Dakota.
“Oh, shit. I don’t want you to judge me. But I was arrested for public urination, yes. Not that I did it. When I was eighteen, I snuck into a club with a fake ID. My heel broke so I was squatted down by a wall, trying to fix the damn thing with nail glue. A cop came by, saw me squatting in a short skirt, and he assumed the worst. He gave me a warning, but he did call home to tell my parents about my nightly exploits. They were less than pleased. I thought they were going to ground me until I was seventy-eight.”
Bennett snickered. Dakota sure had lived a life full of odd adventures. He was a little bit envious of that. There were no frivolous events in his past. His personality was as developed as his social skill. When he told her as much, Dakota waved him off.
“That’s not true.”
“It sure is.” He gave her a self-deprecating smile. “I’m like that volcano you make for the science fair. You think I’m going to be this typical explosion, but I’m nothing more than a fizz you can put out with a simple blow. More like a birthday candle, really, than a volcano.”
Dakota rolled her eyes at him. “Bennett, you’re a genius who has studied topics that most sci-fi writers would love to know all about. You’ve lived. So your path has been embarrassment and weird adventure light, I’m sure we can find a few ways to change that this week.”
“I’d like that,” he told her honestly. “Beating adversity and overcoming embarrassment builds character.”
“Well, you must be right, because I am nothing but character.” She gave him a wide smile before turning her attention to the screen.
Bennett didn’t know what it was about Dakota that made his lips loose and his heart light. He was sure to make a complete fool out of himself if he kept this flirtatious hope growing in his heart. Wasn’t that right? He had a snowflake’s chance in hell that their easy conversation would turn into more.
In his experience, he would be a good guy friend. The one she called when she needed help with the computer. He shook his head out, making his glasses slip down his nose. That wasn’t a very fair assessment of Dakota. He was judging her too harshly, already writing out the end of how this would play out.
He would go with the flow. Bennett didn’t really know how to do that, but he decided to see it as a science experiment. He could approach every situation with Dakota as if he would in the lab. A healthy dose of skepticism, curiosity, and faith that he would know how to react using his intelligence and experience.
He could do that. Couldn’t he?
The doorbell rang, pulling him out from his incessant inner self-doubting session. Dakota jumped to her feet and rushed to the front door. She keyed in the security code into the system before opening the door.
Vance, Corey, and Stuart were definitely not expecting to see a woman opening the door. And most assuredly, not one as beautiful as Dakota.
“Who are you?” Vance asked.
“Do you have the right address?” Corey stammered.
“I do,” Stuart assured them. “I’m sorry to bother you, ma’am. We’re looking for…”
It was painful to hear his friends being just as flustered by Dakota as he was. He stepped into the entryway, his eyes wide in warning. Be cool, you bunch of nerds.
“Guys, this is Dakota. She will be joining us for game night.”
Vance’s eyebrows shot up in shock, Stuart blushed down to his fingertips, and Corey hiccupped like one of the seven dwarfs. Bennett wanted to smack his forehead—or theirs—to snap them out of it.
They were acting like they had never seen a woman before.
Not that Dakota was just a regular woman.
Nope.
She was a shifter. A tigress.
He didn’t know how, but he could sense that there was a wildness inside of her. He wanted to experience it firsthand. Even if that was way out of his comfort zone and so far beyond the scope of his usual behavior. Seeing the guys behaving like sixteen-year-old dudes was enough of a wake-up call for him. He was a grown man with a long list of accomplishments. He might not be made of muscles, but he was still made of strong stuff. You didn’t get to be published as many times as he had by being a sniveling weakling.
He wanted to kiss her and fuck it if he wasn’t