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Chapter One
February 14th
Twelve years of friendship. In all that time, he hadn’t done it. And he was not going to kiss her now. Absolutely not.
Matt Reeves clenched his jaw. Standing beside the couch with his best friend, Nichole Drake, folded in his arms, he gripped her an instant longer than platonic allowed.
Shit.
She pressed her body against his and looked up at him, her blue eyes glistening and her damp lashes forming dark points against her creamy skin.
They were friends.
“Matt, tonight is so important to me. My PR company, along with the reputation I’ve worked so hard to build, was going to fall apart.” Her voice, still ragged from the afternoon’s turmoil, had gone husky and thick. “But you’re saving me, like you always do.”
This was gratitude. Misplaced emotion under the guise of attraction, because he’d offered to bail her out of a jam. She was looking at him as if he were a hero, and that was enough to send stray signals to the wrong organ. Gratitude and relief. Appreciation. Nothing more. To allow himself to get lost in the crystalline depths of her eyes and her soft, parted lips, so pink and full, to give in to the folly of temptation, would be a disservice to the both of them.
She was his best friend. His love ’em and leave ’em best friend who he would never give in to loving, so the invariable consequence would never be an issue.
Her fists, tucked between them, unfurled against his chest.
He gritted his teeth. He’d resisted temptation all these years. He could resist now.
He bunched the fabric of her shirt in his hands and cinched his arm around her more tightly. Her head angled back as she rose. Her fingers curved over his shoulders—and he rubbed his hands roughly over her back, effectively replacing the previous embrace with a bear hug.
“Nichole, it’s okay,” he said, forcing the strain from his voice. “I’ll always help you. That’s what friends are for.”
She stiffened against him as he chafed his palms over her shoulders and pushed her back a step. She bowed her head, and he silently willed her to play along and stop looking at him like she wanted his mouth on her.
When he tilted her face to his, he caught a fleeting glimpse of hurt in her gaze before it turned bright and cheery. She might have wanted him for that one split second, but it was only a moment of vulnerability due to stress, brought on by equating the importance of one night to the success of her career. That, coupled with this obnoxious hearts-and-roses holiday, was all that lay behind her smoky gaze and momentary lapse in judgment. Every retailer in the world used Valentine’s Day to make single people feel like shit if they didn’t have a date to buy them an expensive gift. As much as Matt strove to accommodate Nichole in all things, a romp in the sack wouldn’t be one of them. Friendships were lost when friends fell into bed together. She’d be glad he stopped when he did—and once the ache in his chest disappeared, he’d be glad, too.
“You’re right. That’s what friends are for.” She nodded, her eyes clearing along with the tension inside the room. One corner of her mouth pulled up, and she arched her brow at him. “I just hope you still feel friendly toward me after you put on the outfit I need you to wear tonight. Are you sure about this?”
Matt nodded. The guy she’d hired for the event had broken his leg an hour ago, and Nichole had been frantic about the show being ruined. Of course Matt would help. He’d look silly waltzing around dressed like Eros in some droopy toga with wings and a frilly crossbow, but he was willing to do it for Nichole.
He grazed her chin with a faux knock of his knuckles and smiled down at her. “Of course, I’m sure. How bad can it be?”
Two hours later, he knew.
“I’m going to kill you.” Matt glowered into the full-length mirror, speaking to the sliver of T-shirt and gray sweats visible behind him. Dread sank into his knotted gut. By Nichole’s hand, he’d become Eros, the Gigolo. It was humiliation in the extreme.
Nichole’s long red nails crept over his shoulders, and her slender arms followed to link around his neck. Her intense blue eyes, flashing with impish glee, peeked up over his shoulder to meet his gaze in their reflection. “Oh, please. As if a few little things like skin-tight red short-shorts and strap-on wings could ever come between us. Where’s your mythological enthusiasm, you hunky god of love, you?”
“I thought the costume was a toga or something. I didn’t realize I would be so…exposed.”
“Think of it as a swimsuit, only smaller and tighter.”
“I wear trunks.”
“Maybe you should reconsider your choice of suits, because this looks hot.” She shook her head. She was enjoying this entirely too much. “Besides, it’s part of the theme. You’re Eros. What did you expect?”
“Right,” he said. In the name of appreciation, the least she could do was pretend to feel bad about it. Obviously, she didn’t. “Eros always drives his chariot around Club Kink wearing red briefs and shooting sprays of rubbers instead of arrows out of his bow. How is it I didn’t get these details until I’d already agreed to do it? And why am I still going through with it now that I know?”
He looked ridiculous. Why couldn’t he have been some couch potato with a beer belly, pasty skin, and big, squishy candy drop nipples?
She walked around him and adjusted the fabric of his shorts. “Because I might lose my business if tonight isn’t a success. Your inability to cope with my tears, begging, and self-pity—the spirit of friendship and all. Plus, by filling in as my replacement Love God, you get to be my hero.”
Matt grunted. Hero. Well, it was nice at least one woman thought of him that way. The girl he’d broken up with only a few weeks ago certainly hadn’t. Peg had called him a coward. But he disregarded that statement because she’d also claimed he was in love with Nichole—which was absurd. He cared about Nichole and loved her as a friend. Sure, he had to fight a physical attraction from time to time, but was he in love with her? No. That was crazy. From both a credibility and an ego standpoint, he deferred to Nichole’s better judgment.
Her ripple of barely suppressed laughter caught his nerves, and he leveled her with a glare. “You don’t have to giggle. I’m not that desperate to feed my hero complex.”
What a lie.
“Fine. This gets you off the hook for a birthday present for me this year. Is that better?” Her scrutinizing gaze dragged over him. It was unnerving. He felt like he should flex.
She smirked. “I’d say you pass muster.”
Then, with a dismissive wave, she turned and crossed the living room to where she’d tossed her PR binder on the coffee table. She flipped it open and casually leafed through the pages. “Seeing you in all your splendor sort of makes me wish you’d penetrate me with your big love arrow.”
The second smirk she threw over her shoulder promised him that she was playing, bu
t after what had happened—no, almost happened—between them earlier this afternoon, it was all Matt could do not to groan out loud. His cock swelled within his tight polyester shorts and, clenching his jaw, he tried to banish the elaborate fantasies his brain conjured up of Nichole wetting her lip, looking anything but contrite, and telling him to penetrate her.
What the fuck was the matter with him? This wasn’t supposed to happen between them. Yes, she was a notorious flirt—her teasing banter was always thick with innuendo. But until a few months ago, none of it had gotten to him. Now that she lived with him, however, when there was nowhere for him to run and hide, it suddenly took next to nothing to get a rise out of him.
A glance down at his straining cock noted the case in point. He forced himself to calm down and willed the blood back up to his head. Ultimately, it was the sight of those pitiful red shorts that worked the flaccid magic, and just in the nick of time. Nichole’s attention had been so focused on the PR for the club opening that she’d missed the whole show.
Lucky break.
With a resigned sigh, Matt picked up the rest of his costume and shrugged it on. The three-foot wide wings were secured to his back by thick leather straps crossing his chest. Eros was apparently into bondage. Only for Nichole would he suffer through this.
He shot her a glare. “I ought to spank you.”
“Promises, promises.” She winked at him and then softened, turning serious.
Her stare lingered, their eyes locked, and he fought the recurrent need to pull her into his arms, take her mouth, and back her against the wall. He could almost feel her legs slide around his hips, her mouth and body move in sweet surrender to him—
Down boy!
Why the hell had he suggested she move in with him? If he’d known what having his townhouse saturated in her pheromones would do to him, he never would have come up with such an “excellent” idea in the first place. At the time, sharing the place had made sense. Her lease was up, and his roommate had just moved cross country for a new job. Her moving in seemed mutually beneficial, and no other two people got along as well as they did. Hell, they spent part of almost every day together anyway. Why not share the rent?
