laughed and gave an appreciative hum. Even Isabel mouthed “wow,” although the look in her eyes still screamed disapproval. Not surprising, since Isabel had never been comfortable with casual sex. At Suzi’s silence, Audra glanced over. The blonde didn’t look thrilled. If anything, she looked a little pouty. The rules of the dare were that neither of the others could come on to the dare guy. Which put hot, tall and sexy off limits for Suzi.
Audra couldn’t resist taunting her. “One small step for him, one giant orgasm for me.”
Suzi grinned and started to say something, then her eyes widened and she winced.
“Oops,” Bea said under her breath.
Isabel cringed.
Stomach suddenly tight, Audra followed their gaze to the entrance where the hunk still stood in conversation with the bouncer just outside the arch that they deemed the official entrance for dares. Disappointment sunk like a chunk of lead in her stomach when she saw the source of her friends’ horror. Shouldering the hunk aside was another guy. A nonhunky guy. A totally geeky, nonhunky guy. Audra’s stomach turned, but did she see any way out of the dare? Not with her pride intact.
“Ya think he’s got anything in that pocket protector you can get up?” Obviously trying to ease the tension, Suzi called the waitress over for a second round. “You’ll need a drink before this one, Audra. My treat.”
Was she supposed to be grateful?
“And as soon as you prove you’ve still got it in you to take a dare, maybe I’ll go get myself a whole different kind of treat,” Suzi mused. Audra followed her gaze to where hot, tall and sexy had taken a seat, two tables over from Audra’s target. Rarely territorial over men, Audra was surprised to find that the thought of Suzi and the sexy hunk made her teeth clench.
She grimaced her thanks at the waitress and knocked back her margarita in one long gulp. Audra ran her index finger under her lower lip to make sure her lipstick wasn’t smudged. Might as well get it over with. She slipped from the stool and sucked in a deep breath. A little shimmy of the shoulders to make sure everything was where it belonged, her fingertips brushed the hem of her leather mini and she let out her breath.
Isabel protested, “Audra, you don’t have to go through with this. I’m sure Suzi and Bea are just riding you. You guys have been tight for years. You don’t have to prove your friendship. Especially not by having random sex with some—” she grimaced at the geek “—creepy stranger.”
She shot the other two women a dark look. Pink washed over Bea’s cheeks and, with a half-hearted shrug, she averted her gaze.
Suzi, though, stuck out her chin.
“Hey, we never said jack about friendship. Audra knows we’re all amigas. This is about being true to the Wicked Chicks code. Nobody’s forcing her to re-up her membership. That’s her call. Hers. Not yours.”
With that statement, the underlying hurt and confusion in Suzi’s tone, Audra realized her friends needed reassurance. This wasn’t about where she stood with the Wicked Chicks. It was about where they stood with her.
Her friendship with Suzi and Bea was changing, sure. Did that matter?
Audra sucked in a breath. Yes, it mattered. These women were more than buddies to run around with. They were more than a part of her history. They’d accepted her, encouraged her. And, even if they were pains in the ass, they both gave her something nobody else, other than Isabel, ever had. Unconditional acceptance.
At least, they had until tonight.
The music pulsing around her, Audra knew she could shrug and—just like she’d grown out of acne, her spandex phase and the desperate anger that’d fueled her for so many years—let her ties with the other women go.
But being wicked wasn’t just a designation. It defined her. She was a bad girl. From her prepubescent years under the bleachers to her wild cross-country rebellion when her father died, being bad was how she dealt with life.
Without it, what did she have left? Since she didn’t know the answer, she obviously had no choice.
“I’m a lifetime member,” she drawled. “Let’s just hope the geek over there can handle me.”
Isabel opened her mouth, probably to protest. Then, with a shrug and a sigh that summed up why she’d never quite fit in with the other women, she just rolled her eyes and sat back.
“Go get him, tiger,” Bea said.
“Oh, yeah, have a great time,” Suzi said with a wink.
Audra bit back a snarky response. Her gaze caught on the hunk again and she grinned. There was no rule against a nibble of an appetizer before hitting on the main course.
JESSE MARTINEZ looked around the nightclub and bit back a sigh. Purple walls were covered in teal neon lights. The dance floor was tri-level and the chrome bar wrapped around the room. The band was on break, but a deejay played Top Forty rock. Definitely not Jesse’s kind of place. Crowded, loud and filled with psuedoperfect bodies, all on the make. How the hell had he ended up here?
Oh, he could blame it on work. Legitimately, he was on a job. But he could be back in his office with his computer. That was his job description, after all. A Cyber Crimes detective with the Sacramento PD, he wasn’t required to follow dirtbags in person. He did it over the World Wide Web, instead. But, no, sucker that he was, he hadn’t been able to back down from a coworker’s dare that he get off his butt and get his hands dirty. Do real work. Show what he was made of. Damned if Jesse could back down from a dare, especially one couched in insults to his manhood.
He should probably work to reprogram that defective element of his personality. But since it was one of the few traits he actually appreciated having in common with his late father, he was loath to lose it.
Instead, he ended up in tacky nightclubs. Jesse sighed, but gave the waitress a smile and ordered a beer. He eyed the dorky dude a couple tables over. The guy was fidgety as hell, his fingers tapping on the table, his knee bouncing to a completely different rhythm. He looked like a virgin on a blind date with a porn queen. Or as if he were about to rob the place.
The guy’s name was Dave Larson and he was a computer hacker with a taste for gambling. Jesse had it on good authority that Larson was butt deep in organized crime and determined to work his way up one of the dirtiest crime ladders in Northern California, the Du Bing Li Triad. Since there were any number of tasks a guy with Dave’s computer skills could provide, Jesse wasn’t sure just what the geek was up to. But one thing was sure, it was no good.
Which is why he’d followed him to the club.
The waitress returned with his beer. Jesse reached for his wallet when a slim hand pressed against his forearm.
“Let me get that for you.”
Jesse’s brain, at least the independent gentlemanly part, shut down. Apparently his vocal cords did too, because he couldn’t say a word. All he could do was stare.
Temptation and pure sin, wrapped in black leather. The still functioning portion of Jesse’s brain cataloged the woman’s features. Huge doe eyes with a thick fringe of lashes dominated a narrow face. Shiny red lips looked as if she’d just eaten something juicy, tempting him to lean
