Just for Fun (2 page)

“When do we leave?” was what he would have expected to say in a situation like this. Not that he’d ever been in a situation like
this
, but if he would have imagined a situation like this that was what he would have said. Definitely.

Problem was, this wasn’t his imagination.

He wanted to have sex with her. It was like her body had been made specifically for his.

He’d found her g-spot without effort, the simple smell of her hair made him hard and they both liked it upfront, honest, hot and fun.

But he didn’t know her. Or her him.

What kind of woman asked a guy she barely knew to go to Chicago with her for three days to stay in the same hotel? Work or not, this was weird.

“While I share your appreciation of our sexual chemistry, there has to be a better reason for me to go along. We could have sex right here in Omaha and save some money.”

“I have to go for work.”

“I’ll be here when you get back.”

“I need you there.”

Ah. Now they were getting somewhere.

“Why me? There’s got to be a line of guys wanting to spend a weekend in a hotel with you.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Does it matter? If you think I’m such a catch, why not just be grateful I asked you?”

Why indeed. Because he was pretty sure he knew why she’d picked him and that meant they needed to get some things out in the open right up front.

He signaled to Melissa, the waitress tonight. She headed straight for him. Clearly his little conference with Morgan had caught everyone’s attention. Partly because Morgan stood out starkly in here and partly because she was with
him
.

“Hey, Dooley.”

“Hey, Mel, I need another beer and a Kahlua and cream. A double.”

Mel moved off and he focused on Morgan—who was staring at him. “You ordered me a Kahlua?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“It makes you talk.”

Her mouth dropped open. “How do you know that?”

“I spent three hours with you at the fundraiser before the unfortunate incident with security,” he reminded her. “Not only were you drinking it that night, but you told me it makes you talk. Right after confessing that you love men with blue eyes and lots of money, which meant, since I had both, I could talk you into doing anything with me.”

Her cheeks got bright red almost instantaneously. “I said that?”

“Twice.” He grinned at her appalled expression. He’d bought her two more Kahlua and creams after that.

“What else did I say?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I can see where it might be an advantage to surprise you with the things I know about you.” She’d been flirtatious from the moment he joined her at the Blackjack table, but she’d become even chattier as the night progressed and the Kahlua flowed. It wasn’t just the quantity of what she’d told him—there had been some true quality too.

Mel delivered their drinks and he watched as Morgan stared at her glass as if trying to make a difficult decision. But she did finally take a drink. Followed by sliding her eyes shut and sighing.

He chuckled and her eyes flew open.

“Okay, spill. Why do you want
me
to go to Chicago with you when I’m a virtual stranger?”

She licked her lips and he knew it wasn’t going to take much for her to talk him into this.

“We had a fun, hot, crazy night. No strings attached. No future plans,” she said.

He nodded his agreement.

“I need that while I’m in Chicago.”

“Fun, hot, crazy and no strings attached,” he repeated.

“Right.”

“Sounds great.” It sounded perfect. “But,” he went on “there’s something you should know.”

“If you tell me you have an STD I’m going to scream. Just so you know.”

He grinned. “Thanks for the warning. But no. It’s worse.”

Her eyes widened. “Worse than an STD?”

“Potentially.”

“If you tell me you’re married,
you’re
going to be screaming.”

His grin grew. He remembered this from the night of the fundraiser too. She’d been funny and he’d enjoyed the time they’d teased and talked
almost
as much as the time they’d spent moaning and panting. “I’m not married.”

“Good. Then what?”

“I don’t have any money.”

She blinked at him. Then looked down at his tennis shoes, at his T-shirt and then around the bar. “You know, that’s not as much of a shock as you might think.”

He chuckled even though she’d basically disparaged his favorite outfit and hang out in one sentence. “You told me you like men with money.”

“I do.” Then she sighed. “But all you have to do is smile and I want to take my clothes off, which is more important here.”

“This is sounding better all the time.”

She sucked in a quick breath as he leaned in. “I don’t think I can call you Dooley in bed. Is that what most women call you?”

“That or ‘oh, God’. I answer to both.”

She smiled and shook her head. “Dooley sounds like a frat boy name. Or a dog’s name. I’ll have to call you Doug.”

He shook his head. Dooley
was
a frat boy name. “I’ll be calling you Sugar for sure.” Morgan sounded like a nice girl’s name. You made love to a Morgan. But you could fuck a Sugar.

“You can call me whatever you want if you tell me you can
act
like you have money for three days like you did at the fundraiser.”

“How do you act like you have money? ‘Cause I’m not sure I can pull off acting like I’m better than everyone else.”

She frowned at him. “Act…polished. Like you…know how to use utensils,” she said, waving in the direction of his friends because of their earlier offer to send Kevin.

“I can probably pull that off,” he said dryly. Hell, he’d spent twenty years of his life in polite society. He could remember how to pull out a lady’s chair, not burp in public, tip the valets and make small talk.

“Good.” She looked genuinely relieved.

“That’s all you need? A date who won’t embarrass you?” he asked. “Still seems you would have a lot of guys to pick from.”

She stepped in closer and looked him directly in the eye. “I need a date who will be polite during the day and be downright indecent at night. Got it?”

Oh, he got it. He was undeniably the right man for this job.

She handed him a long, thick envelope. “Plane leaves Thursday at three.”

“I still think there’s more to this story,” he said.

She shrugged. “Show up and I’ll tell you everything.”

Then she turned and sashayed her tight little butt right out of the bar.

Dooley considered going out the backdoor and avoiding his friends. But he’d have to show up for work again at some point. Besides, they all knew where he lived. And frankly, these guys were more than friends and co-workers. They were all a part of each other’s lives to the point that avoiding them would be impossible and probably miserable anyway.

So he went back out front in the bar, braced for their questions and ribbing.

They didn’t disappoint him.

They were now seated at a table in the center of the room. Ben Torres caught his eye first and waved him over. Ben was an ER physician at St. Anthony’s, the hospital right across the street, where they all worked. As such, Ben was even keel, hard to rattle. He was also the newest addition to the group. But he fit right in.

“Damn, Dooley. You have way better taste in women than I’ve ever given you credit for.”

Sure, if Morgan James—he’d learned her last name from the personal info in the envelope she’d given him, for a fricking background check of all things—was his typical type. But she wasn’t. At all.

“God, I love redheads,” Sam Bradford said.

“You love
all
women,” Dooley muttered.

“Well, they all have something in common I really like,” Sam said with a grin. “They’re all
women
.” Sam hadn’t discriminated when it came to women at all. His collection had been eclectic and extensive. But it was all past tense anyway. He was head over heels for his wife, Danika. Who happened to be a strawberry blonde. There were definite touches of red in her hair but nothing like the deep rich color of Morgan’s.

Mac Gordon pushed a chair out with his foot. “Sit,” he ordered.

Mac was the oldest of the group and functioned as an older brother. He and Ben were brothers-in-law, married to sisters Sara and Jessica, Sam’s sisters. At one time, Mac had been the wildest of them all, so the sex-in-an-elevator-during-a-charity-fundraiser part of Dooley’s story about Morgan wouldn’t faze him. The leaving her in jail was going to ruffle all their feathers though.

Especially Kevin’s. Kevin Campbell was the nicest of them all. By a long shot. He’d been an All-American defensive lineman for the University of Nebraska Huskers, he’d been a wild child in high school and he’d had his share of women warming his sheets until about eight years ago. But he was now a devout Christian who had sworn off fighting, gambling, sex and drinking. He’d tried to swear off profanity and impure thoughts too, but he was still working on those.

“You did actually get her arrested?” Kevin asked.

Dooley slumped into the chair across from the man who knew him better than the others. “Accidentally. Don’t worry, I paid her bail.”

Kevin shook his head. “Who paid your bail?”

“Jeni came down.” Of his two younger sisters, Jeni was the one to call from jail at three a.m.

Actually, any of these guys would have been his first pick, but none of them would have let him leave a woman behind. Jeni hadn’t asked. She was one of those people who loved him and just showed up. These guys loved him, showed up, then needed every detail of what had happened.

Jeni didn’t want to know.

“The important part,” Sam said, “is what did you get arrested for?”

“The important part,” Ben disagreed, “is what does she want from you now?”

Dooley signaled for a beer and got comfortable. This might take a while.

Ten minutes later his friends were staring at him.

“So let me get this straight,” Mac said, leaning in on his elbows. “You got her arrested for suspicion of solicitation, which didn’t stick, and then for indecent exposure, which almost did. In fact, if Judge Rickman hadn’t been such a good friend it might have been a different story. And she
still
wants you to go to Chicago with her to a work thing based on how you look in a tux and what you can do in bed?”

“Elevators anyway,” Sam said.

Yeah, they’d never made it to a bed. Dooley took a long swig of beer and shrugged. “Guess so.”

“You’ve known her for what? About an hour total?” Ben asked.

Four and a half. Not that it mattered. “I guess it doesn’t take long for me to make a good impression,” Dooley said.

The more they talked about it, the better he liked the whole thing. She’d remembered him. For over a month. She wanted him enough to track him down, even with a fake name.

Women like Morgan James didn’t have to work for what they wanted very often. She was gorgeous, confident, and damned classy herself. That she’d tried to find him rocked.

He grinned and tipped onto the back legs of his chair.

“Then there are only two questions left,” Mac said.

“I’m ready.” He was feeling strangely full of himself.

“When’s the plane leave?”

“Thursday afternoon.”

“And are you Richard Gere or Julia Roberts?”

Dooley chuckled. “A
Pretty Woman
reference? Really?”

“Obviously he’s Julia Roberts. She’s the one paying for the hotel room, right?” Sam said.

“Definitely. Didn’t she go with Richard Gere to some work-meeting-dinner-thing too?” Ben asked.

“Dooley’s not gonna have a clue if they go to the opera,” Mac said.

The legs of Dooley’s chair
thunked
back to the floor. “We’re not goin’ to the opera.”

“And Sugar will be the one lookin’ hot in the slinky dress and bubble bath,” Ben added.

“I’d get into a bubble bath with her,” Sam said, “and Dooley will be the one with the colored and flavored condoms.”

“I’m disturbed by how well you all know that movie,” Dooley told them. “It doesn’t matter which one I am, since I’m not going.”

All four of the men who he considered his best friends in the world slowly set their glasses down and turned to face him.

“Why the hell not?” Sam was the first to demand. “That woman is way too good for you and she wants you anyway. Speaking as a man who is
with
a woman who’s too good for him, grab this opportunity.”

“Hear, hear,” Ben raised his glass in salute of Sam’s words.

“Amen, brother,” Mac added, clinking his beer bottle against Ben and Sam’s.

“While you are all completely right about being with women who are too good for you,” Dooley said, “I can’t just leave for three days out of the blue.”

“We’ll get the new kid, Conner what’s-his-name, to fill in,” Mac said. “No problem. The kid’s dying to hang out and learn all we know.”

Sam grinned. “I don’t know. I think he’s still scared of you,” he told Mac.

“He should be scared of me,” Mac retorted. “He was hitting on my wife.”

Mac’s wife, Sara, was Sam’s little sister and quite a bit younger than all of them, especially Mac. They all felt like older brothers to her. Well, except Mac, of course. The way he’d growled at and threatened Conner there was no question how Mac felt about the other man whispering in Sara’s ear.

“You think he’ll come work with you?” Sam wanted to know.

“If he’s interested in being the best damned paramedic he can be, or in landing a woman like Sara, he should be hanging on my every word,” Mac said.

They all laughed, but Dooley caught Kevin’s eye. His buddy was the only one who knew there was more standing in the way of the trip than just work.

“Can’t do it guys,” Dooley said, feeling disappointed himself. “Not this time.”

“Oh, so you’ll just wait for the next random knock-out redhead to come along and ask you to go on an all-expenses-paid trip to have sex with her for three days,” Sam said. “Sure. Probably sometime next month, right?”

He agreed it sounded idiotic but, as close as they were, the guys didn’t know that beneath his laid-back, irreverent attitude, he had stress. A lot of it. He didn’t like letting people get too close to that, so he put on the front of just not wanting any serious relationships. But the truth was, sometimes he felt held back from having everything he really wanted.