MoreThanWords (2 page)

The computer beeped her back to reality.
It’s your move.

Oh God, he was expecting her to reciprocate. This was bad.
Very, very bad.

Give me a minute to think of something… Sorry, I’m a
cyber-virgin.
She slapped both palms over her face. God, how lame was that?

Another ping from the computer and she peeked out between
her fingers to read Travis’ message.
I meant it’s your move in the game, as
in Scrabble. But thanks for sharing. It’s an honor to be your cyber-first.

She groaned.
You must be laughing your ass off over
there.

No, but I am smiling. You’re fun. Funny too, in a good
way.

Well, that made another first. Responsible, mature, shrewd
and dependable—those she was used to hearing—never fun or funny.
So are you.
Now sit back and get ready for it, because I’m going to rock your world…with my
next word.

Their playful banter ended while they played a series of
rapid-fire moves. He was a wicked opponent, demolishing any hope she had of
catching him.

A gentleman would ease up and give a girl a chance.

Who said I was a gentleman? I prefer to dominate.

She snorted.
Ballsy guy. I have no intention of
resigning.

Good, I don’t want you to quit. Now submitting, that’s
another story altogether.

A shiver rippled through her at the implications.
Surely
you don’t expect me to refer to you as Scrabble Master T.

Drop the Scrabble and the T.

So I should call you Master?

That works for me.

“Works for me too,” she said to the screen. Limited as her
sexual experiences were, Calli knew one thing without a doubt—she wanted a man
who would take charge behind closed doors. An experienced, confident man who
would drive her wild with his carnal skills, introduce her to pleasures she’d
only dreamed about. Too bad that kind of man would never want her.

What do you really look like, Master?
She hit send,
sat back and waited for the rock star description to roll in.

Short brown hair, hazel eyes. Giant, hairy mole on my
stomach and a third arm growing out of my side.

Calli laughed out loud. Travis’ answer was perfect.
Ooh,
we match. I like a man who’s dangerously hairy and has a nicely positioned
third arm.

Damn. Now I wish I really had that extra arm.

An automated message popped up, declaring Travis the winner.
Game over. The end.

Saying congratulations seemed too formal after the chat
they’d shared. And goodbye…well, she just didn’t want to say that.
You won.

I did, mainly because you were on the other side of the
board.

Come on, I don’t suck that much!

Not what I meant and you know it, C, though we can
discuss how much sucking you should do another time. Regrettably, I have to go
to work.

Calli grabbed a crossword magazine from the floor and fanned
herself with it while pecking at the keyboard.
Sure. Thanks for the game.

I’d like to play with you again.

All the boys say that.
Or they had in the sixth
grade, when she was the first girl to get breast buds.

I bet they do. Who do they ask for when they call you out
to play? Give me a name to put with my memory of our first virtual date.

She got as far as typing it in the window, then backspaced
the whole thing.
You’re looking at it. C is my first initial and Ya is the
beginning of my last name.

Thanks for nothing. Where are you, and don’t say Ontario,
I can see that much.

Temptation licked at her fingertips. Travis seemed great
online, but she was no fool.
Location is confidential. For all I know you
could be a nutcase, prowling the streets with a beaten-up Scrabble board tucked
under your third arm.

His reply popped up instantly.
So you’ve seen me around.

This guy was awesome. And he was about to disappear.
Don’t
you have to get to work?

I do. I wish I could call in sick and do this all night.

“Oh, me too.” Her fingers flew across the keys, not wanting
him to go before he read her message.
So do it. Show me how dominant you
really are.

You tempt me, C. Hairy mole and all.

Um, I forgot to mention that I’m mostly toothless. Does
that change how you feel about me?
She slapped her forehead. How he felt
about her? Good lord, she sounded like a cyber-stalker.

But Travis came back with another cute and sexy line.
I’ve
heard stories about what toothless women can do, so, no.

You’re horrible. I like it. Why can’t you call in sick?
Yes, she was totally fishing for information. Stupid as that was for so many
reasons.

Because I’m irreplaceable.

Me too, it’s a burden.
To her customers and her dog,
if nobody else.

If you won’t tell me your name, at least tell me what
your real job is. Some crumb to tide me over while I’m bored tonight.

Calli took a minute to think. A little information, nothing
too specific, couldn’t hurt. And maybe Travis would give something in return.

Truth—I work in a romance store.

A romance store. What does it sell—flowers, lingerie, sex
toys?

Pride in her business beat out her need to be secretive.
The
works. Something romantic for everyone, for every time. That’s the tagline.

So you’re perfect. A woman who likes both Scrabble and
sex toys.

Perfect, her? Only in this corner of the internet.
Such
assumptions.
I only said I work there, not that I like the products.

And here I thought we were the ideal couple.

“Sure, if you’re a neurotic introvert like me,” she said to
the black rose on her screen. Her fingers said something entirely different.
You
tell me what kind of job you’re irreplaceable at on a Saturday night and I’ll
tell you what I really think about sex toys.

I’m working at a bar. Big one, nothing fancy and no
strippers, just rock music and dancing. Now spill.

This secret chat was the most excitement she’d had in…oh,
her entire life. Telling intimate truths to a stranger was unbelievably
liberating. She started typing, feeling her cheeks lift with a smile her
mystery man would never see.

I’ve tried a few things. All in the name of market
research, you know.

For a horribly long minute, nothing new appeared in the chat
window. Oh shit, too much information. Way too much. Ten more seconds, then
she’d logout and never come back.

I’m going to have a hard time focusing on music tonight.
Good thing we’ll be playing a lot of covers and I can hide behind my guitar.

“Oh my god, he’s a musician.” The laptop nearly slid to the
floor, her legs were vibrating so much. Honestly, nothing was sexier than a man
playing a guitar. Except maybe a guitar player with kick-ass Scrabble skills
and a wonderfully naughty mind who also claimed to be the dominant type. Heaven
help her. Full of shit or not, Travis was officially her dream man. Even with
his hairy mole and third arm.

Name one song you’ll be playing tonight. Then, if I hear
it, I’ll think of you and feel bad for your, um…preDICKament.

I’m not feeling your sympathy, C. This place is a
straight-up rock-and-roll bar.
November Rain
is an old one, but it’s a
crowd fave. Know it?

Honestly, was he reading her mind somehow? Did he have
visual access to her apartment—a hidden camera that had scoped out her old CD
collection on the shelf?

She shook her head while typing.
Of course I know it. I
deal in romance.

I’ve never heard that song described as romantic.

Then you’ve been hanging out with the wrong people.

Right on that one. Time to narrow down your location,
Miss Ya-something.

A little narrowing couldn’t be all that dangerous, right?
Between
Toronto and London. And what makes you think I’m a miss, not a missus…or a
mister?

I read your profile before I accepted the game.

Head, meet desk. If she were at a desk.

Another message from Travis popped up.
Promise me we’ll
talk again. Soon.

Could he be asking for more contact than an online Scrabble
chat window? No, that was a desperate and ridiculous wish, and one she’d never
be able to handle if it materialized in front of her, wrapped in pretty paper
with a bow on top. At least he wanted to do
this
again. That was all she
needed. Really.

You know how to find me.
She rubbed her palms against
her pajamas. Too desperate-sounding? Too indifferent? Ugh, this is why she
didn’t date. Well…one of the lesser reasons, but still. Too stressful.

And I will. Have a great night, C. I’ll be thinking about
you when we play that song.

Then he was gone. For tonight, at least. Tons of open games
waited on the site’s homepage, but she wasn’t into it anymore. Somewhere out
there was a brown-haired guitarist who, in ninety minutes and total anonymity,
had made her heart race. Travis might be that ordinary-looking guy nobody gives
a second glance. He might be the ugly guy everybody stares at because they
can’t look away. Whatever his appearance, she was into him. Totally,
anonymously into him.

Chapter Two

Eight thirty. Shit, he was late. Travis tossed a handful of
kibble in the cat’s bowl, grabbed his guitar and jetted out of the apartment.
He should have been at The Cove already. The guys were going to have a heyday
with this one. Dependable Travis, last one to the gig for once. He could
practically hear them now.

He needed something to shut them up. Not the truth. Hell no,
if they found out he was late because he met a girl online, and worse, during a
Scrabble game—he’d never live it down. Guys who played rock music didn’t behave
that way. They weren’t supposed to behave at all.

The club’s parking lot was overflowing when he pulled up.
Excellent for his band, even though he had to park down a side street. Not only
was Black Box getting the standard flat fee for the gig, they were getting a
cut of the bar receipts during, and for an hour after, their set. Thanks to
him. The guys never mocked his business savvy. That alone should be enough to
keep his bandmates off his back. As if it would.

Fabricating some story was easy enough. The question he
couldn’t shake was why some faceless female on a geeky game site had gotten to
him. Women threw themselves at him all the time—young ones, old ones, and an
incredible amount of smoking-hot ones. Even small-time musicians got laid a
lot, freely and without any expectation of commitment. A perk of the job, until
it grew old. Now he couldn’t stop thinking about C Ya, wondering exactly what
she looked like, where she lived, if she walked around wearing lingerie just
for the hell of being sexy. For all he knew,
she
wasn’t even a she. He
ought to give his fucking head a shake.

“Cat puked on my clothes,” Travis said as he climbed
onstage, past a bunch of raised eyebrows. “Nothing worse than a messy pussy.”
The crude joke got a laugh. He slipped the strap over his neck and started
plucking and fine-tuning. The stage lights were still low, making the press of
bodies visible if he looked up from his pearl-white Fender P Bass. If he’d
pushed, maybe C would have told him her full name and where she lived. Between
Toronto and London covered a lot of ground, and he was smack in the middle of
it. If she lived close enough, he could have told her where he’d be playing,
and…

Get real. Not only was she likely a monster to look at, but
she probably lived in some hick-town hours away. And the whole point of
chatting on that site was to avoid groupies, not make more. A woman who found
him interesting for his brain, who wanted more than to ogle or idolize him,
that was what he wanted. Well, that was mostly what he wanted. He’d be
strumming another kind of instrument later tonight to take care of the rest.

The house lights dimmed. A rumble erupted from the crowd as
the bar manager stepped onstage for the introduction.

“We’re packed to capacity tonight, folks. If you don’t have
a drink yet, flag down one of our beauties and get a couple, because you’re
gonna need ’em. Our favorite homegrown boys are here to rock you into a hot,
sweaty mess. Ladies, and the rest of you ugly lot, give it up for Black Box,”
he said, then jumped into the mash of patrons.

Applause, screaming, hooting. Travis’ adrenaline spiked with
the noise. He struck a chord and led the band into their first song, letting
the sensations take him over. The neck of the guitar became an extension of his
arm. Blood surged through his veins, into the frets, along the strings and back
into his body, carrying his soul into the music and the music into his soul.
The crowd was there—the electricity of them surrounded him—but he saw nothing.
Two songs turned into five, then the bar manager was back, announcing their
break.

The stage lights dimmed. Stubbs, their keyboard player,
crouched at the edge of the stage. Talking to a woman, of course. Travis slung
his guitar aside and sipped ice water, scanning the crowd through lowered eyes.
Hundreds of bodies, tons of them women. If he wanted to hook up later, all he
had to do was make eye contact with one of them. Or more than one. Been there,
done that. Yah, being with more than one woman was hot, no denying that. But
all of it had gotten so meaningless. Sex for the sake of getting off, nothing
more.

Still, he found himself searching. Tons of women with long,
dark hair. Any one of them could be his Scrabble mistress. Or none of them.
He’d never know…unless they chatted again and she opened up. Maybe he’d get the
ball rolling. Something about her made him want to take the risk.

Behind him, Luke plugged in his guitar and began playing a
medley of riffs. Travis joined in, the lights came up and the crowd screeched
approval. Not much topped that sound.

They ended the night’s performance with the Guns N’ Roses
cover he’d mentioned to C. He usually went to a totally free place during his
solo, but tonight he was thinking of her comment that it was a romantic song.
He closed his eyes, tried to conjure an image of his mystery girl. If she was
real, the flesh and blood kind of real, he’d play it for her. Acoustic, slowed
down to make it sexier. And close up, so they could share the heat of it.

He very much needed to get a grip.

“Dude, come sit at the bar.” Victor, Black Box’s crazy-ass
drummer, poked Travis in the ribs with his drumsticks after their last set had
finished. “Bring your strings, chicks love that shit.”

“Nah, I’m out of here, for which you should thank me,
otherwise I’d steal all the best ones from under that hideous moustache of
yours.”

Victor laughed, smoothing his fingers over the bushy
inverted horseshoe. “The ladies love it. They say it tickles them in all the
right places.”

“I’ll try not to keep that in mind,” Travis said as he
walked away from Victor, endless free drinks and a sea of liquored-up, willing
females.

King Street was wide awake at midnight. The mouth of the
club was thick with bodies still waiting to get inside, even though the live
music had ended. In his peripheral vision, the building appeared to have puked
people onto the concrete. No doubt there’d be plenty of real vomit out there
later. Thank god he was past all that.

Back home, he tossed his keys on the table, undressing as he
walked through the apartment. He settled on the bed with his laptop, a bottle
of water and Kersh—the roomie he’d inherited with the apartment, a black cat
that refused to move out no matter how many times he left the door open. At
least the place was mouse-free.

“Away from my goods,” he said to the kneading feline,
tossing the blanket over his lap to be safe. He logged on to the Wordloverz
site and off just as quickly. Damn, she wasn’t online. He grabbed the pad from
the side table, reviewing the notes from their earlier chat. Not much to go on.
The strongest clue was the slogan she’d quoted from her workplace. If the
business existed, he’d find it. The internet was as much his home as the stage,
paying his bills more consistently than his music did. He typed the tagline
into the Google search bar. The store had to have a website—everything and
everybody had a web presence these days. Hell, he had his share.

“No way.” There it was, an independent business with the
exact catchphrase. Here, half an hour from his place, less on a good day. The
odds of that had to be miniscule. And she wasn’t kidding when she told him they
sold the works. Holy shit, it sold some sexy stuff. Critically speaking, the
online store looked pretty good. Professional and easy to navigate, though
there were places it could have been even better—and would have been, if he’d
designed it.

He scrolled through the pages, past lingerie that went from
church-lady reserved to porn-star racy, not stopping to look at anything
specific until he got to the accessories area. Candles, oils, soaps, jewelry.
Nice. Next came the hot stuff—sport sheets for bondage, role-playing get-up. Holy
hell, there were a lot of choices. Vibrators, dildos, nipple clamps…and she’d
sampled some of this stuff? The images that brought to mind.

It wasn’t until Kersh pounced on the blanket that Travis
realized more than his mind had wandered. He cursed the cat but couldn’t blame
him for misinterpreting the kind of playing going on beneath the covers. Yeah,
he’d decided. For better or worse, he had to know, had to get a look at the
naughty Scrabble vixen. Tomorrow he’d be taking a trip to Romance U.

* * * * *

Sundays tended to be slower at Romance U, despite the
impending gift-giving holiday. One of the drawbacks of having an indie shop in
the Village, rather than a mall location.

Calli tried to focus on her sister’s stories of drinking,
dancing and drooling, but her thoughts kept drifting. Part fatigue, part swoony
daydreaming. She’d fallen asleep with the laptop open at her side, pathetically
hoping Travis would log in for another game. It was all she could do not to go
to the Wordloverz site right now. Only Caitlyn’s intermittent presence in the
doorway to the back office kept Calli semi-focused on work.

Her distracted state seemed to go unnoticed. Rare, given
Caitlyn seldom missed a trick. Her sister’s ability to read people is what made
her a killer salesperson, not to mention wildly popular with pretty much anyone
who ever met her, male or female. She was the perfect chameleon—comfortably
becoming exactly what the person standing next to her wanted her to be. Not
that Calli was jealous. Much.

At ten-to-closing time, the overhead bell chimed. Calli
expected Caitlyn to mutter curses under her breath, but whoever had walked
through the front door elicited an excited gasp instead. Had to be an
attractive male customer. The problem with those, though—according to Caitlyn—was
that they were in the store to shop for some other woman. Temporarily, at
least. Caitlyn usually got what she wanted in the end. Especially when the
what
was a
who
equipped with eyes and a penis.

“My day just got a whole lot more exciting,” Caitlyn said,
then disappeared into the store.

Caitlyn’s laughter was giddy, less controlled than usual.
This guy must be something, having that kind of effect on a seasoned pro. Calli
rolled her chair across the room and peeked out. Officially, they were discussing
candles, but Caitlyn’s body language clearly indicated she was selling
something else. And no wonder, the man was gorgeous. Thirty-ish, with short
hair the color of hot fudge. A little bit of scruff on his jaw and neck—sexy
stubble, not the kind a man would have because he was simply too lazy to shave.
He’d probably shaved this morning, but had so much testosterone that it’d
already started to fill in. Even from her hiding spot, Calli could see the
confidence oozing from him. And sex appeal. Lots of it.

That familiar pang of green gnawed at her gut. She’d never
experience what hid so tantalizingly beneath those low-slung jeans. Even if she
ran out there naked, his warm, sparkling eyes would still focus on Caitlyn. How
could they not?

Being the plain sister, the invisible one, had always meant
going unnoticed a lot. Like now, which was a good thing, in its own whacked
way. She slipped into the main store, inching closer, then kneeling to fold
product that gave her access without drawing attention. The voyeur in her
couldn’t resist the show.

“So it’s Caitlyn—with a C,” the delectable guy said as he
looked up from the engraved nametag adorning Caitlyn’s massive boobage.

“Since the day I was born.” Caitlyn didn’t waver a
millimeter under his gaze.

“Finding you was easier than I thought. Thanks for leaving
me a good clue.”

“I’m glad you got it, I wasn’t sure.”

The guy unleashed a smile that would melt the panties off a
lifelong, menopausal nun. Thank god she was already on the ground because
Calli’s knees dissolved at the sight. She could only imagine the effect at
close range, yet Caitlyn looked self-assured as ever. Oh, to have an ounce of
her confidence.

“I take notes when I’m interested.” His smile went from sexy
to shy, which, on him, was equally as sexy. The man was sexy, sexy, sexy. That
was all. “And last night, you definitely caught my interest.”

“Let me grab my purse and jacket, we can grab a coffee…or
something.” Caitlyn didn’t wait for his answer before turning away. She was in
the back office looking around when Calli snuck back through the doorway. “What
the heck were you doing, spying?”

“Guilty. Sorry.”

Caitlyn’s smile was huge. “Don’t worry, I’d spy on you too,
if the situation were reversed. God, he’s even hotter than he was last night.”

As if their situation would ever be reversed. Calli stuck
close to the opening so she could continue to look at the current example of
Caitlyn’s good fortune. “You met him at the bar, I assume. Geez, you weren’t
kidding about the guys that go there.”

“The place was packed, tons of good pickings, but he,”
Caitlyn pointed toward the front room, “was far and away the best. Some
guitarists are so into their damn instruments, they might as well be alone in a
room as onstage before an audience. This one was the opposite. He really
connected with the audience, and I swear he kept looking at me. So I left a
note with the bartender. You never know when you’re going to get lucky, right?
But then he took off immediately after their last set. I figured either he
didn’t get it or he wasn’t actually staring at me. Sooo glad I was wrong.”

Something curled in Calli’s stomach, and it wasn’t the
egg-salad sandwich she’d had for lunch. Food poisoning or a viral infection
would be a short-term problem. Either was preferable to the gut-twisting
reality check now in progress.

While she’d been randomly chatting with some anonymous and
possibly grotesque guitar player—if he even
was
a guitar player—her
sister had been catching the eye of a very tangible, very sexy one. Caitlyn’s
follow-up date was sure to singe the sheets. The only thing Calli would be
burning up later was batteries. At least she had rechargeables.