Dare You To Love Me (A NOLA Heart Novel Book 3) Page 4

  He hadn’t been interested in anyone since being honorably discharged. In an effort to merge his life with other humans, he’d hailed a cab tonight and found himself at Tuck’s, his former favorite haunt. Less than thirty minutes later, he’d made an unsettling discovery: he was more interested in drinking his Coke than striking up conversation with any of the women who’d sent flirtatious smiles his way.

  But then he’d spotted her, the brassy woman who’d toppled him over, and Luke hadn’t been able to turn away. Her date had been a disaster. He’d overheard most of the conversation; although his hip was out of commission, his ears were still in working order.

  She’d handled herself well, and when she’d sought out the isolation of this booth, Luke had felt inexplicably drawn to her.

  Seated across from her now, he realized that she was flirting with the edge of intoxication. Her blonde hair was loose about her shoulders, and she had that smoky shit on her lids that all women claimed looked “sexy.”

  Luke would argue that it instead made this woman look tired. The kind of tiredness which sank into the bones and lingered. It was that exhaustion in her eyes that kept Luke’s ass in his seat, not because he wanted her but because he recognized that bone-weary fatigue.

  He’d been carrying it with him for years now.

  She put down the glass and leaned forward, her chin coming to rest on upturned hands. “Are you going to take me to bed?”

  Christ. Swallowing a cough, Luke thumped his chest and contemplated how best to avoid the impending shit-show. Blondie seemed the tenacious sort, a suspicion that she proved correct when her blue eyes narrowed. “That wasn’t an answer.”

  Shit, she was serious. Slowly, because Luke was accustomed to dealing with all types of crazy, he shook his head. “That was a no.”

  She blinked. “I thought you were interested.”

  Luke wasn’t interested in anyone. Hell, half the time he didn’t even want to be in his own company. This was why the army had been a good fit—because every time he screwed it up with a woman, it wasn’t long before he was back on deployment with a non-fraternization law in place to keep everyone in check.

  Life outside the military was confusing, and Luke was a man who liked things simple and straightforward.

  Before he had the chance to respond, she continued his March of Death by Woman. “If you weren’t interested,” she pressed, “then why would you sit down with me?”

  Because he was lonely and he’d recognized her, if only her face, and he’d been in desperate need of some form of companionship.

  Since he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—admit to any of that, Luke steered the conversation down a different path. One that wasn’t focused on him. “So, you’re giving the whole dating thing a go?” He ignored the death glare she leveled on him. “Would you consider tonight’s date a success?”

  “You know it wasn’t.”

  “Didn’t look that way but you never know.”

  When she went for the bottle of fancy champagne, Luke did her a favor and moved it out of reach. Another mean-mugging glare from Blondie. If she remembered this conversation at all tomorrow, she’d thank him for not letting her get tanked. Here he was, no longer in the US military but still serving his countrymen and women. Hooah.

  “Want to tell me about it?” he asked, curious as to what had possessed her to sign up for a fetish site.

  Her nose went up in the air. “You don’t even know my name.”

  “Gives us an air of anonymity,” he told her smoothly. “You can tell me anything you want and I’ll never tell a single soul.”

  “Because you’re not interested in me.” She said it so drunkenly, so morosely, that Luke almost laughed out loud. She was a piece of work, this one.

  Wanting to soothe her hurt feelings, he said, “Because I’m not interested in anyone right now.”

  She plopped her empty glass on the table, and Luke was surprised it didn’t break into a thousand little shards.

  “That’s such a cliché line,” she muttered. “Guys tell that to the women they find unattractive.”

  It wasn’t that she was hideous. Anyone with a pair of eyes would know in a heartbeat that wasn’t true. It’s just that she was . . . fairylike. Fragile. Fair. When Luke took a woman to bed, he liked to know that she wouldn’t shatter under his rough touch.

  Blondie looked like she’d go AWOL the moment he closed the bedroom door and they were alone.

  Blowing out a deep, frustrated breath, she reached into her purse and pulled out a hair elastic. Her hair, a shade closer to moonlight than he’d ever seen before, was shoveled onto the top of her head in sharp, choppy moments.

  Game on.

  Luke propped his cane across his knees, just in case her annoyance skyrocketed and she tried to nail him in the nuts.

  Call him crazy, but he hadn’t had this much fun in years.

  Offering a slight smile, he prodded, “So, your dates.”

  She disregarded his prompt with a flick of her hand. “About this anonymity thing,” she said, her voice pitched low, “how much anonymity are we talking?”

  “I don’t know your name, so I’d say you could tell me whatever you wanted and it wouldn’t make a difference.”

  She grumbled something under her breath, and not for a single moment did Luke think it was remotely flattering. Clearing her throat, she announced, “I suck at dating.”

  Luke pointedly swung his gaze to the table she’d sat at earlier. “No shit.”

  Blue eyes narrowed at his dry tone, and Luke had to do everything in his power not to grin at her.

  “If it helps,” he went on, “I think your problem is with picking the right guy.”

  Lifting the champagne flute to her lips, she seemed to belatedly remember that it was empty and returned it to the table. Her tongue flicked out to swipe along her bottom lip, sending something shuddering down Luke’s spine.

  It was a reminder that he was a red-blooded male. But just because he could think of at least three different places he’d like to have her tongue on his body, it didn’t mean anything for the long haul.

  He didn’t do long-term.

  “You were saying?” he prompted, more sharply than he’d intended.

  “I was going to say that if you know so much about finding the right guy, you should help me out.”

  Luke’s brain emptied. “Pardon?”

  Excitement, and perhaps a little bit of revenge, brimmed in her gaze. “You said my problem is picking the right guy. So, I’m giving you the opportunity to prove me wrong.”

  Give him the opportunity? Like he’d won the fucking lotto or something.

  Slowly, he said, “I’m not following.”

  Except that he was sort of following, and he didn’t like the trajectory that her brain had taken one bit.

  “We’ll each pick guys for me to date. Three each, I think, would be a good number. You pick three; I pick three. At the end, we’ll decide who did the better job of setting me up with my perfect match.”

  She looked so damn pleased with herself.

  Time to kill dreams.

  He wrapped his hand around the grip of his cane and swung it to the floor. “I don’t think so.”

  But then, this woman who didn’t know him from a hole in the wall seemed to know him well enough because she uttered the words that Luke had never been able to resist:

  “I dare you.”

  Jesus, he was thirty-one years old and still the temptation of competition was irresistible.

  Hadn’t he learned that in Iraq, when a stupid football game and an even stupider Trinket had landed him in his current mess?

  Hadn’t he learned that in high school, when he’d gone all out in football?

  Luke had shit when it came down to experience in an office setting, but football trophies? Accolades he’d been awarded in the army?

  He was filthy rich.

  He glanced over at Blondie, who seemed determined to throw his life into upheaval. He still d
idn’t even know her name. New Orleans was small, but he’d spent the last thirteen years everywhere else in the world but here in his hometown. Maybe that was part of the fun. He didn’t know her. She didn’t know him.

  Whatever this secret game was would go no further than the two of them.

  “What are the terms?” he asked.

  Drunk or not, she had enough self-control that, other than a slight lift of her lips, she didn’t parade her win. She steepled her fingers together, and Luke had the sudden vision of her as the mastermind behind an entire empire.

  He could see it.

  The slim dress, the high-as-hell heels. Even the blonde bun seated crookedly on the top of her head seemed perfectly controlled. Whoever Blondie was, he doubted that she was a woman people wanted to cross.

  “Let’s do this over three weeks,” she said, drawing his gaze down to her mouth when she flicked her tongue out again to wet her lips. “Two dates per week, one set up by you and the other by me. We’ll have them here, at Tuck’s.”

  “And I reach out to you for the date setups, how . . .?”

  She grabbed a stray napkin, dug around in her purse, and revealed a pen. Blonde tendrils escaped their confines when she shifted forward and scrawled across the white square napkin.

  She slid it across the table, and he glanced down to find her number penned in perfect feminine script. Above her digits, she’d written, “You owe me three men.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh. “Careful, otherwise I might be mistaken for your pimp.”

  “You’re setting me up on first dates,” she told him with an eye-roll, “not sex escapades.”

  “In my experience, first dates generally lead to sex escapades.” Luke spread his arms along the back of the booth. “Sex marathons, really.”

  She shook her head. “Not for me. It’s not just me . . .” Glancing at him, she shrugged her shoulders as though she’d come to a decision in her head. “I have a son. He’s fourteen.”

  Never one to mince words, Luke asked, “How old are you?”

  She flushed prettily, once more proving his initial thought that she looked ethereal. Even if he was interested—and he wasn’t—a woman like Blondie couldn’t handle him. That was fact.

  “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to ask a woman her age?”

  “I’m thirty-one.”

  She fiddled with the pen, then lifted her gaze to meet his boldly. “Thirty-two. I had my son when I was eighteen.”

  She said it with no hint of shame. Not that she should feel any. There were lots of women out there who had children in their teens. A lot of fathers, too.

  “My mom was sixteen when she had me and eighteen when she had my younger sister,” he said abruptly. It wasn’t something he shared with a lot of people, mainly because he knew it hurt Moira anytime her absentee husband was mentioned, but with this woman whom he didn’t know . . . It felt oddly right.

  Good timing, maybe.

  A look passed between them that Luke couldn’t even pretend to understand. With a small nod, she gathered her purse and phone off the table.

  Luke was strangely reluctant to let her go. “So, this week,” he blurted, “for your first date?”

  Still seated, he looked up to meet her gaze.

  “You’re up to bat first,” she said, tapping on the napkin she’d slid to him. “I can do any night but Wednesday. My son has a football game.”

  He wondered if her kid was any good.

  Luke had been the All-Star tight end in high school for three years running. Only Brady had ever one-upped him, but Brady had played for a school in a different district, and so their rivalry had been quarantined to makeshift games at the park with the other neighborhood kids.

  He caught her wrist just as she started to pull back. Her blue eyes jumped to his, and he didn’t dare pause to read the emotion swirling in their depths. “And the winner?” he murmured. “After this whole thing is over, what does the winner get?”

  “Whatever they want.”

  A dangerous offer, and one Luke refused to ponder.

  He released her hand, silently watching as she skirted around a table of college-age kids before he remembered—

  “Hey,” he called out, thanking God when she turned back around, “you shouldn’t drive home.”

  Her mouth lifted in a half-grin. “Don’t worry, Luke, I’m taking a cab.”

  That was good. Now that he’d been roped into this bet, he’d rather that she not crash on the way—

  Hold up.

  How had she known his name?

  He grappled with his cane, gritty curse words escaping him as he lurched around tables and out to the front of the bar. How the hell had she known his name? He hadn’t mentioned it, hadn’t said anything. He certainly hadn’t pulled out his wallet, so there wasn’t a chance she’d caught a glimpse of an I.D. or credit card.

  He shoved the front door open with his good foot and stepped out into the cool November breeze.

  She was gone.

  Chapter Six

  “Go, baby! Run!”

  Shaelyn elbowed her boyfriend, Brady Taylor, and pointed at Anna, who’d leapt to her feet to cheer on Julian. “There are two types of mothers in the world,” Shaelyn said loudly enough for Anna to hear over the crowd, “crazy football moms and non-football crazy moms.”

  “Which one are you going to be?” Brady asked, dropping an arm around his girlfriend. “Wait, don’t tell me.”

  Anna’s cousin flashed Brady a sly smile and patted his knee. “You won’t have to worry. Our children will never play football.”

  One row below them, Nathan Danvers whipped around to stare at Shaelyn in horror. “This is Louisiana,” he said, as though that explained everything. Anna agreed with him—football was the only king that reigned in Louisiana.

  “I know,” chirped Shaelyn, before tapping Jade on the arm. “What do you think? You with me on this no-football thing?”

  Jade glanced at her significant other. “You know how much I love you, right, Shae?”

  “Don’t give in.”

  “It’s football, sweetheart,” Brady implored, “it’s in our blood.”

  “It’s not in my blood,” Shaelyn said, and then winked at Anna’s surprise. Of course. Shaelyn Lawrence was the Queen of Jokes—sometimes it was easy to forget that the petite, curvy woman had taught Julian everything he knew.

  Speaking of Julian . . .

  Anna turned back to the game just as Julian made a touchdown, and she threw her fists up in the air and whistled. Down on the field, sunlight glinted off her son’s helmet as he found her in the stands—in her regular spot—and flashed her a thumbs-up.

  Their tradition for every time he scored a touchdown—one they’d started when he was seven years old and playing ball for the first time.

  “That’s what I’m talking about!” Anna clambered back into her seating position on the metal bleachers, motioning to the field. “Did y’all see that? Sixty-one yards.”

  Shaelyn leaned over and loudly whispered to their friends, “See? This is what football does to a person. I’m crazy enough as it is without adding the whole sports thing.”

  They all laughed because it was true.

  While Anna wouldn’t consider herself athletic by any means, she’d forced her untrained body to learn over the years. Julian had wanted a dad to play ball with in the yard. So, Anna became both the father and mother figure in the house, and she had enough broken manicures to prove that Julian’s life wasn’t lacking in any way.

  But it did bring in the question of dating. And, more importantly, of Luke O’Connor.

  Almost a week had passed since they’d last seen each other at Tuck’s—a week of replaying their meeting from start to finish as she folded clothes, stocked the shelves, cooked dinner. Boldness came to Anna easily with La Parisienne. She could cut deals with distributors, write contracts on the fly, and find the perfect set of lingerie for anyone within minutes.

  When it came to the o
pposite sex, though, “bold” wasn’t a word in Anna’s vocabulary, and she could hardly believe that she’d actually propositioned Luke O’Connor to find her a date.

  Or that she’d practically asked him to take her to bed.

  The only reason she hadn’t crumpled in utter embarrassment had been because of the look in his eyes. She wouldn’t pretend that she knew him, but the coolness in his green gaze had seemed . . . forced.

  During the rare occasions that he’d let down his guard, the warmth he radiated had lit her aflame. She’d wanted him, and she hadn’t bothered to hide the fact at all. But she also wanted a man who would treat Julian kindly, who wanted more from her than a quick fling, and she believed him fully when he had said he wasn’t interested in dating.

  Anna wasn’t about to set herself up for heartbreak, but she was incredibly intrigued to meet the first man Luke had found for her. He’d sent her a quick text yesterday asking if she was free Thursday night.

  Her second date in a week, and she’d be meeting this Mr. Aaron Capton tomorrow.

  “Jade told me you went on a date the other night?” Danvers asked, drawing Anna’s attention away from her own thoughts. “How did it go? Wedding bells ringing yet?”

  Once upon a time, Anna had hoped she and the homicide detective might get together. With his dark, messy hair and pewter-gray eyes, Nathan Danvers was the all-around package deal. Funny. Kind. Hot as hell.

  But then he’d met Jade, and Anna had quickly faced the reality that she and Danvers were no more than friends.

  She gave him a wry smile. “Let’s not pretend that Jade didn’t tell you everything already.”

  “I would never!” Jade exclaimed, though her olive-hued complexion did nothing to hide her blush. Then her shoulders slumped and she offered Anna an apologetic smile. “I couldn’t help it. After you told Shae and me everything, I just . . . caved when he asked.”

  Anna couldn’t blame her. It was pretty funny.

  “In case any of you are wondering, Julian suffered dearly for his actions.”

  “You got rid of his Xbox?” Brady asked, sharing an impressed glance with Danvers. “We’ve got Mom of the Year over here.” He nudged Shae in the side. “Take notes, sweetheart. We’ve got big shoes to fill when we start popping out children.”