Crystal Green - Mystery Date

“Later.”

Was he stringing her along, promising he was going to reveal himself if she came back another night? Lord help her, but she was so damned curious about him that she would return here again and again until she saw his face.

His voice was as smooth as the honey she’d been playing with when he came back on the phone. “What are you doing tomorrow night?”

Nothing. But she wasn’t about to let him know that so easily. “I’ll have to look at my social calendar.”

“Then we’ll see if you’re free, and I’ll be in touch.”

And with that, he was gone, leaving her with a meal that she was too excited—and too calorie conscious—to eat.

Leaving her with the sense that, finally, after all these years, she could be as free as she wanted to be if she returned for some more playtime with her Mystery Man.

3

DANI COULDN’T WAIT a minute more to find out what was happening with Leigh, even if her friend might still be in the middle of her date.

Fifteen minutes ago she’d gotten off a catering job in Tulare, where she and Riley rented a house. The gig was for the same outfit she’d been with for years now—although she longed for the day when she could open her own small company. She’d headed directly for the lingerie shop nearby, browsing the massage oil and accessory section, but the whole time, she’d been obsessing about checking on Leigh. After all, what if the date was going badly? What if her friend needed an emergency call to end the night?

She decided to compromise with a text.

You good?

Dani didn’t get an answer right away, so she drove the short distance from the boutique to her little stucco home with its trimmed lawn, perennial flowers and bird fountain. Riley’s truck was in the drive, and she grasped her pink shopping bag and rushed into the house to see him.

Since he’d had the day off from his small-estate management job, he had prepped steaks for dinner, plus a salad, sautéed mushrooms and French bread. It all waited on the kitchen table for her. But when she saw her fiancé, his dark hair tousled, his blue eyes bright as he smiled at her, she dropped her bag and ran into his arms.

“Dinner smells great,” she said, nestling her face in his neck as she stood on her tiptoes. He always smelled so good, too, like laundry detergent. Clean and fresh.

He kissed the top of her head and murmured, “I was just about to put the steaks on.”

“You sure they can’t wait?” She drew back from him and dangled the pink shopping bag.

At first Riley got a look on his face that she’d grown all too used to since she’d been doing a lot of lingerie shopping after their fraternity/sorority reunion. She wouldn’t say it was sadness, exactly. Maybe just a second of resignation, of thinking that he missed the sweet, docile girl she used to be before she’d had her epiphany about being stronger and more adventurous.

Just as Margot had been with her basket, and now Leigh.

And maybe Dani had gone a bit off the deep end. She had taken a good look at herself after her friends had arranged that basket auction to raise money for the big wedding she’d wanted ever since she was a child. The one she and Riley couldn’t afford these days.

It was just that her friends’ gesture had rubbed her the wrong way. Had everyone always looked at Dani as if she was helpless? And how much longer was she going to be able to live with that?

So she’d decided that it was high time to grow up—to become a success like Margot and Leigh, not the contented former home-ec major who worked for a catering company she didn’t even own. Although she still had to work for someone else for a while, she planned to open her own catering outfit soon.

Best of all, she had started jazzing up her sex life with Riley, inspired by Margot’s steamy basket and how much it had turned on Clint Barrows, who was now the love of her life.

Dani and Riley never looked at each other the way Margot and Clint did. Why not? Dani had wondered. Why couldn’t they have combustible chemistry like that?

When she had started nudging Riley into more exotic intimate situations, he’d been surprised at first, wondering if she was just suffering from cold feet before their upcoming wedding. Wondering if she was freaking out because her parents had gotten a terrible divorce several years ago and she feared turning out exactly like them.

But he had decided that they should get to know each other all over again. He wanted to “court” her. It was a fairly sweet word for what they’d been doing.

Just as Riley was about to say something in response to her pink shopping bag, her phone rang.

“It’s got to be Leigh,” she said, dropping her purchases.

Riley merely smiled at her, then went to the patio door, no doubt to get their steaks going.

Dani watched him leave, her heart fisting in her chest as the phone rang again. She was going to make him happy tonight—and for the rest of their lives. She just had to figure out how to feel happy herself.

When he was gone, she grabbed her phone, looked at the ID screen, then put the call on speakerphone. “Are you alive?” she asked.

Leigh laughed. “No, I’m coming at you from the Other Side. Boo!”

“Stop it. I was just worried about you.”

“You shouldn’t have been. I’m outside Mystery Man’s house by the gate, waiting for Margot to pick me up.”

“And...?”

Leigh’s voice lowered. “It was...different.”

“How?”

“First off, he never showed himself to me.”

Why did Dani’s thoughts immediately go to somewhere horny? Probably because of what was in her pink bag.

“Do you mean that he kept being Mystery Man?” she asked. “The whole night?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.”

Dani started to hum the Twilight Zone theme until Leigh shushed her.

“The situation really wasn’t as oddball as it sounds.” Leigh skipped a beat. “I think.”

“You sound as confused as I am.”

“It’s just that I got used to the way he was running things. After Beth brought me up to the house, I did meet him. Sort of. He was on a phone.”

Dani frowned. “That’s how it stayed the entire time? With him talking to you on an electronic device?”

“It was fun. Like...phone sex. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“You guys had phone sex?”

“No.” Leigh laughed again. “He watched me cook dinner as we chatted—”

“Did he have a TV to watch you on? Is that how he was keeping an eye on you?” This was getting kookier by the second.

“I’m not sure how he was watching me. Anyway, after I cooked, I ate the dinner.”

“By yourself.”

“Right. Actually, I didn’t eat. I wasn’t very hungry.”

It was probably a rich meal anyway, and Dani knew that Leigh was always watching her intake. “Did he eat?”

“Not with me. A good way to put it is that while I was at the table, I ate the most of the honey and some bread while he watched me from wherever he was.”

Dani sucked in a breath, then whispered, “You did food sex?”

“I won’t get into details, but it actually was fun. And I think it was the first time I ever had any real fun on a date. Usually, you just go through the motions with a guy, trying to impress him, trying to be polite and not get food between your teeth or look like a pig at dinner. Boring as hell, right? Until now.”

Dani sat in a nearby chair. “You liked it. You’re into some kink and you never even knew it.”

Leigh got a teasing tone to her voice. “Maybe you’re right. Because I’m going back there.”

“You’re what?”

“I said I’m going back. I think. He pretty much invited me to the house again at the end of dinner.”