Rachel Storm is a woman who has it all. A great job, an amazing apartment, a decent paycheck…and overbearing mother hell-bent on seeing her married before the next millennium.
Reality Check
© 2006 Elisa Adams
Available now at Samhain Publishing
Rachel doesn’t want to get married. She likes her life the way it is, but her mother won’t let it rest.
When her sister announces her wedding, the little white lie Rachel told her family about her “fiancé” blows up in her face. Now she has to find a fiancé by the weekend or face the wrath of the wedding nazi.
Doug, the impossibly good-looking gay guy from the office, seems like the obvious choice.
There’s just one little problem with her plan—Doug isn’t gay. And he plans to spend the entire weekend trying to get Rachel into his bed.
Enjoy the following excerpt for Reality Check:
“I like my women a little rounded. Those skinny model types don’t do anything for me.”
Her stomach bottomed out. Lord, the man had a way with words. But there was one slight flaw with his supposed confession. Women as a whole didn’t do anything for him. “Um, okay. If you say so.”
She tossed him another glance and gulped at the blatant sensuality in his gaze. Uh, oh. A few more minutes of that and she’d be putty in his hands. Putty he wouldn’t have a clue how to use.
She turned her focus back to her driving. It wouldn’t be much longer and they’d be there. Good thing, too, since she’d nearly run them off the road just from being close to him.
“Oh, I do say so, Rachel.” In the next second, his hand was on her, brushing her hair behind her ear. “I like your hair down. It’s sexy this way. So much better than those old lady buns you wear at work. I didn’t realize it was so long. Hair like this, it’s fantasy-inspiring. Do you know what a guy thinks about when he sees hair like this on a beautiful woman?”
Ohmigod. She needed to pull the car over—now—before she got them both killed. Time for a new rule. “You can’t touch me.”
Doug chuckled. The sound did amazing things to her insides. His fingertip trailed down the side of her neck, leaving a line of goose bumps in its wake. “Why not? We’re supposed to be engaged, right? Isn’t your family going to get suspicious if I don’t touch you once in a while?”
When his finger flicked across her collarbone, she jumped. And gasped. And involuntarily jerked the wheel.
The car swerved into the breakdown lane, coming an inch from hitting the guardrail before she got control and pulled the little sedan back onto the road. Her heart thumped in her throat and she couldn’t quite catch her breath. The guy should come with a warning label like the ones on prescription drugs. Do not take while driving. Or better still, do not take if you’re sensitive to large amounts of testosterone in a very small space.
He yanked his hand away as if he’d caught fire. “Okay, okay. Point taken. I can’t touch you. At least not when we’re in a car.”
She imagined he’d have the same effect on her ability to walk. Not wanting to spend the weekend in the emergency room, she shook her head. “I told you before. My mom knows I’m not into public displays. All you have to do is stand there and nod every once in a while.”
And look really, really sexy.
And smell great.
And smile that smile that makes me—
“Is it getting hot in here?” She flipped on the air conditioning, twisting the dial to full blast. Maybe that would cool her suddenly out-of-control hormones.
The only thing it did was make her nipples bead. Completely embarrassing.
Damn, damn, damn. They were so not off to a good start.
She kept her gaze trained on the darkening road, but Doug’s stare burned into her all the same. “Are you attracted to me, Rachel?”
Oh, yeah, like she’d really admit that to him. That would give him too much power over her. The last thing Doug needed was a power trip. Or more ammunition to pick on her than he already had. “No. Of course not. Why would I be attracted to you? That’s the craziest idea I’ve ever heard.”
“Even crazier than asking me to fake being your fiancé for the weekend?”
Well, hell. “Um, no, not really. But still, I would never be attracted to you. Never. Not in a million—”
“Rachel?”
Just the way he said her name had her insides melting into a puddle of lust. She just hoped she’d be able to get the stains out of her seat. “Huh?”
“You’re lying through your teeth.”
Torture. That’s what this car ride was. Doug turned it over and over in his mind, but couldn’t come up with a more apt description. She was so close. So damned close and he couldn’t touch her.
Could her car be any smaller? He’d had ride-on toys bigger than this as a child.
His left leg had fallen asleep an hour ago, and his right one had just woken up, cramping and tingling in protest. He needed to get out and stretch before he found himself with a permanent incapacitation.
“Are we nearly there?” He had to force himself not to look at her. If he looked, he’d want to touch. If he touched, she’d run them off the road. He’d prefer to live, and touch her later when they weren’t in a vehicle traveling sixty-five miles per hour down a dark stretch of highway with metal guardrails on each side.
“About five more minutes.”
The soft anxiety in her voice made him break his vow and look at her. She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye—something he’d caught her doing an awful lot of tonight. At least a lot for a woman who denied having any attraction to him.
He shook his head and shifted in the uncomfortable seat. If she had asked—and he’d been a little disappointed that she hadn’t—he wouldn’t have denied his attraction to her. She had to know. He’d done nothing to keep it a secret.
He couldn’t wait to get her alone.
First they had to suffer through some kind of family party, but after that Rachel would be all his. Assuming they were even allowed to sleep in the same room. The thought of being kept away from her all night left him cold—and defeated his purpose for even coming on this little excursion.
“What are the sleeping arrangements this weekend?”
She slowed the car and turned down an exit ramp. “We’ll have my old room. Don’t worry, though, it has twin beds.”
Twin beds? Didn’t that just suck. At least they’d be in the same room. He’d just have to work with what he had. And twin beds could be very…cozy, given the right situation. “It must be nice to get to sleep in your old room.”
She snorted. “It’s like coming home again—but not in that sappy Hallmark way. More like wandering onto the set of the Jerry Springer show.”
He laughed. She had to be exaggerating. No one’s family could be that bad.
He hoped.
“My mother kept all our old bedrooms the way they were,” she continued. “That way we’d have a place to sleep when we came home to visit. Except for Amanda’s, since she’s spent most of her adult life with various husbands. Amanda’s room became the sewing room. My mother is a sewing freak. She used to make all our clothes.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”
“You’ve never had to wear polyester socks and linen underwear.”
He burst out laughing, though he couldn’t be sure that her deadpan crack had been a joke. “Amanda’s the one who’s getting married this weekend, right?”
“She is. Don’t get too excited about it, though. She’s just adding to her ex-husband collection. Her first was a car mechanic, her second an out-of-work musician, and her third a waiter at a local café. This new one owns his own business of some sort, so it looks like she may be moving up in the world.”
“Are you for real? I mean, you’re not exaggerating or anything, are you?”
“Um, no.” She snorted again. The very unladylike sound seemed to fit her perfectly. “The sad thing is that my mom makes a huge deal out of it, every single time. She doesn’t get it that Amanda’s never going to stick with one guy long enough for her investments to pay off. Brace yourself. We’re here.”
She pulled up in front of a huge white Victorian-style house with an expansive, well landscaped lawn. “Are you ready?”
He caught a glimpse of movement from inside the house. A curtain pulled back in one of the front windows. Two older women stood there, their faces practically pressed to the glass. Doug smiled to himself. Time to start the fun, and give Rachel a weekend to remember. “Almost. There’s something I need to do before we go inside.”
She paused in the middle of opening the car door. The overhead light lit the interior in pale yellow and gave the women in the window a clear view right into the car.
She shifted in her seat to face him, her expression exasperated—and adorable. “What do you need to do now?”
“This.” He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her.