Dimi stared at her pathetic little rabbit lunch of carrot sticks and celery and wanted to smack him. “Okay, maybe just one.”

“Nope,” he said, pulling the bag to his chest. “Too late.”

“Give me a chip.”

He smiled. “What will you do for it?”

She could already smell and taste it. She had to have one and would have done anything, anything at all for it, until she saw the gleam of triumph in his dark gaze.

“Come on,” he taunted. “Surely you can think of something you’re willing to do for a chip. Why don’t you…oh, I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me why you’re all of a sudden trying to drive me crazy with that incredible body of yours. Not that I mind, you understand. I’m just wondering.”

“Maybe there’s no reason.” She reached for a chip, but he withheld them with a shake of his head.

“There’s a reason,” he stated flatly.

“Okay.” She lifted a shoulder. “You got me. It’s because you’re easy. Now give me a chip.”

He offered her the bag, watching her dig in. “I’m not always easy,” he muttered.

“Yeah, right.”

“It’s true.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Just for you.”

Her gaze jerked up from the precious chips, and she studied him, uncertain if he was kidding, but she decided he had to be. “Sure. I believe that one.”

Did she imagine the flash of hurt that crossed his face?

Definitely.

But when she found herself alone at lunch with him the next day, as well, and then the next, too, and each time he was nothing but funny, sharp-witted and all around enjoyable, if not too damn sexy for her mental health, she had to wonder.

“Lunch tomorrow,” he said on the fourth day. “At a restaurant this time. With food someone else prepares.”

She went still. “Just you and me?”

“Yep.”

“As in…a date?”

“Yep.”

“But we’re not dating.”

He looked at her.

“We’re not!”

“I’m not asking you to grow old with me, Dimi. Just have lunch. It won’t be something you haven’t done before.”

So why did she feel like a trembling virgin? “Um…”

“Yes or no.”

“I, uh…okay. Yes.” And all she could think was, she’d live to regret this, big time.

But she didn’t. They had lunch.

They had dinner-three nights running.

“This wasn’t a date,” she told him on the fourth night.

Again, he looked at her.

“This isn’t a relationship,” she told him on the seventh night when he walked her to her door.

And he just smiled.


THE WRAPAROUND DRESS was Suzie’s idea. It took Dimi forever to figure out all the various little places to tuck and wrap so she was finally completely covered in a light but vibrantly colored Indian silk.

“Gorgeous,” Suzie declared, backing up, studying her with a critical eye. “Just double knot that tie,” she said, pointing to the one at Dimi’s right hip, which by some miracle kept the entire ensemble together and her body decently covered.

“If I double tie it, I’ll never get out of it.”

They both studied Dimi’s reflection in the mirror. It was an earthy, sexy, fun look that definitely worked. It was relatively conservative, if one discounted the wicked hint of a length of leg and the low dipping neckline.

“Just be careful,” Suzie said, frowning at the knot on Dimi’s hip.

Famous last words.

On the set only half an hour later, while explaining to both the camera and Mitch the complicated process of layering the ingredients for her special enchilada mix, Dimi skimmed around the counter, hands full, mouth going a mile a minute, and caught herself on one of the loose tiles on the corner.

Right at hip level. Which meant that delicate Indian silk, and the knot that had so worried Suzie, loosened.

Then gave completely.

Later Dimi would console herself with the fact that most people had a phobia of losing their clothes in front of their peers. It was why so many had nightmares of going to school without their clothes on. Dimi had had this nightmare herself, plenty of times.

As it was, standing there in front of a live camera, hands full, mouth open in shock, looking at herself as her dress fell away from her body, Dimi felt nothing but the horror of what tomorrow’s headlines would be.

Sex Kitten Corrupts Innocent Viewers During Family Hour.

Whirling her back to the camera, Dimi dropped the dish in her hand to the counter and grabbed the material, wrapping it around herself as she heard Mitch order a cut to commercial break.

Good. Commercial. That was really good.

“Trouble?”

She wasn’t ready to turn and look at the face that went along with that extraordinary voice. She just wasn’t. But when she continued to fumble with the new knot-which she’d double and triple tie, dammit-a set of big, warm hands firmly turned her around.

“If you laugh at me, I swear,” she said in a warning tone, “I’ll-”

“I’m not going to laugh,” Mitch assured her grimly as he shoved her hands away and took care of the knot himself. “I might beg, but I won’t laugh.”

“What would you beg for? You’re not the one who flashed her plain white cotton underwear to the entire world.”

“Maybe not. But baby, there’s nothing plain about that underwear you’re wearing, trust me on this.”

His face was tight in a grimace she would have thought was pain, only he hadn’t hurt himself. So that pain must be…yep, definitely she’d gotten to him, and good. Enough to make a grown man want to beg.

It made her public humiliation only slightly bearable.

“No one saw anything,” Leo called, his eyes glued to the repeat of the take he was watching on the monitor as he spoke. “Thank my quick trigger finger for that, sweet cakes.”

“Really? Oh, Leo, I could kiss you!” Dimi declared.

Leo looked thrilled until he caught Mitch’s glare. “Um…you have a minute left of commercial time.” He scrambled out of sight.

Mitch’s fingers were still working the dress, quickly and efficiently figuring out the complicated mess in a quarter of the time it had taken her. He lifted his head and pierced her with a look of such unadulterated heat she went weak. “Thank you,” she said.

“I’m coming over tonight.”

At his near growl, a shiver of a thrill shot through her. “I’m busy.”

“Doing what? Devising new ways to torture me?”

“No. I…have to wash my hair.”

Slowly he shook his head. “We need to talk.”

“Talk?” Okay, she could do that. Maybe. Probably. “That would be okay, I guess. Just talking.”

“Yeah. Among other things.” And then he walked away, leaving her clinging to the counter for balance in a world where there was no balance to be had.

10

WHAT HAD HAPPENED to casual? Everything was supposed to be casual! But Mitch had no illusions as he drove to Dimi’s town house that night and sat on his bike, staring at the lights, staring past the place to the lake and the dancing of the moonlight across the whitecaps.

He’d come for sex.

Talking not required.

He wasn’t sure exactly when he’d changed his mind and decided he had to have her, but it was a foregone conclusion now.

Even though he’d be leaving for Los Angeles in less than a week. He was ready to go.

After this, that is. After he went inside and hauled Dimi into his arms and gave them both what they’d been panting after for weeks.

Yeah, then he’d feel better.

Sure of it, he got off the bike and headed up the path. He faltered twice, but then figured with any luck Dimi would come to her senses, remember her asinine no-men rule and not let him within ten feet of her, anyway.


DIMI STOOD inside her kitchen, cooking with a frenzy she knew to be sheer panic mingled with wild hope. She set a Hershey’s kiss on top of a sugar cookie, gluing it there with frosting, taking the extra time to lick the knife.

She set the useless knife on the growing stack of other useless knives and grabbed a clean one out of the drawer.

Her last one. How had that happened?

She refused to admit or dwell on the fact that she’d taken twenty-three licks of frosting or exactly how many fat grams that might equal.

She also refused to allow herself to look at the clock again, as she’d been looking every ten seconds or so, driving herself crazy. But she peeked, anyway, pretending to be checking on Brownie, who was fast asleep in her hut.

Seven o’clock.

Surely if Mitch had meant it, he’d have been here by now.

But what if he showed up, looking all rough and tough, wanting to talk, among other things?

Just remembering the kiss they’d shared was enough to have her sucking in a shaky breath. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been kissed that way, so intimately it had been like making love. And if he kissed that good, she could only imagine how good he’d be at all the other stuff, the stuff that most guys were in a hurry to get past just to get to the end.

She had a feeling Mitch wouldn’t be in a hurry to get past anything.

She pressed a hand to her racing heart and spread chocolate frosting all over her blouse. But that’s what she got for creating cookies and thinking of Mitch at the same time.

Shaking her head, she bent to her task once again, carefully spreading frosting over the next cookie. A knock came at her back door.

She dropped the knife and went very still.

Knock, knock.

She nearly jumped out of her skin. She went to the back door and put a hand on the knob. No need for this heart-pounding anticipation, not when it was probably just Cami wanting some cookies.

“Dimi.” The voice coming through the wood was deep and husky and almost unbearably familiar.

Not Cami.

She jerked her hand from the knob, then reached for it again. Then stood there frozen.