Tempting The Best Man. Tanya Michaels
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fishnets to work a burlesque party. Both women had been working so hard lately that girl time had been scarce; Mia had yet to meet Wren’s new boyfriend. The bubbly blonde had been chatting about Brant nonstop for the past fifteen minutes. Hopefully, she’d wind down before class started. Otherwise, they were in for another evening of the instructor shooting Wren pointed glances. Talking was not encouraged during the ninety-minute session.
“I’ve never dated a man I have more in common with,” Wren said.
“That’s great,” Mia murmured absently. She was glad for Wren’s joy but running out of supportive things to interject in the conversation.
“Our personalities are just so in sync.”
What must that be like? Annoyingly, Mia’s mind drifted to Daniel. Again. He’d been in her thoughts way too much today—not that she believed for a moment that the preoccupation was mutual. He seemed to have wiped her from his mind before he even drove out of the parking lot. His expression had been so insultingly blank she’d wanted to shake his shoulders. Hi, remember me? Mia? You just had your tongue in my mouth?
Their sizzling kisses might support the generalization of opposites attracting, but she had too much self-respect to share a hot night with a man likely to sneer at her the next morning. Whatever had motivated his stated need for change, modifications to a person’s lifestyle or behavior were often fleeting.
Like temporary insanity. That’s what you experienced, a little hormone-driven insanity. Nothing to obsess over.
It was embarrassing how distracted she’d been today. Thank goodness she’d been able to avoid Shannon and any perceptive questions about Mia’s mood. A dental appointment had kept the woman out of the office that morning, and Mia had been on the go all afternoon. Yoga was the perfect opportunity to regain clarity and perspective. She straightened her legs in front of her, stretching over them as Wren continued her ecstatic Brant-themed babbling.
“You know the first time you have sex with someone and he doesn’t know what you like yet, so you’re trying to gently steer him toward what you want without seeming bossy?”
Mia made a noncommittal sound. She spoke her mind, in bed and out of it, and had never much worried about whether she sounded bossy. What would Daniel be like in the bedroom? Willing to follow his lover’s lead, or convinced his way was the right one, just as he had been in college? Stop it. At twenty, she may have fantasized once or twice about the opportunity to help loosen him up, but she was an adult now. She didn’t have time in her life for a man who wouldn’t appreciate her.
“My sisters are scandalized I slept with Brant after knowing him less than a week,” Wren said, unconcerned that the woman one mat over was shamelessly eavesdropping, “but it didn’t feel like our first time. It was like we’d known each other forever, like we were two halves of the same whole.”
Typical Wren. She lived—and loved—boldly. Where Shannon was shy and reserved in her personal life, Wren liked to jump in with both feet. Mia couldn’t imagine ever declaring a guy her other half after a handful of dates, but she respected her friend’s optimistic courage. “I hope he—”
“Good evening, ladies.” The instructor walked into the room.
Hallelujah. Time to begin. Mia wasn’t really in the right headspace to gush about Wren’s new love, even though that was bitchy of her. If things had gone differently last night, Wren would be the first to cheer for her. If things had gone differently... Her imagination started down that path, but she ruthlessly yanked it back as the class opened their session with a collective “Om.”
For about an hour, she was able to push Daniel Keegan from her mind. But toward the end of the session, they went into yin practice, which involved long-held poses and encouraged meditation. It gave her entirely too much time to think. Plus, after sixty minutes of focusing so intently on her body, on her breathing, on the pleasant soreness of muscles as she challenged herself... Well, it only made sense that her thoughts were lured back to the sensual experience of being pressed against Daniel’s body, who’d made her breathing uneven and her skin tingle.
She could tell herself all day long that he didn’t deserve her, but she couldn’t help wondering, if the chance to kiss him again arose, how would she resist? By remembering how aloof he was afterward. Almost as good as a cold shower. She wanted a lover who ran hot. Who looked at her with enough yearning to make her shiver. Who craved her unashamedly. Daniel Keegan was not that man—not based on the evidence of last night.
But heaven help her if he ever got comfortable with his passionate side. Because there’d be no resisting him then.
* * *
“MUST’VE BEEN SOME date Monday.” Shannon flashed a smile over the top of her coffee mug.
Mia froze in the act of removing her coat. “Why do you say that?” She hadn’t pegged Myron as the type who would blab about what he’d seen to other people in the building, but maybe she’d been wrong.
Shannon pointed toward the reception desk. “Because, flowers. You obviously made an impression.”
“Uh-huh.” A slight impression of her butt on the front of her car, maybe. Yet she crossed the room in three long strides to read the card, her curiosity piqued. Given his almost robotic goodbye, she hadn’t expected any further contact from Daniel, much less contact in the form of a square vase filled with carnations, white roses and delicate purple filler flowers.
The note was terse. I’m sorry. Daniel.
For which part, exactly? Asking her to dinner in the first place? Kissing her? Or was he apologizing for Myron’s bad timing?
With a sigh, she crumpled the card.
Shannon’s eyebrows shot skyward. “Dare I ask?”
“I want to discuss my date with Daniel about as much as you want to discuss your progress with Paige.”
“Wow. That bad, huh?”
“Any messages?” Mia asked, officially changing the subject.
They discussed clients and the day’s schedule while Mia fixed her own cup of coffee, although she doubted caffeine was a good idea given her already antsy state of mind. She needed to call Penelope Wainwright this morning, and she needed to be at her most professional when she spoke to the affluent woman. No sense sniping at their biggest client or sounding scattered because she was busy trying to decipher a bouquet of flowers.
Shannon returned to her desk, nodding at the arrangement. “Do you want these in your office?”
“No. Find a place for them out here that isn’t inconvenient for you. They brighten up the lobby.”
“Got it.” She hesitated, her expression apologetic. “Do you want me to put him through or take a message if he calls?”
She thought about his withdrawn manner, the perfunctory message on the card. “He won’t.”
* * *
GLANCING FROM THE stack of tests on his desk to the clock on the wall, Daniel felt a tug of dread in the pit of his stomach. “You have officially overextended yourself,” he muttered. In addition to the classes he taught and the articles he was scheduled to publish this year, he’d signed on for some extra volunteer activities, hoping they’d help him stand out as a tenure candidate. He was the faculty advisor for two student clubs and was serving on the curriculum review committee which met every Wednesday. In ten minutes, as a matter of fact.
Grade faster.
When his office phone rang, his first impulse was to let the call go to voice mail. He didn’t have time to talk to anyone. But what if it was Mia? She should’ve received the flowers by now, so she could be calling to thank him.
He grabbed for the phone, almost fumbling the receiver. “Professor Keegan speaking.”
“Daniel?”
“Felicity.” He was shocked to hear her voice; he