Wicked Games. Alison Kent

you need help. Hell, you need a woman, at the very least.”

      Doug scooted forward to sit on the sofa’s edge, knees spread wide, elbows braced on his thighs. “No woman. Women. Plural. One woman means complications, expectations. And honey-do lists.”

      This time it was Anton who smirked. “One woman also makes for a much warmer bed.”

      “Except when you’re sleeping on the couch.”

      “Whoever’s giving you advice about women is charging way too much.” Anton grunted. “You don’t know jack about what you’re saying.”

      “Maybe not. But I know more than jack about what I’m seeing. Especially on the soccer field. You guys who’ve shacked up or gotten your butts married? You suck. Leo can’t defend a goal worth a crap anymore.” Doug liked his life fine just the way it was. He had no plans to put his nuts on the line to be snipped.

      Anton didn’t even bother with a comeback. “Speaking of soccer, are you planning to make the scrimmage Sunday night? What with you being eighty and all?”

      “Nah. I’m having dinner with Kinsey.” Slumping into the cushions again, Doug grinned and waggled both brows. “She’s cooking.”

      Anton did that waiting thing again. Then that smirking thing. “You know Lauren will kick your butt back to the Rockies if you hurt that girl.”

      “Screw you, Neville. It’s just dinner.” Though Doug almost had trouble convincing himself that Kinsey didn’t have more on her mind. When he’d picked up his voice mail on the way to the airport earlier today, he’d been surprised to hear her message.

      And even more surprised at the invitation.

      Her tone and the words she’d chosen made him think she wasn’t just wanting to put food in his stomach. He couldn’t help but remember that breakfast-time kiss they’d shared while vacationing last year on Coconut Caye.

      Not to mention the tabletop pole dance he’d watched a very tipsy Kinsey perform, her head thrown back, her blond hair swinging down to the red thong bikini bottom that bared her fantastic ass.

      Then there was that night on the veranda when they’d both had too much to drink. A night neither of them had spoken of again. A night he wished he could better recall because he had a feeling he’d forgotten a hell of a lot he needed to know—though the most important part he did remember.

      Oh, yeah. He remembered.

      He cleared his throat, slumped lower where he sat. “It’s just dinner.”

      “You said that already.”

      “Well, I’m just making sure you heard me.”

      Anton leaned to the side, shifting his weight onto one elbow. “You sure you’re not trying to convince yourself instead?”

      “Of what? The fact that Kinsey and I are only friends?” Doug snorted and picked a loose string off the knee of his khaki Dockers. “She knows I don’t want a relationship.”

      “Just dinner and…dessert?”

      “Dinner.” He shrugged. “Dessert’s up to her.”

      “Right. It’s not like you’re on a Kinsey-free diet or anything.”

      Doug didn’t say anything because he didn’t know what to say. He liked Kinsey a lot. If he’d been the type to settle down with one woman, she’d be there at the top of his list. Correction. She’d be his list. But he just didn’t see himself ever giving up the freedom that let him live his life without baggage or…honey-do lists.

      “Does she know about Denver?” Anton asked.

      Doug shook his head. “Dunno. I plan to tell her Sunday night.”

      “And then what?”

      “What do you mean, and then what? Then I go home and sleep for six hours or so, get up and pack.” That was the routine he’d settled into of late. “I’m flying out again first thing Monday morning.”

      Anton narrowed his eyes. “You’re going to have to decide about Reuben buying you out, you know. Especially considering how he bailed you out with Media West this afternoon. We can’t afford to screw up this remodeling job.”

      “Yeah, yeah.” Doug hated that his late flight had cost him the Media West meeting, hated even more that he would’ve been on time if he hadn’t rescheduled to make one more contact in Denver. A contact that had been a big waste of time.

      “Hey. Don’t blow this off,” Anton barked. “You’re lucky Reuben runs with Marcus West’s boys or you’d be eating crow for a very long time to come.”

      “As a matter of fact, Reuben and I have tickets to tomorrow night’s Rockets game. A few beers and it’ll all be good.” This decision was the hardest one Doug faced. Not the beer or the basketball, but the firm. He was no closer to making a decision tonight than he had been a month ago.

      He and Anton had made their original Neville and Storey plans while at the University of Houston’s College of Architecture, nearly ten years back. The move to Denver felt like an upward move on the career ladder. Doug had been wooed by the biggest boys on the block, and that was something that came along only once in a lifetime.

      It was just that selling his share of their architectural firm made him feel as if he were giving up on a dream, as well as selling out and betraying his very best friend. He’d thought the change would bring a sense of calm to his restlessness of late. He’d been wrong.

      And that was what was keeping him from signing on the Denver group’s bottom line.

      “You’ve got time,” Anton said, pensively studying the leather arm of his chair. “And I’d rather you take it than do the wrong thing.” He pushed to his feet then, shaking off what seemed to be a remnant melancholy. “Now, me? My time’s up. Lauren’s waiting.”

      Doug slapped his palms to his thighs and forced himself to follow. “Yeah, I’ve got to get going. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me.”

      “And all I’ve got is a honey to do.”

      “POE, I THINK you’re the only one here who doesn’t know Isabel Leighton, a friend from further back than I care to admit. Izzy, this is Annabel Lee, known fondly around the office as Poe.” Sydney made the only introduction necessary, then turned and gave Kinsey a grin of devious proportions. “Kinsey, who everyone knows, is the reason we’re here.”

      Where they were was in the kitchen of the suburban home Sydney shared with Ray Coffey. Sydney, Lauren, Izzy and Poe had all come to help Kinsey put together a meal guaranteed to make Doug weep. And weep in a good way, not because her cooking sucked. Since her woefully understocked kitchen sucked, as well, Sydney’s state-of-the-art setup made for a much better classroom.

      It was definitely good to see Izzy again. Though Kinsey had lost touch with the other woman once both were busy in school, the two of them had been fast friends as young girls. They’d spent hours running wild at Kinsey’s parents’ home where, for almost twenty years now, Izzy’s uncle Leonard had worked magic with the Grays’ lawn and tropical garden.

      “You know this is hopeless, don’t you?” Kinsey really wanted to smack whoever had started the rumor that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. “I burn microwave popcorn. I add too much water to packets of instant cocoa. Carryout was invented for a reason, hello. Doug is not going to want to eat anything that comes out of my kitchen.”

      “It won’t be coming out of your kitchen.” Lauren climbed onto the bar stool behind the cooking island. “It’ll be coming out of Sydney’s.”

      “With too many cooks spoiling the broth, it looks like,” Kinsey grumbled, glancing at the latest batch of hovering fairy godmothers. Calm. Collected. Ohhmmm. Why had she let herself be talked into such a ridiculous idea?