Mr. Virile and the Girl Next Door (4 page)

Dear Mr. Virile,

Do you need a lot of money to attract women? Because I don’t have much, and I see guys like you wearing expensive suits getting all the chicks while guys like me who might actually be smarter and more attractive don’t get any play.

Signed,

Broke but Worth it

Dear Broke,

You absolutely do not need money to attract women. It makes it easier because it’s a tangible signal that you can offer what she’s really looking for—and that isn’t cash. Women want stability. Emotional and financial stability. They are hardwired to be attracted to the men who come off knowing how to handle themselves in a bad situation—and the current economy certainly qualifies as a bad situation.

If you don’t have a lot of cash, you need to make sure your appearance is above reproach. Take extra time on grooming. Your clothes need to be impeccable, even if the labels are store brand. When you are out, you must exude that you are
the
man and the one to lean on in a crisis. This means never appearing drunk or out of control in public. No brawling. No yelling at the game. You are calm, you are cool, and above all you are collected.

The Fonz lived in an apartment above the Cunningham’s garage. The women didn’t seem to mind.

Sincerely,

Mr. Virile

*This does not give you permission to water-ski in a leather jacket.

Chapter Four

After another brunch four days later, and a walk around the waterfront district, Dane stopped to buy Holly flowers. She eyed him warily.

“What?” he asked.

Bringing the extravagant bunch to her nose, she inhaled. “You’re being a very good boyfriend, are you sure you’re new at this?”

He chuckled and took her free hand in his own, ignoring the sudden sense of rightness that settled in his bones. “Haven’t you heard, Ms. Winters? I’m good at everything I do.”

Despite the fact that she had crazy ideas about men and women and love, Dane found he really did enjoy Holly’s company. She had a wry sense of humor, she gave as good as she got in the teasing department, and she was refreshingly honest. He chalked it up to her not feeling the need to impress him, but he still liked it.

He was especially happy watching her eat. He’d given up on taking women to dinner a long time ago. He wasn’t opposed to feeding them, but he hated taking a girl to a great steak house and watching her take one bite of her salad and say she was full. It wasn’t just the money he didn’t like wasting, it bugged him that he was sharing one of his great joys with someone who couldn’t or wouldn’t appreciate it. Dane saved the steak houses for dinner with his buddies, and took his dates out for drinks before a show instead.

Holly, however, enjoyed her food. She had some sort of mad love for the French toast they’d just had and regaled him with “notes of almond” and “perfect texture” between bites. She was a self-admitted foodie and when she talked about cooking, he had a hard time putting away the mental image of her making breakfast in his kitchen wearing his favorite Ralph Lauren shirt.

They made it back to his car before she asked, “So, if you are so good at this boyfriend business, why do you avoid relationships?”

Dane opened her door, holding the flowers for her while she got buckled. He leaned in closer than necessary to give them back, unable to stop himself from being close to her. “I know myself too well. I’ve been tempted, on occasion, to give it a shot…but I’m just not interested in settling down.”

She gave him a look that stalled his heart for a second. Like she felt sorry for him. Well, he didn’t need or want her pity. He was happy with his life. He tweaked her nose lightly and closed her in, giving himself a break as he rounded the front of the car.

Something about Holly was really getting to him. He thought again of Laura Ingalls Wilder and chuckled. Holly was so far away from his usual dates she may as well have been from a different time. He liked redheads, though, and Holly’s cinnamon tresses were silky and shiny, even if he could imagine them in braids. In fact, that might be hotter than he’d originally thought.

So, okay, he liked her hair. It was sexy. Big deal. She was still a little short for his tastes, though that also made him feel more protective and manly. Like he needed help feeling virile, he chided himself. Besides, he liked women who wore make-up and heels. Women who spent a lot of time and effort luring men to their web. Holly’s natural look worked for her, but it wasn’t his type.

So why was he spending this much time convincing himself of it?

“Do you mind if we make a quick stop before I take you to your car?” he asked. “I need to let my dog out.”

“That’s fine. I love dogs. Besides, this will give me a chance to see the lair of Mr. Virile,” she teased. “What kind of dog do you have?”

“I’m not sure, but you can rule out anything small. Boss was a rescue from the side of the road a few years ago. He outgrew our apartment six months later. So I bought a house for him. He damn near needs his own pasture.” He smiled, remembering the awkward puppy Boss used to be. He was still awkward, just no longer a puppy.

“Sounds to me like you and Boss are having a long term relationship. Tell me, do you often find yourself out at a park or a beach, looking at other dogs, and regretting that you committed to Boss, wishing you could bring one of those other dogs home instead?”

He laughed and pulled onto the freeway. “No.”

“No? You’re a one-dog man then? Interesting.” She smiled smugly.

“Well, that’s not to say I don’t enjoy watching Boss with other dogs, though.” He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Nothing like watching him play unashamed with someone else. We have an open arrangement.”

Holly rolled her eyes and laughed. “Make fun all you like, but you own a home and a dog. It doesn’t seem like a stretch to me that you might actually be more of a relationship man than you think.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?” she asked. Damn, that voice of hers felt like a physical stroke over his erogenous zones.

“If you’re so big on committed relationships, where’s yours?”

She shrugged. “I haven’t found the right guy yet.”

“Where have you been looking?”

She sent him a serious side-eye. “What, do you think you have advice for
me
?”

His turn for shoulder shrugging. “I teach people how to hook up with each other. It doesn’t preclude long-term hook-ups if that is what both parties want.”

“I highly doubt I am going to meet the man of my dreams in a bar using your get-laid-quick tricks.”

“I don’t know about that…tell me a little bit about the man of your dreams.”

She sent him a startled look. “Well, he’s…nice.”

A huff of incredulity escaped Dane’s lungs. “Nice? The man of your dreams is
nice
? Try again, this time give me some of that honesty you were talking about the other night.”

“Oh, all right. But he is nice. It’s not a crime you know. I happen to like nice men.”

Something pulled in his gut. “I’m a nice man.”

Holly laughed. “No you’re not. You’re…”

“A scoundrel?” he offered.

“I was always more of a Luke Skywalker fan than Han Solo anyway.”

“Now I know you’re lying. You better get back to this dream man of yours before I try to interest you in my light saber.”

She rearranged a few petals from her bouquet and brought them to her nose, inhaling a deep, long breath that looked so sensual his pants became really uncomfortable. When did such a simple act become so sexy? “He enjoys his career. I don’t really care what it is as long as he’s happy with it.”

“Uh-huh.” Somehow he didn’t see her settling with a shoe salesman who loved his job, but he’d let that go.

“He’ll have to have a sense of humor. Because I like to laugh.”

Dane nodded. He liked her laugh. Coupled with that husky voice, it was a real turn on. “Okay. What else? What does he look like?”

“I don’t know. It’s not really important.”

Dane exited the freeway. “I call bullshit.”

“Looks are very low on my list.”

“Not buying it.”

“Dane, you don’t even know me. I find the inside of a person more attractive than the outside. Case in point, you’re an attractive man on the outside, but I’m not interested in you. You’ve tried to get me into bed at least once every conversation we’ve had, but have I taken you up on it? No.”

His knuckles turned white on the wheel at the thought that she wasn’t interested. She was lying, of course, but he still didn’t like the thought of it. “I’ll just take this opportunity to remind you that you are currently on your way to my place and have agreed to be my girlfriend for the foreseeable future. I think you’re at least a little interested.”

For a girl next door, she sure had a mean
Bitch, please
look. “
Pretend
girlfriend.”

Right. Pretend. They were only pretending, which was good because he didn’t want a relationship with her. But he did want her. Which confused him. “Back to Mr. Right.” And why he wasn’t it.

“He’d be humble.”

“There is a difference between being ego-centric and being confident. Women, even you, prefer confident men. That doesn’t mean I can’t be humble when the occasion calls for it.”

“My dream guy will also want kids.”

For the life of him, Dane couldn’t think of a smart retort for that. There was a longing there that she couldn’t hide as she stared out at nothing. He didn’t want to be her dream guy, honest he didn’t, but to be taken out of the running suddenly made him feel empty.

“I’ve never wanted to be a father,” he said to fill the silence, but instead it grew, filling up his car with missed opportunities to somehow make it better.

He bet she’d be a good mother. As much as her relationship advice annoyed the hell out of him, she had a way of making people feel good about themselves even when she was straight shooting what they didn’t want to hear.

His parents hadn’t been very good with advice. Sure they encouraged him to follow his own path, but to a kid, the social aspect of childhood is pretty important, and they hadn’t helped him fit in. Not at all.

Dane pulled into his driveway and tried to shake the melancholy feeling away.

He led Holly through the house to the backyard. She seemed impressed by his neatness and the hominess of each room, so he didn’t bring up the cleaning service or decorator he employed.

Holly sat cross-legged on his deck while Dane chucked balls to the dog. “Thanks for letting me stop home first. Boss needs to run every few hours or he eats curtains.”

She stretched out her legs, warming them in the sun. “I’m having fun. He’s pretty hilarious.”

As if on cue, Boss’s hind legs somehow got in front of his front ones and he flipped unceremoniously. Holly’s laugh cannoned Dane in the chest. What was it about this girl?

He joined her on the deck, enjoying the warm spring sunshine. He really had a million things to do. He should take Holly back to her car, work on a blog post, return some reader mail, and write a chapter on his new proposal, but all he wanted to do was sit on the porch in the sunshine and watch his dog play in the grass with this warm, full girl beside him.

As often the case in spring, the weather held for as long as it could before the sky filled with clouds they tried to ignore. They were having an interesting debate about whether or not she really, truly could possibly have been more Team Luke than Team Han when the first drop of rain kissed her pretty nose.

“Oh-oh,” she said, rubbing the droplet into her skin and grinning at him.

Oh-oh was right.

Something hit his chest from the inside. Something warm and explosive and undeniable. Dane had found plenty of women attractive in this lifetime, but he’d never found one so adorable that it made him shake. The moment slowed time down as if they were in their own world. Raindrops collected prettily on her cheeks and eyelashes.

He wasn’t thinking with his dick, and he wasn’t thinking with his brain, either, when he cupped her slight jaw in his hands and leaned towards her, desperate for a taste of this woman. Because he
needed
to know the flavor of her kiss.

He stopped a scant inch from her lips and looked into her eyes, searching for a red light or hopefully a green one. She didn’t pull back but she also didn’t give him the encouragement he was used to. He wasn’t sure what to do, and that thrilled him unexpectedly, too. He’d been getting what he wanted for too long, it seemed. She was going to make him work for it and everything in him knew she’d be worth the challenge.

He placed the first kiss in the corner of her mouth. A sweet feather-light touch of his lips to hers. Gently, he drew her lower lip between his. The raindrops fell harder as he licked and nibbled her bottom lip until she sighed and parted her lips so sweetly.

Holding her head in his hands, he slanted his mouth over hers again and again, gorging on the sweetness, loving the small mewing sound she made when his tongue delved in to touch hers. The rain drummed over them steadily, washing away everything but the feel of her, the smell of her.

In the distance, thunder rumbled and Boss started barking like a dog possessed.
Damn it.
Holly giggled against his mouth, and when he pulled back, he saw she was soaked to the bone.

“Jesus, Holly. I’m sorry. You must be freezing.”

She trembled, but he had to wonder if it was from the rain or maybe, just maybe, he had more of an effect on her than she’d been letting on. God he hoped so. Because he wasn’t sure what to do with all the feelings assailing him now, in the pouring rain, with a bedraggled, sexy girl next door.

Her sundress was plastered to her skin, showcasing her tantalizing curves and making his hands itch to touch them. He wasn’t a total cad, though, and knew he needed to bring her in from the rain. As he was helping her up, he eyed the sky. “Shit.”

She mirrored her gaze to the angry clouds above. It was never good when the sky bruised to that angry green and purple color. No wonder Boss was freaking out. A siren started howling in the distance.

“Tornado,” they both said.

“Boss, come,” Dane yelled as he pulled Holly into the house. “Basement door is right there.” He pointed to safety and made sure she was down the stairs before he let go of Boss’s collar so he wouldn’t mow her down. He followed them, latching the door behind him.

She stood shivering in the middle of his laundry room. He didn’t like the look in her eye. Gone was the cautiously turned on woman and in her place a sodden, frightened one. Something twisted in the place most men keep their heart. He couldn’t name the feeling, but suddenly he realized what all that masculine confidence he had in abundance really needed to be about.