward.”

He whistled to get Skeeter’s attention, and they started the hike toward the lake. She chattered happily beside him, telling him about all the new clients she and Serena had managed to wrangle over the past month and sharing a story about one guy who was impossible to fix up because his mother showed up on every single date. He did his best to listen in spite of his churning thoughts.

“Is his mom single, too?” he asked, crouching to move a fallen limb to the side and clear their path.

“She actually is. Why? You interested?”

“Nope. But that’s the key right there. Find the mom a man, and she’ll be happy enough to leave junior alone. She’s probably lonely.”

Grace moved ahead and looked back at him. “Wow. That’s pretty frigging good.”

She sounded impressed, and that made him wish he had some more good ideas to throw at her.

“If you ever get sick of saving lives and want to do something important, let me know,” she teased. “I think we can find a spot for you at Love Will Find a Way.”

Her grin made his shoulders tense, but not because she was so damned hot, although she was. More because she looked so trusting. Like she could tell him anything. Like she cared about him and genuinely liked being around him. Like he was her best f**king friend. And he was nothing but a phony.

Out of nowhere, the weight of his secret felt too heavy to carry for another second. Had he been fooling himself in thinking that he’d be able to carry this through? That she’d be able to forgive him for what he’d done, or that he’d been right to do it in the first place?

“Grace, wait a minute.” He slowed as they approached the steep incline, wanting to talk to her before they got too out of breath since the next section was steep and more of a climb than a hike.

She had already set one hiking boot onto a boulder and had her bare hand wrapped around a thick tree root to hoist herself up to where Gandalf stood proudly waiting for his mama to join him. She threw a questioning glance over the shoulder. “What’s up?”

“I need to tell you something—”

He never got the rest out because there was an ominous crack. The root that had looked so sturdy broke off in her hand, and she went careening backwards.

She released Gandalf’s leash and pin-wheeled but couldn’t catch her balance, and before he could get close enough to grab her, she was flat on her back, her head landing mere centimeters from a jagged rock. His stomach pitched as Gandalf let out a mournful yowl and Skeeter barked.

Trick dropped to his knees into the leaves beside her. “Grace?” God, what if there was another rock underneath her that she hadn’t been lucky enough to miss? He searched the ground for blood, but saw none. “Answer me, damn it.”

Her dazed eyes stared up at him, and she shook her head. She couldn’t answer him. His heart thudded harder as all the possible reasons for that ran through his panic-stricken mind. Paralysis? No. She’d shaken her head. Severed vocal chords? That was ludicrous. So what then?

She sucked in a deep breath and blew it out. “Holy crud, that knocked the wind outta me!” she said and then drew in another lungful of air.