Mystery Date. Crystal Green

a gruff voice.

      He didn’t sound like himself, either, and her blood pushed through her veins as she tried to match the voice with her image of him. But even blindfolded, she still saw Riley.

      She pointed toward the cuffs on the table. “You’ll want to make sure I can’t take off this blindfold.”

      “Why?”

      “Because even though you don’t want me to know your identity, I’m dying to see who you are.” Or who he was going to play at being.

      She’d meant it teasingly, but was he thinking that she should know who he was by now? It felt as if a piece of her heart had crumbled because she wasn’t sure just how invested he was in all these games she was introducing.

      Was she seeing how far he would go before he left her? Would she be getting a divorce from him before they were married thirty-seven years just like her parents had been, saving them the time and heartache?

      As she felt Riley reach for the handcuffs, she remembered the first time she had seen him, during a party. He’d been leaning against the outside wall of the fraternity house by the pool with some friends, smiling and drinking a soda, and she had thought what a nice guy he probably was. She’d been a freshman who didn’t know much about boys, and she and Riley had ended up friends. It’d only been after college that she had met up with him again and the fireworks had started.

      It had been smooth sailing ever since...until now, when she felt the handcuffs close around her wrists.

      She turned her face to him, forgetting for a moment that she couldn’t see him from under the blindfold.

      “This is how you want it?” he asked again.

      She nodded, and he stood, taking her by the waist at the same time, then putting her on the chair and raising her hands above her head. She rested her palms on her head, feeling vulnerable, her breasts pushing against her sweater.

      As her pulse flailed, he pulled up her skirt, and her first instinct was to close her legs. But he guided them back open.

      Heat sang through her, but so did a little bit of fear, as her clit throbbed in anticipation.

      “Do you like not being able to see me, Dani?” he asked. “Is this dangerous for you?”

      “It’s safe enough.” Always safe with Riley.

      At least, that was what she thought until he slipped his hand between her legs, touching her at her most sensitive point.

      She made a desperate sound, and he tugged her panties away from her body. Air tickled her.

      “Who am I tonight?” he asked, and she detected a trace of that sadness in him again. “Who do you want me to be?”

      “I...”

      She wanted to say “Riley,” but that didn’t go along with the dark-man fantasy.

      When he eased his fingers between her legs and strummed her, she breathed in and clamped her arms around her head. He put his mouth close to her ear, and when he spoke, she startled.

      “You need to think about who you really want, Dani,” he said softly.

      Was he saying that she needed to name an identity for him so that the fantasy would work? Or was there something more important he wanted her to think about?

      She bit her lip as he worked her with his fingers, pushing her toward a place where, hopefully, she was going to see the light.

      * * *

      DURING THE CAR ride to the Sea Breeze Suites where Margot and Leigh were staying for a couple of nights, Leigh answered every question Margot had about the date. Even when they’d gotten back to their room, camped out on their beds while hardly able to even think about getting to sleep yet, Margot didn’t stop her inquisition.

      “Really?” she asked for about the twentieth time. “You’re going on another date with him?”

      The more Margot disbelieved her, the more determined Leigh was to have her next encounter with Callum.

      Leigh Vaughn, with her skinny jeans and a whole new attitude. She hadn’t realized how boring her life was until tonight, when she’d experienced a little bit of adventure.

      And craved more.

      “You bet I’m going back,” she said. “And you know what? If he can play a game with me, I can play just as well. You should’ve seen me at dinner with the honey. You would’ve been proud.”

      Seemingly persuaded, Margot leaned back against the pillows she’d propped against the headboard. Then she smiled like a well-fed cat. “Leigh has arrived.”

      Was that a blush she felt creeping up her face?

      Nah. Women who flirted with unknown men didn’t blush.

      After kicking off her hand-tooled red boots and putting her feet on the mattress, she leaned back against the headboard, too.

      “I’ve been asking myself one question since I left,” she said. “What kind of man invites over a well-known cook he somehow knew from college and cuts out of the date as if his house is on fire?”

      “You really want me to answer that?” In the car, Margot had compared Callum to everyone from Count Dracula to the Marquis de Sade. You just never knew, she said. But now she sighed. “I was on the computer while you were gone, conducting another search of Phi Rho Mu. But there’re no millionaires who matched the name Callum.”

      “Whoever he is, I think he’s kind of shy.”

      “Shy? Some of the things he said to you—especially that opening line about coming—aren’t the stuff shy men say.”

      “Playing a game can make a person brassier than they usually are.” Leigh thought about the moment she’d licked the honey off her fingers and when she’d spread it over the bread with suggestive slowness. “I know that having him in the shadows did something to me. It gave me some...”

      “Power?”

      “Yeah.” Leigh turned her head so she could look at Margot. “I’ve never had power before.”

      “Yes, you have. You’ve got a TV show. You’re a rising star, Leigh. That’s some power.”

      “Business is different.”

      They were both quiet for a moment. In fact, Margot seemed too quiet. And she had that expression on her face that she got whenever she and Leigh talked about their jobs.

      Enough was enough. “What’s going on with you, Marg?”

      It must’ve been the compassionate tone of her voice, because Margot closed her eyes, then put on an embarrassed smile.

      “I was going to tell you sometime or another. Might as well be now.”

      “Is everything okay?”

      “More than okay. In most ways.” She tucked a dark strand of hair behind her ear. “Do you know why I’m not writing the ‘single woman on the go’ books anymore?”

      Something was already sinking inside Leigh’s chest. “No.”

      Margot shrugged. “My publisher canceled my last contract. Sales were declining, they said.”

      “Oh, Margot.” Leigh sat away from the headboard.

      She held up a hand. “No pity, please. Don’t they say that when a door closes on you, a window opens? Well, that’s what happened with this new blog and the ‘city girl goes country’ book I’m working on. You know the blog’s getting a lot of hits, and maybe that could lead to another publisher buying a book or two. And then there’s Clint.” Margot got a dreamy look in her eyes. “He’s the best opened window of all.”

      “So life is good?”

      “How can it not be with him around?