he came close to ending up with a big messy knot. “I hope you’re not expecting me to come up with a tux by tomorrow. You’ll be escorting yourself if that’s the case.”
Chloe wiggled the toes of her first bare foot, reached for shoe number two. “Oh, no, sugar. The tux is for the Wild Winter Woman fashion show.”
His hands stilled halfway through pulling off his second shoe. He finally looked up with one eye narrowed. “The one with the supermodels?”
Men. Eyes rolling, Chloe nodded.
“Would that be your function number two or three?” Eric asked, his narrowed gaze roaming down to Chloe’s naked foot and smooth bare calf.
She finished stripping off her second shoe, then set about tucking both socks inside, flexing her toes, her feet, stretching the muscles of both inner and outer thighs and her calves, realizing halfway through her warmup that Eric appeared to have been struck dumb.
She moved on to working the kinks from her torso, not totally for her own benefit, either. “Number three. Two is our first gIRL-gEAR gIRL awards ceremony and should merely require a nice suit. I’m just giving you fair warning here. Sort of like you did me when you ordered me to show up at Haydon’s this morning.”
Eric had the good grace to glance up from her legs and look guilty. “I wasn’t sure you’d show if I told you where we were going.”
“And you were right to worry.” Chloe handed Eric her shoes when he held out a hand. Then she got to her feet and brushed the loose grass from her backside. She wiggled her toes in the freshly mowed lawn, deciding gRAFFITI gIRL’s Bubbling Parfait was a perfect color and that her toes felt as good as they looked.
“Damn, Chloe.” Still sitting, Eric stared at Chloe’s legs. “Where’d you get those calf muscles?”
Chloe looked down, turning her legs this way and that while wondering what he’d think if he saw all the exercise equipment in her spare bedroom. “These little ol’ things? Why, I was born with them, sugar.”
“Well, if they work as good as they look, I might just have to revise my opinion of girls like you.”
Her hands went to her hips. Her chin went up and she waited for an explanation. “Girls like me?”
“Yeah, you know.” He grabbed up all four shoes and stood. “Powder puffs. Cotton candy. Marshmallows.”
Marshmallows? “You think I’m a marshmallow?”
“Not after seeing those legs.”
“You’ve seen me in shorts before. And I know you’ve seen me in skirts.”
“Yeah, but never from ground zero. Puts things into an entirely new perspective.”
“Well, then. This should really rock your world.” And tugging her jersey free from her shorts, she grabbed the hem and jerked the shirt over her head and off.
Eric obviously didn’t know where to look. For the longest time, he kept his gaze locked with Chloe’s until, at the tentative uncertainty she saw in his eyes, her heart softened and she gave a quick grin and granted him permission to ogle.
His gaze took in her full-coverage sports bra before moving down to her bare belly. The waistband of her shorts rode right below her navel and exposed the toned abdominals even Chloe recognized as music video material.
Eric let loose a long low whistle. “Woman, where have you been all my life?”
“Right here, sugar. Under your nose.”
“If you’d been under my nose, I would’ve caught your scent.” He shook his head, eyes wide with admiring disbelief. “Where you’ve been is under too many clothes.”
“Think so, huh?” Chloe moved two small steps forward, keeping hands tucked in the rear pockets of her shorts and her shoulders back. “Would you like it if I got rid of more?”
Eric tossed the shoes—one, two, three, four—into the back seat of the Mustang through the convertible top he’d lowered when he’d parked.
“I’d like it if you’d get rid of everything,” he said, and then he approached, stopping only when his bare toes brushed the tips of hers. He shoved his own hands down into his back pockets, mirroring her stance and, in the process, giving his shoulders an exceptional breadth.
Except at this near intimate proximity, Chloe was not as caught by Eric’s shoulders or stance as she was by his eyes. They were the blue of Paul Newman and of poetry, yet flowery compliments had never come easy and too often seemed like a big waste of words.
Besides, what Eric’s eyes made her feel was beyond her ability to describe. The beat of her heart echoed in her ears, drowning out the words wanting to be said. Even a backhanded compliment might get her into too much trouble. But they’d been standing still here so long now that she had to say something.
And so she did. “Are your eyes really that blue, or do you wear contacts?”
For a moment Eric didn’t have an answer, then he tossed back his head and roared. “Oh, princess. And here I was hoping that this time you weren’t yanking my chain, that we were getting serious.”
“Such a nice way to tell me to put up or shut up.”
He looped an elbow around her neck and turned her toward the volleyball court. “That’s because I’m such a nice guy.”
Chloe could hardly disagree. Especially when she knew that any other guy would have insisted she do one or the other.
Warmed by the weight of Eric’s arm, warmed further by the bright April sun, she shivered, reluctantly forced to admit that Eric wasn’t any other guy.
And that scared her half to death.
4
“GOT IT!”
Bouncing from foot to foot in the back left corner of the court, Chloe maneuvered into position beneath the incoming serve. The ball popped against her wrists, shot up perfectly, came down for Eric’s set and Jason’s spike.
The ball sliced over the fist of the receiving forward and hit the sand on the opposite side. Whooping it up with the rest of Haydon’s Hammers, Chloe rotated to the left front, while Lizzy, one of Eric’s waitresses, stepped back to serve.
Two more of Eric’s employees made up the rest of the team of six, which had managed to win their first two matches. This third game of the third match was the last of the afternoon and would determine the tournament winner.
Having breezed through check-in, though she had no real connection to Haydon’s, Chloe still wasn’t clear on the rules covering what qualified a person to play in a competing team. Who knew what story Eric had told the officials when he’d added her name to Haydon’s roster?
And, actually, she didn’t care how many lies he’d told the tourney organizers because, though she wasn’t about to admit it to Eric and give him any sort of satisfaction, she wouldn’t have missed today for the world. She was having a blast, more fun than she’d had on a date since, well,
