Free Love is a Battlefield: Games of Love, Book 1 by Tamara Morgan

tentatively.
    “Kate? It’s Julian.”
    She responded with a squeak. It was all she could manage. Her tongue had suddenly turned into a sponge, soaking up every last bit of moisture in her mouth. It was one thing to plot out a man’s seduction in the middle of day with Jada giggling by her side. It was quite another to do it.
    “I got your message. I’m actually in the neighborhood right now. Is it okay to stop by this evening instead of tomorrow?”
    Kate looked frantically around her bedroom, but other than the papers lying around the room like oversized confetti, it was immaculate. Just like the rest of her house—right down to the underwear drawer. Jada was right. She needed a life.
    She forced her tongue to unstick from the roof of her mouth. “Yes, it’s fine.”
    “You’re sure?”
    “Of course. I’m just…lounging at home.” She nodded to herself. It was a good word, lounging. It sounded relaxed. Seductive. Like she was Doris Day, sipping cocktails in a silk nightie, waiting for her fluffy pink phone to ring.
    “I can’t wait to see you,” she added.
    “Yeah. You mentioned that.”
    The two seconds it took Julian to hang up the phone were the longest moments of her life.
    “Well, that was classy.” Kate rolled off the bed and gathered up all the papers, shoving them deep into the garbage, underneath her old copies of Architectural Digest and a giant wad of used tissues from when she’d watched Gone with the Wind last week.
    Jada had pulled out the outfit Kate was to wear for this meeting. It was a little black dress that had served as Kate’s default clubbing outfit in her early twenties. It was short. And tight. Something Doris Day would use to wash her dishes.
    “Forget that,” Kate mumbled. She shoved it back in her closet, way in the back, where all her fashion missteps went to die. The dress she had on, a simple white eyelet summer dress that skimmed the tops of her knees, would have to do.
    A quick brush through her hair and a touch of lip gloss completed her look. She was on a time crunch, after all.
    She went to the living room and sat on the couch, crossing her legs and leaning casually across the back. Gretna watched her from the other end.
    “What are you looking at?” she asked the animal. “I’m practicing looking seductive.”
    Gretna was a tabby, big and rough and sporting one heavily scarred ear. Kate had him for years, ever since she’d first moved into the house. The people who owned it before her were the types who left their cat behind to either starve or find a new way of life. Gretna had been close to the former, all mangy fur and sharp claws. But she’d seen in an instant the potential that rested behind a few hundred dollars’ worth of vet bills and a lifetime supply of the fancy cat food the ads always showed being served with a snip of fresh parsley.
    A heavy knock startled them both. The cat handled his fear easily, transforming it into a casual grooming session, but Kate wasn’t quite as quick at the recovery. She smoothed her hands over her dress and swallowed, one deep breath moving her all the way to the front door to pull it open.
    “Julian!” she called brightly. But her next words—whatever they were supposed to be—died in her throat. It had been less than twenty-four hours since she’d seen him, and the fact that he was almost six feet of pulsating muscle had somehow escaped her memory.
    His stubble was a little more pronounced today, the shadow of his facial hair gruff and sexy in all the right ways. He wore a simple black T-shirt over faded jeans, not too different from what he’d worn the night before at the bar. The clothes fit like they were molded to his body, his hard pecs clearly visible through the material—his ass, Kate knew, a perfect symmetry of taut flesh. He didn’t even have to try looking good. It just happened. To complete the picture, his arms were crossed casually over his chest, a shopping bag dangling from one hand.
    “I