All Tied Up. Alison Kent

as ripe as the forbidden fruit.

      He made his decision. He wasn’t going anywhere.

      Not just yet.

      3

      WHILE LAUREN ADJUSTED one row of track lighting to spotlight the loft’s hardwood floor, Macy prepared to distribute the sheets of pink and blue paper she’d printed earlier today.

      Five for the girls, five for the boys. Ten unique lists for her newest gIRL gAMES adventure.

      A scavenger hunt.

      An after-hours, adults-only, you-find-mine-I’ll-find-yours kind of contest.

      Macy was certain she’d never conceived a more brilliant idea. And if all went according to plan, this month’s edition of gIRL gAMES might possibly be the best yet.

      Which would mean more reader feedback. More assignments from Sydney. More input from Lauren on column design.

      Hmm. Hoist with her own petard.

      Well, she couldn’t worry overly much at the moment. Her focus group had to first pull off this game without killing each other. And she had to remember that tumbling Leo Redding was not the point of play.

      It didn’t matter that his hands were the hands of her fantasy. Or that she’d never been more thoroughly kissed. Physical attraction wasn’t the problem. She was still trying to decide if she liked the man. A decision that would have to wait, because it was time to get on with the evening’s main game.

      Careers left all of her crew, herself included, little time to party. Her column, gIRL gAMES, was meant to provide the Web site’s readers with social alternatives to bars and clubs.

      Yet none of her previous game ideas had offered her scavenger hunt’s possibilities for girl-meets-boy, up-close-and-personal, one-on-one contact.

      From a ticklish spot to an erogenous zone to a kinky fetish, the lists for the hunt included additional items equally intimate and more intense.

      And the list she’d be assigning herself held a grouping of search items as random as those to be chosen by everyone else in the room.

      Well, almost everyone else in the room.

      Only Lauren and Anton’s items had been specifically designed. Which made sense, since it was Lauren and Anton’s interaction of late that had sparked the idea for the game.

      As much as Macy’s best friend adored her boyfriend and vice versa, elements of the seemingly perfect relationship struck Macy as anything but. And she was doing what any best friend should do under the circumstances. Butting in.

      She’d put together two fiercely personal lists, the purpose of which was to put both Lauren and Anton through, well, through hell if the couple truly gave the game their all.

      Macy would just have to keep her fingers crossed that she’d be forgiven the sabotage should the plan blow up in her face.

      Lists in hand, she wound her way through the center of the loft. She slapped a blue list against Jess Morgan’s reluctantly offered palm, then climbed over Anton’s long legs, looking up to in time catch Jess unfolding his folded blue paper.

      “You! Stop!” She first pinned Jess, then Anton, with the sharpest eye daggers she could throw. “Don’t even think about looking until I say so.”

      Jess slowly closed his half-opened sheet and, holding the list behind his head in laced fingers, began to whistle.

      Anton, guilty until proven innocent, his list in his lap, held up both empty hands. “Don’t think about looking where? At what? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

      “Good.” Macy leaned down and dropped a kiss on the top of his head of unruly, sun-bleached curls. “I’ll explain everything in a minute. And don’t think that just because I have my back turned I’m not keeping an eye on you two.”

      With that, she moved on, scrambling over feet and furniture to reach the three women whose fate she didn’t already know. Sydney tentatively accepted the pink list Macy offered. Melanie was more wary, finally choosing one of the last two sheets. Chloe scooted to the far side of the plaid chair and had to be coerced.

      “Hey.” Macy nudged her hip into Chloe’s shoulder. “We’re all in this girl business together, remember? You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours?”

      Tapping the folded edge of her list on her pink-denim-clad knee, Chloe eyed Macy thoroughly from head to toe.

      “Let’s see. My departments are cosmetics and accessories. I don’t see where you’re scratching much of my anything, sugar. You have a great natural look, but it’s not helping my numbers.”

      “For your information, Miss Cosmetics and Accessories, this natural look costs me a fortune. Your moisturizers and oils and exfoliators and cleansers do not come cheap.”

      With a tilt of her head, Chloe acquiesced. “Okay. I’ll give you the cosmetics. But you’re still short-changing me on the accessories.”

      Macy stood, stuck out her tongue. “What can I say? It’s hard to accessorize perfection.”

      “Before you go?” Ignoring the groans, Macy looked back at Sydney, who held up her folded list. “We do what with this?”

      “Oh, right. Just hold on to it. Don’t look. I’ll give instructions to everyone at the same time.”

      And with that she glanced across the main room where, circled like a wagon train around the washtub of longnecks, stood the last of her three confirmed bachelors. Blowing out a long breath, she headed that way, presenting the three remaining sheets of blue paper to Eric, Leo and Ray.

      “C’mon, guys. Pick a card. Any card.” There were no takers the first time out, so she tried again. “I’m only offering three options here. That means the man brave enough to pick first has close to a fifty-fifty chance of winding up with the female partner of his choice.”

      Eric backed up to sit on the arm of the sofa, lifting one brow, but making no further move. Rolling her eyes, Macy took matters into her own hands, folding one of the lists over the neckband of his shirt.

      Definitely time to look for a new line of work, she thought, handing one list to Ray and, to Leo, the last.

      He took his time slipping it from her fingers. Way too much time, because it was a simple piece of paper and nothing as intimate or suggestive as his slow-motion withdrawal would indicate.

      It wasn’t like his long strong fingers were reaching for hers, though she hadn’t yet forgotten their texture or the trail of warmth his touch left behind on her skin.

      It wasn’t like the paper held a private invitation, an indecent proposal, a back-alley proposition.

      It wasn’t like he was taking anything she hadn’t offered him freely. Was there anything she wouldn’t offer him freely?

      She shook off the thought, found what remained of her brain. “Sorry, Leo. Looks like you’re stuck with long odds.”

      He looked down at his hands instead of her way, folded the list and tucked the sheet of blue paper into the breast pocket of his crisp white shirt. “Guess I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up.”

      “Hopes up?”

      “About playing with you again.” This time he met her gaze, a calculated move, his eyes seeking hers and delving deep, beyond the surface of the game and into territory that was personal and intimate, a part of herself she rarely shared.

      Oh, the way he looked at her. Oh, the way he said “again.” A five-letter, two-syllable word that sounded like too much of a good time to turn down now that she knew how he kissed.

      She heaved a regretful sigh, part sound effects, part honest bafflement over what he was making her feel. “If that’s the case, you have no one to blame but yourself.”

      “How