How to Score (31 page)

She gave Chase a teasing smile. “Maybe next time I can give you some fishing lessons.”

Chase rolled his eyes and climbed back in the boat to haul out the cooler. Sammi had caught five more fish than he had, and he’d heard about it all the way back to the dock.

“Need some help cleaning the fish?” Fred asked as he helped Chase move the cooler to the dock.

“Nah.” Chase picked up the handle of the wheeled cooler. “Sammi and I will take care of it.”

“All right, then. See y’all later.” With a jaunty salute, Fred climbed back in the boat, unlooped the rope from the mooring, and cast off.

Sammi stared at Chase as the boat puttered away. “
We’re
going to clean the fish?”

“Sure.” It was a key part of his plan to make it through another date with Sammi without getting physical. After all, what could be less romantic than gutting fish? “It’s the law of the lake. You catch ’em, you clean ’em.”

“Aren’t you worried about being near me if I’m wielding a knife?”

“No, because we’ll be wearing steel mesh gloves. They’ve got them at the cleaning station on the next pier.”

“Sounds like you thought of everything.”

Except for the fact that I’d find you irresistible even covered in fish gore,
Chase thought twenty minutes later as they joked and teased their way through the odious task. Even cleaning fish with Sammi was fun.

She dropped the last fillet back in the ice chest, closed the lid, and pulled off the bulky gloves. “What are we going to do with them now?”

“Take them home and freeze them.”

“No way.” She turned on the faucet in the giant sink at the cleaning station, then pumped liquid soap into her palm from the grubby bottle at the counter. “The whole point of fishing is to have fresh fish.”

“Yeah, well, it probably is, except I don’t really cook.” Chase closed the cooler lid, then peeled off his gloves and joined her at the sink. “So I always end up freezing them and giving them to Paul and Melanie.”

“There’s more than enough here for Paul, Melanie, you, and several small nations.”

“We
did
make quite a haul.”

“
I
made quite a haul.”

He leaned forward from the waist. “I bow to your superior striper skills.”

“You’ll have to do more than bow. I won the bet, remember?”

“As if you’d let me forget.”

“And you said the winner gets to determine the prize.”

Uh-oh. This could be trouble. “Which is?”

“You have to come over and grill some striper for me this evening.”

Chase squirted some soap in his hands and rubbed them together. After he dropped her off at her house, it would be the end of their third date. He would have proved to her that she was over her spate of date battering. And he would have fulfilled his official duties as her coach.

Which meant it would be time to level with her. Tonight was as good a time as any.

He swallowed hard and nodded as the water sluiced over his fingers. “Okay. You’re on.”

“You can’t seduce a man with your house smelling like fish,” said Chloe a little after 5:00 that afternoon as she petted Joe’s head. Sammi had called and asked her to keep Joe at her apartment for the night to minimize the chance of any more mishaps.

“Who said I plan to seduce him?”

“Well, if you don’t, you’re crazy.”

Grinning, Sammi tilted the mixing bowl and poured chocolate mousse into two stemmed glasses. “I’m having him to dinner, that’s all.” And for all she knew, that really might be all. Despite the chemistry between them and the fun they’d had that morning, Chase had seemed oddly distant on the drive home. It was almost as if he’d erected a wall. He’d been quiet almost to the point of terseness, and when he’d dropped her off at her house, he’d held her at arm’s length and kissed her forehead.

Her forehead!

Well, she intended to loosen him up tonight.

She put the empty bowl on the counter. “The house isn’t going to smell like fish, anyway, because he’s going to grill them outside.”

Chloe ran her finger along the side of the bowl, skimming off some leftover mousse. “Ah. Good idea.” She licked the foamy chocolate off her finger. “So let’s run through the checklist.”

“Checklist for what?”

“Romance 101. Do you have candles?”

Sammi decided to humor her. “Check.”

“Wine?”

“Check.”

“Decadent dessert?”

Sammi plucked two strawberries from a bowl of fruit on her counter and placed one atop each glass of mousse, then carefully carried them to the refrigerator. “Check.”

“Sexy outfit?”

“Well, sort of check.”

“What are you planning to wear?” Chloe demanded.

“I don’t know. Probably just jeans and a sleeveless turtleneck.”

“No, no, no!” Chloe wagged a finger. “That’s a kindergarten-teacher outfit. You’d wear that if you wanted to wipe his nose, not ravish his body. Wear your denim skirt.”

“It’s kind of short.”

“That’s the idea. And how about that low-cut black wrap top—the one you always safety-pin at the neckline?”

“Maybe.”

“Wear it. But don’t pin it.” Chloe reached for a strawberry. “If you pin it, you’re holding back, and nothing should hold you back this evening.”

Sammi’s pulse sped up as she rinsed the bowl. “You’re making too big a deal of this.”

Chloe waved her protests aside with a flick of her wrist. “You need to wear high heels,” she continued. “Your black sandals are perfect. And you have to wear really hot underwear so you’ll feel sexy.”

Sammi took the bowl away from Chloe and put it in the sink. “I’ve got that part covered.”

“Well, don’t cover that part too much.”

Sammi rolled her eyes. “Very funny.”

“And Sammi… ”

“Yes?”

“Relax. I think you should open a bottle of wine and have a drink before he gets here. In fact, I’ll open one now and have a drink with you.” Chloe opened Sammi’s fridge, reached in, and pulled out a bottle of pinot grigio.

“Make yourself at home, why don’t you,” Sammi said sardonically.

“Thanks. Don’t mind if I do.” Chloe nudged Sammi aside to reach into the drawer that held the corkscrew. Extracting it, she glanced over at Sammi. “Are you still afraid you’re going to hurt him? Because you’ve been on three dates, and if you don’t count Joe giving him a massive wedgie, you haven’t hurt him once.”

Maybe it was odd, but injuring Chase tonight hadn’t crossed her mind. “You know, I’m not afraid of hurting him.” Sammi squirted some dishwashing soap into the bowl. “I’m afraid of him hurting me.”

Chloe peeled the seal off the cork. “What do you mean?”

Sammi turned on the faucet. “What if things get romantic and he doesn’t find me exciting enough?”

Chloe met her gaze, her eyes warm. “You still believe that crap Lance told you?”

She didn’t want to. And part of her didn’t. But another part—a wounded, insecure, quaking part—still feared he was right. She lifted her shoulders. “Sort of.”

Chloe put her hands on her hips. “He was a cheat and a liar, and he told you that stuff to justify his own bad behavior.”

Sammi couldn’t vouch for Lance’s reasoning, but she could vouch for his bad behavior. She scrubbed the bowl, wishing she could scrub away the scene that seemed permanently etched on the insides of her eyelids.

She’d returned a day early from her business meeting in D.C. She’d greeted her cats at her apartment door, then dragged her suitcase down the carpeted hallway, looking forward to a warm bath. Her bedroom door had been closed. That was odd, she’d thought—but maybe Lance had closed it to keep the cats out of the room. She’d turned the doorknob, picked up the handle of her suitcase, and rolled it into the room.

And then she stopped. Because there, in the middle of her bed, gleamed Lance’s white butt. It took her a moment to process what she was seeing. It looked like his legs were misshapen. And then a blond head lifted from the pink pillowcase and peered around Lance’s shoulder, and Sammi realized that the woman’s legs were wound around Lance’s thighs.

“He’s a total jerk,” Chloe declared.

“I know.” Sammi rinsed the bowl, then picked up a dish towel and rubbed it dry. “But how do I know there’s not anything to the stuff he said? What if I’m somehow… insufficient?”

“Sammi, there’s nothing wrong with you, aside from your decision to ever get involved with that creepoid. But I brought you some things to help shore up your confidence in that department.” Chloe worked the tip of the corkscrew into the wine bottle. “Look in my purse.”

Sammi headed to the table and opened Chloe’s enormous vintage macramé tote. She pulled out a large plastic bag. “The Adult Toybox?” she read.

“Yeah. It’s owned by the same lady who owns the tattoo parlor, and she gives me free samples.” Chloe tugged on the wine cork. It came out with a resounding pop. “If you feel like things need spicing up, these ought to do the trick.”

Sammi arched her brow as she pulled out a bottle labeled “Love Juice.”

“That’s tingling massage oil.” Chloe reached into the cabinet and pulled down two wineglasses.

Sammi lifted out what looked like two Zorro masks without the eyeholes.

“Those are blindfolds,” Chloe said helpfully. “You’ve also got two sets of handcuffs.”

“Handcuffs?”

“Well, I know Chase owns some, but I didn’t know whether or not he’d bring them.”

Sammi pulled out an enormous lime green dildo and read the sticker attached to the side. “Glow in the dark?”

“So you won’t lose it,” Chloe said helpfully. “The batteries are already installed. I also brought a sexy board game, some body paint, an assortment of other his-and-her electronic items, and some other stuff.”

Sammi dropped the dildo back in the bag. “You are seriously deranged. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah. But so are you, buying into Lance’s bull.” Chloe tipped the wine bottle and carefully filled the glasses. “I thought that having some instant excitement at hand might make you feel more confident.”

Sammi couldn’t envision any romantic circumstances where it would be helpful to whip out a dildo and suggest, “Here, try this!” but Chloe meant well, and it was the thought that counted. “Thanks, Chloe.”

“No problem.” Chloe handed her a wineglass. “Now drink up and go draw a bubble bath. I’ll put the goodies in your bedside drawer, then take Joe and leave.”

“You forgot a few items,” Sammi said, setting down her glass to look through the rest of the bag’s contents. “I don’t see any whips or chains, and you left out the Mistress of Pain costume.”

Chloe gave her a roguish grin. “You want to save something for next time.”

Sammi laughed and picked up her glass. “You know, you’re really jumping the gun here. Who says anything is going to happen tonight?”

“You don’t have to say a thing. I can tell that you’re in love.”

Sammi froze, the wineglass in her hand. “I’m in like,” she told Chloe forcefully. “In heavy, heavy like.”

“Right.” Chloe shot her a maddeningly knowing grin.

Sammi took a sip of wine, her thoughts swarming like a hive of bees. She couldn’t be in love—not unless Chase was, as well. She couldn’t stand the thought of feeling this way—
that
way, she mentally corrected—alone. And she had no idea if Chase thought she was SCABHOG material or not. At times, he couldn’t seem to get close enough; at other times, he acted as if he were deliberately trying to keep his distance.

Well, tonight, she hoped to break down his barriers. But that didn’t mean she was getting in over her head.

Did it?

She took a deep gulp of wine, topped off her glass, then headed to the bathtub. She refused to ruin the evening by overanalyzing it before it began.

T
hat was delicious,” Sammi said, taking a last bite of fish. “You grill striper almost as well as I catch them.”

“Remind me to never lose another bet to you.” Chase grinned and took a sip of wine. “You’re a really obnoxious winner.”

“You should see me when I lose. That’s when I’m really hard to take.”

She was hard to take right now. In fact, the way her silky blouse played peek-a-boo with her cleavage across the table was pure torture. All evening he’d fought to keep his mind on the fact he needed to level with her, and off her curves, but it was a losing a battle. From the moment she’d opened the door wearing that short skirt and sash-tied blouse, he’d had trouble thinking straight.

It didn’t help that she’d set the dining room table with candles and put some slow, smoky jazz on her CD player. How was a guy supposed to keep his head with all this going on? A couple of glasses of wine thrown into the mix didn’t help any.

She set down her fork, took a sip of wine, and licked her lips. The memory of kissing her flashed through his mind in excruciating detail. He was dying to kiss her again, to feel her soft curves against his body, to smell the scent of her skin.

But before he did anything of the kind, he had to tell her the truth. He couldn’t let things go any further without confessing that he was her coach.

He’d decided to tell her after dinner. Well, here it was. After dinner.

He set down his napkin and drew a deep breath.