Chapter 8

Sabrina learned a couple of things, watching this creature that she’d unleashed at the Oasis. One: people had way too much fun playing up all things sexual for the meat market crowd. Two: she wanted no part of it.

Tiptoeing backwards, she was halfway to her office when Tanya turned and saw her. They both took off running, but Tanya managed to trap Sabrina in her office when she stopped to get her purse before sprinting out the back.

Tanya gave her a desperate look. “Come on, what have you got to lose?”

“My self-respect, for starters.”

“You can’t let all this,” Tanya’s hands framed the beautiful woman in front of her, “go to waste.”

“I’ve done it for years.”

“Sabrina.” Tanya looked at her with understanding. “Something brought you out tonight. After all the effort you put into yourself, you can’t tell me you weren’t hoping to meet someone.”

“But not like that!” She threw her hand toward the humming wall. “I’ll be a laughingstock.”

“I won’t let that happen.”

“Hello, did you see that out there?”

“First of all, that slut chose to ask her own questions, and based on those she got exactly the feedback she was looking for from the guys. She played up the sexual shock value—her choice.”

****

Jackson pushed his glass away and stared in distaste at the stage. Witnessing that spectacle was like watching a cheesy striptease, revolting and disturbingly compelling. He felt cheap and dirty, degraded somehow. Screw this. He was done. This was not how he wanted to spend his precious personal time.

Sliding off his stool, Jack was about to call it a night when his three male companions looked at him with the queerest looks in their eyes. Becky sat back and joined the fun. So why wasn’t he smiling?

****

Nate strolled across the set and grinned into the bright lights. “I can’t wait to bring out our next beautiful bachelorette, but before I show her off I need three contenders. Come on, gentlemen, don’t be shy. This lady is well worth the effort.”

“Here!” someone called, and a cocky ex-jock type sauntered out of the crowd, his friends whooping in support behind him.

“Two more, I need two more!” Nate eyed the crush of people expectantly.

****

It wasn’t easy to get Sabrina to cave, but now that she’d managed it Tanya didn’t dare let go of her sleeve. Still, she had to see what was going on out front. She alone stepped around the door just in time to catch the second bachelor come dancing out of the crowd.

What the hell?

He was using his hips to carry him obscenely forward to the beat of the music while his arms and shoulders did their own freaky little dance. Tanya’s self control was excellent, her amusement betrayed only by a subtle lift of an eyebrow and a trembling at the corner of her mouth, but her efforts to hold back a full-blown smile couldn’t withstand what came next. She totally lost it when he tossed his long dark hair back like some sort of sexy god. Everyone roared in approval, egging him on, not that he needed the encouragement.

Tanya gave up and broke out laughing. “Oh, my god, this guy is awesome!”

“What’s he look like?”

Sabrina tried to peek around the door, but Tanya blocked her, hissing impatiently, “Tsst, tsst!” She turned back in disbelief at what she saw next.

Sabrina’s man with the golden glutes was being steered and shoved out front by three friends. He looked pissed and unwilling, but once Nate acknowledged him he seemed to accept the inevitable. Watching him, it was as if he drew the mantle of his dignity around his shoulders, then walked onto the stage with his head held high.

“No kidding,” Tanya said softly, then gave an ominous chuckle.

“Now what?” Sabrina’s urge to bolt reared up again.

“It’s nothing.”

****

Nate turned and scanned the room for Tanya. She popped out and gave him an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

Relieved, he beamed at the crowd. “Now it’s time to introduce our next bachelorette. She’s an intelligent professional with a cool head for business and a body too hot to handle. Please give her a warm welcome.”

Nate clapped furiously and everyone joined in, their enthusiasm growing more boisterous when they got a look at her.

Tanya thrust a stack of recipe cards into Sabrina’s hand and pushed her forward.

Sabrina tried to ignore the howls and wolf whistles as she stepped onto the platform and took the empty stool. She didn’t want to think about the three men hidden behind the folding screens.

She was going to kill Nate for that intro.

****

Jackson looked at the crowd of rowdy people and groaned. How the hell had this happened? He found Van in the sea of faces and shook his head, his expression hard. Van was not taking his mood seriously, because he merely broke out laughing. Jackson was just going to have to kill him—or fire him, either option perfectly acceptable as far as he was concerned.

Damn it. There wasn’t nearly enough alcohol in his bloodstream to get with this program. At least the brainless bimbo was getting a good welcome. She was obviously worth the price of admission. It helped, anyway.

Jackson turned and sized up the other contenders and snorted in derision. He was up against a Fabio knockoff and a guy who looked like he understood sports figures better than women’s figures.

Still, the last thing he was interested in doing was getting into a competition for a woman he hadn’t even seen. He’d just play it cool, be straight, and let the other guys act like peacocks.

****

Sabrina hooked her heel under her stool and crossed her legs. Looking over the first card, she spoke tentatively into the microphone Tanya held in front of her.

“Bachelor Number One, if you had three hours to show me who you are, what would we do?”

****

Nate stuck the microphone in front of the jock.

“I’d pick you up in my restored GTO and we’d take a nice drive to my favorite lake for a picnic. There might be some skinny-dipping involved, if you were daring enough. Then after that we’d go back to my place and I’d show you a few of the moves that put those trophies on my shelf and maybe get you interested in a little touch football.”

Not a home run as far as the audience was concerned, but certainly a comfortable double. It was easy to pick out his friends in the crowd because they’d clearly mistaken the nightclub for a stadium. How predictable. One word summed it up for Sabrina—pass.

“Sounds interesting,” she lied. “Bachelor Number Two, if you could have one dance with me, what would it be, and why?”

****

Nate moved down and Fabio leaned into the mike, trying to channel Barry White with his voice unnaturally low and seductive.

“If I had to choose just one, it would be the tango, because it is the dance of passion and intensity, two bodies moving together in perfect unison.”

Already primed for innuendo, the crowd went wild. Fabio settled back and nodded confidently to his supporters.

****

“Okaaay,” Sabrina said glancing at the next question. Her eyes flashed at Tanya a second later, and she mouthed silently, “Are you kidding me?”

Tanya waved impatiently back.

Fuming, Sabrina resettled herself and said, “Bachelor Number Three, if I asked you for a massage, where would you start?”

She hated that she was blushing over such a ridiculous question.

****

Jackson sat up and stared for a moment at the microphone in his face. Finally he spoke.

“If you asked for a massage, I would assume you needed one. I’d want you to tell me where you wanted the most attention, so I could give you a little relief.”

He sat back, glad his turn was over. The crowd’s response was warm but far from enthusiastic. They thought he should have played it up more. Too bad.

****

“Good answer. Bachelor Number One, when is the best time for a first kiss?”

From behind the screen a disembodied voice said, “When it feels right.” She could almost see his shrug. “It could happen anytime during the date. I guess it all depends on you and the signals you give me.”

“That’s great. Bachelor Number Two, what’s your idea of a perfect date?”

When he answered, Sabrina got more than just the words; she picked up on the amusement and bold confidence of a man with a long history of sexual success under his belt. It was easy to tell he had no intention of losing anything, even a silly game like this.

“There’s this little place on the water that I love, and we’d have a candlelit dinner, then take a stroll along the beach in the moonlight. I would carry your shoes in one hand and pull you close with the other and show you why I chose the tango for us. Where we go from there will be entirely up to you.”

Right! He sounded like a first-rate seducer, and Sabrina had no interest in signing her name on his bedroom wall.

“Okaaay,” she said, shaking off the thought.

“Bachelor Number Three, if it looked like we were moving toward intimacy, how much time would you devote to foreplay?”

Her eyes pinned Tanya, and her fingers burned with the need to fling this card in her face, but with nothing else to ask she was stuck. It wasn’t like she could come up with something else with all these people staring at her. Cringing inside, Sabrina waited uncomfortably for the answer.

“Foreplay.” There was amusement in his voice. “Foreplay should begin immediately, as soon as I meet you at your door. Guys tend to forget that. It starts when I openly admire you and offer my arm. It continues over dinner when I listen with real interest to your side of the conversation and when I ask you to dance without using it as an excuse to put my hands all over you. And once I bring you home, foreplay is when you take me by the tie and pull me in for a long, mind-bending kiss and invite me inside.”

The hammer of Sabrina’s pulse was so loud in her ears she could hardly hear the rousing reaction to his answer.

Nate stirred the rowdy crowd even more by asking in a suspenseful way which lucky bachelor she was going to choose.

Sabrina was asking herself the same thing.

Number One really didn’t do it for her. Touch football? Come on. Number Two’s arrogance put her off on its own, but there was a hint of something a little dark and domineering underneath it all, if she was reading him right, and that sank him completely. No, she didn’t want Number Two, either.

But Number Three, now, there was a man to pique her interest. He handled her massage question perfectly without sounding depraved—some trick—but his subtle yet compelling response to the foreplay question clinched the deal. She happened to agree with him. Sexuality was as much in the mind as it was in the body, in the senses. If it was done right, it was a progression of little steps that led to the anticipated conclusion. It was a good answer and it hit the right note with her.

She could only imagine how Number Two might have handled that question. It gave her chills just thinking about it, and as for Number One, why did she feel he’d need clarification of what foreplay actually was before he could answer the question? Not good.

****

Nate stepped off the stage so he could see Sabrina and the three bachelors at the same time.

“Has our lovely bachelorette made a decision?” he asked.

Sabrina smirked. If that’s what it took to get her off the hot seat, you’d better believe it, buddy. “I choose Bachelor Number Three.”

Nate turned. “Bachelor Number One, come meet our bachelorette.”

He stood and walked around the screen just as Sabrina came to her feet. They shook hands and greeted each other awkwardly, then he returned to his friends.

“Bachelor Number Two,” Nate said.

Despite her assumptions, Sabrina still felt a great deal of curiosity over this one. After all, he was the one Tanya had mentioned specifically.

As soon as he rounded the screen she could see why. He was gorgeous, with that indefinable European appeal that put him head and shoulders above the Larry the Lounge Lizard type she was expecting. She liked the way his long wavy hair brushed his shoulders, but his conceited grin ruined it for him. He took both her hands and leaned down to plant a kiss just in front of her ear. “Too bad, he whispered softly, then drew back with a loaded smile.

For which one of us? she wondered.

“And now it’s time to introduce our couple to each other. Bachelorette, meet your perfect date.”

Sabrina trembled and Jackson rose as Tanya, beaming like a lunatic, wheeled the screen back.

Despite his expectations Jackson still found himself curious and a little excited as he looked across the stage. He blanched at the same instant that Sabrina released a shrill scream and collapsed in a dead faint.

Perfect.