Game for Anything by Bella Andre

polite, Julie smiled and said, "It's been a lovely evening, Dave, but I'm afraid I've got an early day ahead of me tomorrow. Good night."
    Not surprisingly, he barely blinked in her direction. "Fine. Great. So, Ty, you up for getting a beer? I could call some friends to meet us."
    A muscle jumped in Ty's cheek and his voice turned cold. "Sorry to disappoint, buddy, but I've got a beautiful woman waiting for me to take her home."
    Julie's heart pounded. She didn't need Ty to be her knight in shining armor. Yet it felt so good to hear him call her beautiful.
    Dave shook his head admiringly. "Wow, you must get all the babes. Who is she?" A sneer curled Ty's lips and Julie was taken aback, accustomed to the carefree grin that drove everyone wild.
    "We're keeping our relationship under wraps," he said. "She's not convinced I'm good enough for her yet."
    As Dave's mouth dropped open again, Ty put his big palm on the small of Julie's back and guided her through the front door, then out around the corner.
    Perfectly happy to go wherever Ty was leading her if it meant getting away from that uber-jerk, she was surprised to find that he'd just steered her into a tiny pizza joint.
    "Two slices with everything on 'em and a pitcher of Coke," he told a passing waiter, then pushed her into a carved wooden booth and shoved in next to her. "Please tell me that was a blind date." Her stomach was grumbling. The waiter slid two enormous pizza slices onto the table. She picked one up and inhaled.
    "I wish." She took a bite. And then another. "God, this is good." Julie couldn't deny how nice it was to have Ty's warm, hard body pressed up against her in the little booth. He was watching her eat, his eyes moving from her mouth, to her throat, to the tops of her breasts on display in her red dress.
    She felt like an idiot for even bothering to dress up for a dud like Dave, but at the same time, part of her was happy she'd looked good. Foolishly, she liked it when Ty looked at her. Liked it even better when he was enticed by what he saw.
    She looked down at her empty plate, then at his full one. She'd been raised always to be a lady. And a lady never ate more than a man, never raised her voice, never put herself in an untenable position. Thus far with Ty, Julie had done all three. And the strangest thing was, she wasn't the least bit ashamed of any of it. In fact, she felt downright good.
    "You gonna eat that?" she asked, swiping his slice before he could answer.
    "Few things are sexier than a woman who eats," Ty murmured, and his words felt like a caress. Her nipples hardened beneath the thin fabric of her dress.
    She gulped down some soda, then wiped her mouth off with the back of her hand. God, she loved how free she suddenly felt.
    "I refuse to believe that any of those women by your pool eat. They're all ribs and silicone." He stared at her. "I don't believe I've ever called those girls sexy, have I?" She forced herself to swallow. "I guess I just assumed."
    "They're not my type."
    The noise of the pizza joint fell away and she felt like they were the only people in the room.
    "As far back as I can remember, I've had a thing forcurvy blondes with big . . ." Why did he have to be so predictable, such a cavemen?
    "Brains." He grinned, then looked down at her amply presented chest. "Although a nice pair of breasts is good too."
    She reached out for her soda, trying not to show how pleased she was by his comment. "We all know you're a master at coming on to women," she said, trying to extricate herself from the position she was in. The one where she was about to beg him to take her right then, right there on the table.
    "Unexpected compliments, focusing on their hidden assets." Ignoring her sarcasm, he said, "I just want to say one more thing about tonight, and I don't want you to try to turn it around or read anything bad into it, okay?"
    She looked up at him and saw sincerity in his eyes. "I'm all ears."
    "Your date was an ass. He was crazy for not