Chapter 1
Chapter One
R achel Bridges stared at the computer screen and sighed. She was generally a happy-go-lucky kind of girl, but lately she couldn’t fight back the brief spurts of depression that plagued her.
Since her friend Monica had issued that ridiculous dare—a cougar challenge, she called it—more than a few of her online pals had actually gone out and found themselves younger men. Crap, a couple of the girls had actually hooked up with two younger men. Her friends were turning out to be fearless and adventurous, and Rachel couldn’t help but be envious as she read about their sexual liaisons on the Tempt the Cougar Facebook group they’d created together.
She’d met all but one of the women at a conference for steamy romance novel fans. In one weekend, she’d formed a tighter bond with these women than with any friends she’d made in all of her thirty-seven years. Besides their shared love of hot books, they’d really connected personally as they shared their struggles to cope with the harsh realities of getting older. They’d been a godsend for Rachel at a time when loneliness and her own mortality had begun kicking her in the ass on a daily basis.
She clicked on her contacts and pulled up Autumn’s name. Since buying a ranch on eBay and finding the hunkiest cowboy in Texas, her friend had been on the group less and less. Having too much great sex all the time was clearly cutting into Autumn’s computer time. Bitch.
Hey.
What’s up, buttercup?
My life sucks.
Rachel was aware she was whining, but she didn’t care. She was PMSing and the damn vending machine ate her last three quarters without giving her the Milky Way she wanted. Now her hip hurt from beating the machine and the stupid son of a bitch was still dangling there, taunting her from across the room.
Why?
I’m never going to be able to complete Monica’s challenge. There’s no way I can find a younger man to sleep with me. Hell, I can’t find an old man to have sex with.
She’d never been into the club scene and she basically sucked at flirting. In fact, the entire concept of using her feminine wiles to attract the opposite sex struck her as downright silly. The few times she’d gone out to bars, she’d spent the entire time laughing at the antics of other women as they attempted to hook up. Her bizarre sense of humor clearly overshadowed every girly personality trait she possessed.
Her mother viewed her lack of relationships differently, saying she was far too practical for her own good and teasing her good-naturedly about the fact there wasn’t a romantic bone in her whole body. There was probably a basis of truth in both theories.
Men would love to sleep with you. You’re pretty, successful, funny. Oh hell…where are you, sweetie?
Rachel stared around at the empty physical therapy office where she worked and grimaced.
Work.
That’s what I thought. Get the hell out of there. It’s Friday night. Get dolled up and hit a bar.
I can’t. I have a client coming in.
Dammit, Rach. You’re not even trying to find a guy. I hate to break it to you, but you aren’t going to find Mr. Right by hiding out at work all the time. You’ve got to get out there and take some chances.
I know, but hitting the pick-up scene again is just too damn depressing.
I really think this lack of confidence is your ex-husband’s fault. You’re letting him win.
Voldemort already won.
LMAO. He’d shit himself if he knew that’s how you referred to him.
Truth hurts. Besides, can you blame me for being trigger shy? My whole life has been one big fucking cliché. Worked my ass off to support the shithead so he could attend medical school then dump me.
He didn’t deserve you.
No, apparently he deserved his twenty-something blonde nurse. You do realize the only way I’m going to get the image of them screwing in our bed out of my mind is to scratch my eyes out.
At least you kicked the bum out on his ass.
Wasn’t much of a kick. He wanted her, so he left. Catching them in the act just saved him the trouble of telling me.
After she’d divorced her husband, Rachel had pursued her own dreams, going back to school to work toward her physical therapy degree. For nearly six years, she’d managed to work herself into oblivion in hopes of avoiding the concept of “getting out there”. During the stressful time after her divorce, she’d turned to erotic romance as a means of escape. Curling up in bed with a hunky fictional character was a hell of a lot easier than dealing with a real flesh-and-blood man.
Christ, Rachel. Don’t you miss hot, sweaty, set-the-sheets-on-fire sex?
She rolled her eyes. The only man she’d ever had sex with—her ex-husband—had made reading the changes in tax laws seem exciting in comparison.
Hard to miss what you never had.
All the more reason to get out there.
Yeah. I guess you’re right. Thanks for the pep talk.
Is that what this was? Because, sweetie, you don’t seem much peppier. Guess it’s a good thing I never went out for cheerleading in high school. Of course, with my lack of hips, I’d have spent the entire time cheering with that little skirt around my ankles. Nothing to hold it up.
Rachel grinned. Even through texting, Autumn always managed to make her laugh.
Talking to you always helps. Give Mitch a kiss for me.
I will. Bye, sweetie.
She turned off her phone and closed her laptop rather than go back to the cougar group. Tonight, listening to all her friends chatter about their fun lives just deepened her depression. Hearing them talk about overcoming their problems and finding their dreams left her to wonder if there was something seriously wrong with her. She’d been dragged along with the cougar challenge and now they were expecting her to go out and have a fling with not just a man, but a younger man.
Shit.
She’d never be able to do that. She was too sensible to go around flirting with younger men who in all likelihood wouldn’t even notice her pathetic efforts. She was more the gal-pal type than the “pick up a stranger in a bar” sort of woman.
She pulled out the tatty notebook she always carried with her and flipped through the pages until she found the list she was looking for. She’d started keeping lists back in high school and the habit had never gone away. Once she filled a notebook, she bought a new one, loading the pages with list after list on every subject under the sun. In the beginning they were a way to stay organized. As she got older, they’d begun to also serve the purpose of reminding her of various things as she tended to be more forgetful.
She found the page she was looking for and scanned her pitiful list of potential younger men once again. She’d been keeping a running list since the night Monica issued the challenge, adding and marking out names for months. Unfortunately, the list was as pitiful now as it had been when she’d started it. There were currently seven names on the page, but four of those had been scratched out for various reasons. The three remaining prospects weren’t exactly thrilling. She leaned her head against her desk chair and fought back a groan. Apparently, she wasn’t cougar material after all.
She glanced at the clock, closed her eyes and sighed. Ethan was late again. Officer Russell was her most disgruntled patient. As a physical therapist, she was used to treating people who preferred to ignore their injuries, who chose instead to carry on with their normal activities without regard for the fact they were doing themselves more harm. Ethan took the award for stubbornness.
For the past eight weeks, she’d worked with him as he recovered from a gunshot wound to his upper leg. If not for the police department’s strict policy on the treatment of work-related injuries, she was certain Ethan would never have darkened her door, and it had taken more than a little bit of convincing on her part to get him to take the exercises and recovery strategy seriously.
If she had any feminine wiles at all, she’d be using the handsome twenty-eight-year-old officer to practice her seduction skills. But her work ethic prohibited her from becoming involved with a patient and her damn practicality prohibited basically everything else in regards to Ethan Russell.
“Whatcha doin’, Doc? Sleeping?”
“Oh shit!” She jumped out of her chair, her heart racing at the sudden sound in the room. She hadn’t heard Ethan walk in. There he stood, six feet four inches of mouth-watering perfection, with wavy dark brown hair and a smile that reduced her insides to utter mush. His hot-chocolate-colored gaze should be registered as lethal as his work-issued gun.
His grin at her alarm was remorseless. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Napping on the clock,” he teased.
She shook her head and ignored his comment. “You’re late. Again.”
He shrugged, unconcerned. “Caught a bad guy right at the end of shift. Lousy paperwork took awhile.”
“You couldn’t call?” she asked, aware her voice was snippy, but he’d truly frightened the hell out of her.
He looked at the clock that hung on the wall. “I’m only five minutes late, Rachel.”
She gave him a crooked smile and acknowledged the truth of his words. “Sorry,” she muttered. “Bad day.”
“Lose a list or something?” he asked, gesturing toward her notebook. He’d teased her relentlessly about her list fetish ever since asking about the book one night. She’d foolishly shown him the thing and for some reason, he’d found her fervent list-keeping hysterical.
“Ha ha. No, Mr. Smart Ass, I didn’t lose a list. I just don’t happen to like the one I’m working on.”
He quirked his eyebrows with interest and she cursed her loose tongue. The last thing she needed was to give the man another reason to ridicule her. He already had far too much fun at her expense. A fact, she had to admit, she sort of enjoyed. They seemed to share the same twisted sense of humor. In addition to being too hot for words, Ethan was funny and friendly and it hadn’t exactly been a hardship to volunteer to stay late to accommodate his crazy work schedule.
“Forget it,” she said quickly, hoping to deter his sudden interest.
“Let me see your list. Maybe I can help you with it.” Ethan grabbed her notebook and she swiftly attempted to pull it out of his grasp. They struggled over the book for several seconds before she lost her grip.
“It’s personal,” she said loudly when he won their tug-of-war. Her protest was too late as he read the heading on the page.
“Potential Younger Men for Cougar Challenge?”
Rachel prayed to God he didn’t know what “cougar” meant. She’d only learned of the term while reading her dirty romance novels. She’d been shocked to discover how much the idea of an older woman hooking up with a younger man turned her on, pushed her hot buttons.
“It’s just something silly…something stupid, really. Give me back my notebook and we’ll get started on your exercises.”
Ethan ignored her and she watched as he scanned the list of names. When he closed the book with a snap, she flinched at the unfamiliar look on his face. She’d never seen him look so serious or…angry. “What are you doing, Rachel? What the hell is this list about?”
She took a step back, confused by his reaction. Over the course of the past two months, she’d felt a friendship forming between her and the young cop. As a result, she now found her fears, her anxiety over the challenge falling from her lips uncontrolled.
Even though she was sure she was making a mistake, she told him everything—from meeting her friends at the conference to the Facebook group to the dare to sleep with a younger man. She didn’t leave out a single detail and throughout her entire confession, Ethan was quiet. In the end, it was his silence that unnerved her more than his initial anger.
“So there,” she said at last. “That should keep you busy in the teasing department for months. I’m an insane, horny-as-hell woman who’s actually contemplating throwing herself at a younger man on a dare. And before you say anything, yes, I know…I’m old enough to know better.” She walked away from him as she said the last, too embarrassed to face him.
She’d only made it two steps when he reached out and gripped her forearm, turning her back around. “Old enough to know better?” he asked. “You think you couldn’t land a younger guy?”
“Maybe I could,” she said, surprised to find him taking this conversation so seriously. “I mean, I don’t think I’m unattractive, just sort of out of practice with the whole dating scene.”
Ethan grinned and she spied the usual mischievous sparkle in his gaze that she’d grown accustomed to over the past few weeks. “Wish you’d mentioned this horny problem of yours earlier, Rach.”
“It’s not something a polite woman advertises,” she said.
He continued pulling her toward him until they stood face-to-face, close enough that she could smell his skin, a pleasant combination of fresh shower, soap and— yummy —man. Rather than look up, she stared straight ahead, placing her line of vision at the top of his chest. There was no way she could look at his handsome face and not spend the rest of their session imagining him naked. He wore a tight T-shirt and she could just imagine what his bare pecs would look like. She swallowed heavily, her mouth watering at the thought.
“Isn’t that a shame,” Ethan added. “Advertisements like that sure would take a lot of the guess work out of dating.”
“I haven’t been doing a lot of dating since my divorce from Voldemort.”
“Mm hmm.” She felt certain if she hadn’t been standing so closely, she wouldn’t have heard the small, guttural sound—a growl?—that emanated from him. Did it make him angry to hear her mention her ex? “Look at me, Rachel,” he said as she felt his gaze bore through the top of her head.
“I am,” she said, her eyes remaining locked in place, several inches below his chin.
He reached down and gently forced her head back with firm fingers at her jaw. She took a deep breath and faced him. His head was cocked to the side, his lips painfully close to hers. An impractical woman would lean forward and initiate a kiss. A woman without any common sense would rise up on her tiptoes, close the gap separating them and take a nice, long taste of him. An adventurous woman?—
Her mouth stroked his briefly and her mind struggled to understand how she’d gotten close enough for that touch. Had she moved?
Her lips brushed his again, but rather than move away, she continued to push closer.
Oh shit.
She was kissing Ethan. Her brain kicked into high gear.
Red alert! Abort! Abort!
Her practical side was practically screaming for her body to step away from the hot man. But apparently her body had its own agenda.
His fingers moved from her chin and along her cheek, taking up residence in her hair. His hand pulled her closer and he deepened the kiss, forcing her lips open with his, exploring her mouth with his tongue.
Holy crap. He was kissing her back. She wrapped her arms around his neck and struggled not to moan when his other hand traveled up and down her back, rubbing delicious patterns through her shirt that made her want to purr like a kitten.
They continued to kiss, but Rachel’s racing mind kept fighting for the control her body had seized.
This is wrong. He’s so far out of your league I’m not sure you can consider yourselves inhabitants of the same planet. He’s a patient.
The last thought jarred her enough that she pushed away abruptly.
“Shit,” Ethan muttered when she struggled out of his embrace. “I was wondering when that head of yours was going to get in the way.”
“What?” she asked.
“You think too much,” he replied.
“That’s not true. I just don’t think it’s professional for me to be kissing you in the clinic.”
He grinned. “But it would be okay if you kissed me outside? The door’s right there. Let’s go.”
“It’s not professional, period. I shouldn’t have— It was wrong of me to?—”
“Kiss me?” he supplied, and she could see he was enjoying her predicament far too much.
“Yes,” she hissed.
“Did that overactive brain of yours happen to notice that I was kissing you back?”
Oh, her brain noticed—it just didn’t want her to be happy. Meanwhile, every other major organ and nerve in her body was singing—big time. Her nipples were cutting through the satin material of her bra, her stomach was still doing happy flip-flops and she was noticing regions south of her waist reappearing after deserting her years ago.
She shrugged. Seemed like the easiest thing to do.
“Why wasn’t my name on your list?” he asked.
She burst into laughter.
“I’m serious,” he persisted when she continued to chuckle.
“You sound as if you’re hurt by the omission,” she said. “Is this some male ego switch I’ve triggered? I would think you’d be relieved. You don’t have to worry about some sex-starved divorcee setting her sights on you. Trying to lure you into her lair.” She raised her hands in a claw-like fashion and made a scary face.
He didn’t smile at her joke, so she lowered her hands and shook her head. “I like you, Ethan. You’ve become a good friend these past couple of months and I wouldn’t dream of annoying you like that.”
“Annoying me? You think I’m not attracted to you? Sexually?” he asked, setting off her laughter again.
“Oh damn, now that is funny,” she said between giggles. “Well, I guess I’ll just have to say it. You’re hot, Ethan. Super hot. And about a decade younger than me.”
“I thought that was the point of this challenge of yours,” he argued.
“Well, let’s just say there’re younger men and then there’re younger men. In the world of women like me, you fall into the untouchable category.”
He nodded, but she could see he didn’t like her answer. “I didn’t see that ‘untouchable’ thing holding you back a few minutes ago.”
She sobered up at his scowling face. “As I said, I shouldn’t have done that.”
He was silent for several uncomfortable moments and she wished she could read his mind. “I’ve screwed up everything tonight, Ethan,” she added, desperate to fill the void. “Can we just start this whole PT session over? I’ll even let you sneak in and scare me again.”
His face cleared suddenly and his cocky grin returned. She took a deep breath of relief—until his next words knocked it out of her again.
“Put my name on your list,” he demanded. “The top of your list. And then mark out every name under it. You’re going to follow through on that dare…with me.”