No Strings. Cara Lockwood

      “Don’t go lecturing me on how you hate being a sex object. This is the picture you use. You look like you’re fun...and you don’t have a stick up your butt.”

      “I don’t!” Emma cried, reaching for the phone. Sarah batted her hand away, typing up her profile. “And what are you doing?”

      “Making sure you go through with this.” Sarah tapped her screen a few more times, concentrating hard.

      “You think all problems can be solved by getting laid.”

      “Can’t they, though?” Sarah grinned, her green eyes sparkling with mischief.

      Emma giggled and tried to take back her phone. Sarah ducked deftly. Emma gave up and reached for her coffee mug. “Sarah, come on.”

      “Fine.” Sarah glanced at her friend, the dare unmistakable in her gaze. “It’s not live until you hit that button.”

      Emma glanced at the screen and nearly choked, almost sloshing her coffee. “You called me ‘Kitten’?” Inwardly, Emma groaned.

      “The sex part is implied,” Sarah said, signaling the waiter to refill her mimosa. Emma had a feeling she’d need another one, too. “Just hit the ‘get laid’ button, and you’re good to go.” Sarah grinned.

      “A ‘get laid’ button? Seriously?” Emma hesitated. Was she really going to do it? This was so unlike her and yet... It’s just research. How bad could it be?

      “You don’t like it, you can delete the app whenever you want,” Sarah said. She studied her friend. “You’re not scared are you?”

      “Are you seriously peer pressuring me into this?”

      “Whatever works.” Sarah shrugged.

      “Fine.” Emma tapped the button, sending her profile live out into the universe, telling random strangers in the Chicagoland area she was willing and available. She wasn’t sure quite how she felt about that.

      “That’s my girl,” Sarah said, patting her hand. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”

      “Now what?” Emma glanced at her phone, as if it would suddenly hold all the answers.

      “Now you wait.” Sarah took a big swig of her mimosa. “Don’t worry. You probably won’t even hear from anybody for hours—until tonight.”

      Emma glanced at her empty plate when her phone dinged. The Nost app lit up her screen with an incoming message.

      “Did I say hours?” Sarah put down her champagne glass. “With your hot self, looks like you just had to wait a minute.”

      Emma’s phone dinged once more. And then, a third time.

       What have I gotten myself into?

      Sarah grabbed her phone. She began scrolling through options. “Nope. No. Oh, God...no.” Sarah held up the phone and showed Emma a picture of a man trying to shove a foot-long hot dog in his mouth in one go. Emma wrinkled her nose. Who would want to have sex with...that?

      “I feel like I’ve just wandered into an ugly bar, and I’m going to spend the next twenty-four hours being harassed.”

      “Maybe.” Sarah flicked through a few more pictures. “Oh my. Here’s the man for you.” She showed Emma another one, this one of a man in a full Spider-Man suit, his face covered.

      Emma barked a laugh. “No, it’s not. Look at his... You know.” She pointed to the picture’s groin where his very little bit was fully outlined for nearly all to see.

      “Ew!” Sarah cried and dissolved into giggles. “No baby carrots for you!”

      Sarah flicked through a few more. “Oh, this guy is nice. Mr. X? Sounds...intriguing.”

      “Mr. X? Uh, no.” Emma shook her head.

      Sarah kept flipping. Then, she stopped on one. “Ooh...he’s cute.” Sarah showed the screen to Emma and showed a blond, blue-eyed thirty-something in a suit.

      “I guess so.” Emma shrugged.

      “Guess so? He’s one hundred percent Christian Grey. And even his name is cute... Happy Fun Time! I am setting this up.”

      “Sarah!” Emma tried to grab her phone. “Don’t!”

      “You’re on for tomorrow night, at the bar in the Ritz-Carlton downtown.”

      Emma blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Why did you do that?”

      “Because I knew you wouldn’t.”

       CHAPTER TWO

      EMMA HAD SPENT twenty-four hours trying to figure out a way to cancel this date. But as Sarah had pointed out countless times, it was only a drink. If she didn’t like Mr. Happy Fun Time, she could simply walk out of the bar and never talk to him again. Yet, the idea of meeting a man just for sex, well, she just didn’t know if she’d be able to go through with it, even if she wanted to.

       I’m just going to meet him. Have a drink. Then, tell him politely that maybe we could have more dates before we...uh...do it... IF we ever do it and that’s a big if.

      Emma would need about six dates before she’d even consider taking her clothes off. Maybe twelve. Emma realized with a start that she’d never even had sex with a man she wasn’t almost or totally in love with already. When her friends were hooking up in college, she was tied to her high school boyfriend long-distance. Then after college, she began her relationship with Devin. That was before he took a job in Seattle and told her they ought to see other people six months ago.

      Emma had thought they’d been headed for marriage, but turns out, she was just headed for...dating apps.

      She stood before her closet studying the contents and wondering what on earth she was supposed to wear on this date that was almost, surely going nowhere.

      “Hmmm,” she muttered, as she pulled out a flowered sundress which screamed summer and wouldn’t work for the cool September night she was expecting. Besides, it showed too much leg. Don’t want to give the wrong impression, she thought. Oh, wait, I already have, because this is NOST.

      No strings.

      She sighed and pulled out a black turtleneck sweater. Maybe she ought to show up wearing this and baggy sweatpants and see whether or not she’d send the shallow Mr. Happy Fun Time running. She grinned to herself, but then decided against it. She put the sweater back in her closet and tried to dig around for something middle of the road. Emma lamented the fact that she was wasting so much mental energy on what she was going to wear on a date that she didn’t even want to have in the first place. She ought to be outlining more chapters in that book she planned to write.

      She glared at the closet, wishing it was her computer screen.

      “I should cancel this date,” she told her closet. “I should text him and cancel.”

      She whipped out her phone and pulled up the Nost app. Then Mr. Happy Fun Time’s picture came up: blond, sophisticated suit, like a successful and rich businessman. Well, what could it hurt? Just because his picture looked like something she’d find on a corporate About Us page didn’t mean that he was all that stuffy. Maybe he had a sense of humor. Maybe he’d be quick-witted. Maybe he’d just buy me drinks, she thought, as she remembered her less than stellar bank account balance that month. The freelance gigs had been a little less than hot and heavy these last few weeks, and she’d had to lean on credit cards more than she’d like.

      I don’t need men to buy me anything, she reminded herself. Just because her budget was tight didn’t mean that she wasn’t a fully functional independent woman. One more reason to cancel. She was