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Laura’s mouth went dry, and her tongue felt like it was double its size. If she’d been hooked up to the heart rate machine, it would have been going off the charts with how fast her pulse was. Just the thought of Knox blindfolding her sent her libido into overdrive.
"Men are on in the bar!" Felicity stepped between Laura and Knox and ushered him across the deck and back into the restaurant.
"What did he say to you?" Kennedy asked as the two women lowered themselves into their seats.
"Why?" Laura shot back a little bit more defensively than she’d meant to.
"Because your cheeks match your dress."
Laura lifted her hand to her cheek and felt the heat of a flush. "He just asked if I needed help with my blindfold."
Kennedy’s eyes widened. "That’s…hot."
"I know, right."
"There’s obviously something going on between you two. Why are you denying it?"
"Because I need more in my life than just sex."
Kennedy sighed, "Do you, though?"
"Yes."
As much as Laura would love to give in to her infatuation with Knox, there was no point. He was leaving in a couple months. He had no interest in commitment or a family. Nothing could happen between them because there was no point.
Well, except for the hot sex.
* * *
Knox stood in a line of twenty-two men who were all going to be dating Laura. It shouldn’t bother him, but it did. He hated the idea of her sniffing all of them and of them chatting her up. He’d thought watching her date Cody had been torture; this was on a whole other level.
"Okay, so first up, we will have the women doing the blind sniff test. Men, you’re going to walk up and sit beside each woman, and she will sniff you. You sit for ten seconds, and when the bell rings, you move to the next seat.
"Once the women have all gone, it will be the men’s turn to be blindfolded and hooked up to heartrate monitors."
This was the strangest speed dating experience even Knox had ever heard of. Although he had to admit the questions they’d asked for pre-registration were more intuitive than he’d expected. It had laid out various scenarios and asked how he would handle them and how he’d want his partner to handle them.
He’d actually been stumped on several, and they’d made him think.
If he saw someone stealing from a store, would he turn them in? Would he want his partner to turn them in?
If he saw a woman with children stranded on the side of the road, would he stop to help even if he was late for an important appointment? Would he expect his partner to stop and help?
If you caught your friend’s partner cheating on them, would you tell your friend?
It was one hundred different questions like that. He’d answered them all as truthfully as he possibly could but had been surprised they hadn’t been more focused on what he wanted from a relationship and if he wanted to get married and have kids, since that was all most of the women in his life had cared about.
Hell, it was the reason Laura didn’t want to "waste her time" with him.
"Okay, let’s get started." At the ding of the bell, each man walked to the woman seated in front of them and sat beside them.
The process actually went a lot faster than he would have thought. It was quick and efficient, which he appreciated. Once the men had all been sniffed, they put on blindfolds and were instructed to take a seat. It was strange to have one of his senses taken away from him. It did actually enhance his other.
Most of the women smelled pleasant; a few smelled good, but none of them came close to smelling as amazing as Laura. She was wearing the same fragrance that she had at the wedding. He’d know that floral, fresh scent anywhere. It was branded into his senses, and he’d even moaned when he’d smelt it. When he did, he heard her suck in a short breath.
Yeah, it was definitely Laura.
Once the scratch-and-sniff portion of the evening was done, the event turned more traditional. Each man sat in front of a woman for three minutes. Each table had a different set of questions in a fishbowl that each dater took turns pulling one out. The questions were more personal than most people would feel comfortable asking on a first date, especially in a speed dating situation. But Knox figured that was probably the point of the exercise—to test how comfortable and vulnerable someone could be with a complete stranger.
