Feels Like the First Time

Praise for Tawny Weber

“Double Dare establishes Tawny Weber as a new force in the Blaze®lineup.” —CataRomance

“Does She Dare? is another sinfully spicy and chocolate sweet read by the highly entertaining and creative Tawny Weber.” —Romance Junkies

“A great setup, sizzling attraction and wonderful

characters all make Risqué Business, by Tawny Weber, impossible to put down.” RT Book Reviews

“Tawny Weber weaves her magic with

Coming on Strong, another blazing-hot tale of betrayal, love and passion … With Coming on Strong, Tawny Weber will quickly rise to the top of many auto buy lists.” —CataRomance

About the Author

TAWNY WEBER is usually found dreaming up stories in her California home, surrounded by dogs, cats and kids. When she’s not writing hot, spicy stories for Blaze®, she’s testing her latest margarita recipe, shopping for the perfect pair of boots or drooling over Johnny Depp pictures (when her husband isn’t looking, of course). When she’s not doing any of that, she spends her time scrapbooking and playing in the garden. She’d love to hear from readers, so drop by her home on the web, www.TawnyWeber.com.

Dear Reader,

I had so much fun working with Sam, Karen and Lisa on this series, brainstorming all the ways a costume could open the door to so many secret fantasies. And I admit I went a little overboard with it. Because both my hero and heroine end up in disguise … and playing “what’s-my-fantasy” is fantastic foreplay!

After spending her entire adult life avoiding her past, Zoe is forced to go back home in search of the one man who can save her brother’s business. All she wants to do is get in, find the guy and get out with her dignity intact. When her costume turns out to be completely different from her order, she ends up attending her school reunion wearing leather and studs. Lucky for her, there’s one guy who isn’t intimidated at all by her dominatrix getup. In fact, he’s begging for more …

If you’re on the web, feel free to drop by my website at www.TawnyWeber.com and let me know what you think of Zoe and Dex’s story. While you’re there, check out my blog, vote for the hunk of the month, or enter my current contest. I’d love to hear from you.

Enjoy!

Tawny Weber

Feels Like

the First Time

Tawny Weber

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Samantha Hunter, Karen Foley and

Lisa Renee Jones.

Ladies, this was a pleasure!

Prologue

SURROUNDED BY the makings of a million fantasies, Josie propped her chin on her fist and stared out the plate-glass window at her very own daydream—a hottie in a brown uniform, his name was Tom and he delivered thrills by the truckload. Of course, the thrills were actually costumes, and he didn’t realize he was the star of all of her hottest dreams.

And at this rate, he never would.

“Another delivery for Dressed to Thrill,” Tom said as he wheeled a loaded hand truck into the shop. “Hiya, Josie.”

“Tom,” she said softly, silently cursing her shyness. He was even cuter close-up. Wavy brown hair, bright-blue eyes and shoulders to die for. She always regretted September, since it meant he switched from shorts to long pants and covered those sexy legs.

Josie cast around for something clever to say, some conversation starter. But as always when she was around him, her mind went blank.

“How’s business?” he asked as he stacked the boxes by the counter then handed her the electronic board to sign.

“Giving thrills is always good business,” she responded automatically. His brown eyes widened. Josie realized what she said and blushed. Good thing her hands were full with the board and pen or she’d have slapped them over her mouth.

Then he grinned. “That’s the store’s tagline, isn’t it? I’ve seen it on the labels. It must fit. This is definitely the place to go to make fantasies come true, huh?”

Conversation. Wow. Don’t drop the ball now, she warned herself. Josie gave a hesitant smile back and nodded so fast, her blond bangs flew in her eyes. “Definitely. I’ll show you.”

Glad to finally have his interest as well as an excuse to keep him here a little longer, she grabbed a box opener and cut through the tape on the top carton.

“We get a lot of requests,” she explained. “People want to live out their wildest desires, you know?”

She’d spent the past two months wondering what his desires were. Maybe now she’d find out?

Flipping back the tissue paper, she grabbed the first costume and pulled it out without looking. Her eyes were locked with Tom’s, her mind giddy at finally having his attention.

“Can’t you see how sexy this could be?” she asked. “Is it the kind of thing you might fantasize about?”

At the same time, they both glanced at the costume in her hands. A bunny rabbit. White, fluffy, sexless.

Josie’s cheeks burned. She gripped the costume so tightly, she’d probably find fur under her fingernails.

Tom laughed and shook his head. “I don’t know, Josie. I think bunnies have to be wearing bow ties to be considered sexy.” With that and a friendly wave, he left. Just like that.

Josie managed to wait until the door closed before she groaned. As usual, she couldn’t even manage a simple flirtation with the guy.

Of course, head-to-toe white fur didn’t help matters.

“Definitely not fantasy material.” She sighed and shook out the bunny costume before sliding it onto a hanger. “At least it wasn’t a Smurf costume.”

The next box of new costumes was better. A revealing slave-girl outfit, like something Princess Leia would have worn. A gorgeous cabaret getup. And, Josie sighed, a new Marilyn Monroe costume. All very sexy.

Unlike forest creatures and space aliens. She rolled her eyes. She’d blown it. What a dork, trying to flirt like that. She should have known better. She could no more flirt than she could just ask Tom out. Just imagining how bad she’d mess that up, her cheeks burned again in humiliation. But maybe she could drop a couple of hints next time he was in?

Contemplating different hints she could give without sounding stupid, Josie started to package costumes.

She glanced at the stack of Internet orders that needed to be shipped. A dominatrix for New York. A Betty Boop for Idaho. Sexy pirate in Pittsburgh. Gathering outfits for the already labeled boxes, she hummed a little tune. She frowned as she pulled the dominatrix costume from the rack. Could she ever find the nerve to wear something like this?

“Josie?”

She spun around, one hand still holding the other on her chest to calm her pounding heart.

“Tom?” She hoped he’d take her breathlessness as surprise instead of nerves. “What’s up? I thought you’d already left.”

He gave her a sheepish, little-boy grin that melted her insides. “I forgot to deliver one package.”

He held out a small box. But he was staring at the costume in her hands. He eyed the skimpy leather, then shifted his gaze to Josie. Interest sparkled, a naughty smile quirking one corner of his mouth.

“Now that’s an interesting getup,” he said. “I don’t suppose …”

Josie glanced at the leather in her hand, then back at Tom. Her eyes widened. Was he asking if she liked to play naughty? Color washed over her cheeks.

“The best thing about working at Dressed to Thrill is being able to role-play,” she told him. Then she hesitated and with a deep breath said, “Like our slogan says, ‘Bring us your fantasies, we’ll make them come true.’“

Tom smiled, but before he could respond, the phone rang. With a shrug, he said, “We’d better get back to work. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

Josie didn’t even pout when he left. Listening to her boss take the call, she grinned and gave a little dance and skip as she returned to the packing counter. He’d see her tomorrow. He’d said it like he was looking forward to it. Maybe tomorrow was the day he’d ask her out? Head filled with daydreams of Tom, she folded the dominatrix costume into the box heading for Idaho.

Wasn’t love grand? She patted the black leather and smiled. She sure hoped this costume brought the wearer as much luck as it had brought her.

1

“THE GIRL VOTED most likely to die a virgin.” “So unpopular, she attended her prom alone.” “The queen of geek chic.”

Zoe Gaston sneered at the labels people had scribbled under her senior picture. She hated labels. Although, she sighed as she glanced at the photo, sometimes it was hard to deny them. An ode to the dark side, she’d called her teen years. Black spiked hair, black-lined eyes, black glossy lips. She’d been a pudgy-cheeked brainy Goth-girl.

In other words, a total misfit.

“You think I should attend my ten-year reunion … why?” she asked Meghan with a grimace.

“To relive happy high-school memories and reconnect with all your friends, of course.”

Zoe’s sister-in-law actually believed that. She was the kind of gal who’d liked school. Plenty of friends, good times, general acceptance. The total opposite of Zoe’s experience. Other than one brief weekend when the hottie football star she’d crushed on had seemed to return her interest, she’d spent her high-school years as persona non grata.

“Oh, yeah, the good ol’ days.” Zoe squinted at Meghan and nodded sagely. “That would be when the cheerleaders hated me, the jocks were terrified of me and the teachers, ah, yes, the teachers. They were just as happy when I cut class as when I showed up.”

Meghan shrugged and snatched the yearbook away, obviously sensing the trip down memory lane wasn’t helping her argument any. She tossed it on Zoe’s electric-blue couch, the glossy cover swooshing across the slick leather.

“You publicly mocked the cheerleaders,” she pointed out with a dirty look.

Oops. Zoe bit her lip to hold back a laugh as she realized perky Meghan probably had a pair of bronzed pom-poms hidden away somewhere.

“Zach told me you kicked the quarterback in the balls,” Meghan continued, sounding shocked and irritated. Zoe raised her brow as if to ask what was wrong with that, but managed to keep her mouth shut as the other woman continued. “And he said you regularly argued with the teachers.”

A quick grin escaped. Okay, so her school days hadn’t totally sucked. “Exactly. I didn’t fit in. I didn’t want to fit in. And nobody wanted me to try to fit in. So why on earth would I go back?”

“To show them all how hot you are, how successful you are and how wrong they were about you.”

“Sure. Because I still don’t look like a Kewpie doll, I change jobs more often than most people change hairstyles and it’s been so long since I had sex that I might as well be the lifelong virgin they dubbed me.”

“So what? Those things don’t mean they were right about you, do they? And it’s not like you have to fill out some sexual-activity roster if you attend.”

Zoe smirked, then picked up her margarita glass and took a sip. Before she could come up with a clever response, Meghan puffed up her cheeks so she looked like an angry blond chipmunk, then blew out a gust of air. “If you don’t go, they’re all going to think they were right. Are you going to let them win?”

Zoe opened her mouth to say she didn’t care if they won or not. Then she sighed and shut it again. She couldn’t deny it. She did love to win. It was almost an irresistible need in her, that inability to step away from a competition, the compulsion to try to get the last word, to fight to the often-bitter end. It’d been the only thing that’d kept her in school after her parents’ deaths—that need to prove all the gossips wrong.

Of course, as soon as the challenge was met and she’d won, she lost all interest. Boredom was Zoe’s major downfall.

“I can overcome my need to win if I don’t step up to play,” she muttered, adding a silent maybe. She picked up the flashy neon invitation to the weeklong reunion and grimaced. “And returning to Central High’s school of torture is good incentive to stay out of the game.”

“And a rotten excuse for being afraid they might be right.”

Zoe glared, but didn’t respond to the direct hit.

“Why are you pushing this, really?” she asked, turning the tables. Zoe pointed to the bright reunion invitation that Meghan had brought over with an explanation that it’d been mailed to Zoe’s brother when the committee hadn’t been able to track her down. “You don’t care if I relive my teen years or not, so what’s behind it? The truth this time.”

Meghan picked up a fuchsia pillow and ran her fingers through the fringe, her diamond wedding band sparkling. Finally, she looked up at Zoe with puppy-dog eyes and said, “Zach’s in trouble.”

Zoe sat upright so fast, her margarita sloshed over the edge of her glass. She ignored the icy stickiness trickling down her fingers and grabbed Meghan’s arm. “What’s wrong? What happened to Zach? Is he sick?”

“Nothing like that,” Meghan hastened to assure her, her blue eyes wide and shocked at the vehement response. Zoe realized she might have overreacted a smidge, but Zach was all she had. “He’s fine. Overworked and overstressed, as usual. It’s not his health that’s the problem. It’s his business.”

The fear slowly released its hold on her muscles. Zoe forced herself to breathe. Once, twice, then a deep, relieved sigh.

“Z-Tech?” she asked, referring to Zach’s company. When the dot-com boom had gone belly-up, Zach had struck out on his own, creating a video-game company that catered to niche markets. Since she specialized in business consulting, Zoe had advised him more than once to expand his horizons, but Zach had always claimed he liked the cozy feel of specializing. He had decided last year to risk it all on his own platform. To compete with the likes of Sony and Microsoft, he’d gone with the concept of cheap, functional and expandable.

“Is his new system having problems?”

Meghan nodded. “He’d be furious if he knew I was telling you, but yeah. He sank everything, all our money, into this idea and now nobody is interested in the system. Not without something extra. If it doesn’t take off, Z-Tech won’t survive through the end of the year.”

“Damn,” Zoe breathed, sinking back in her chair.

Z-Tech was everything to Zach. Oh, sure, he adored his wife. But he’d loved that company first. He’d talked about starting it, had planned it way back when they were kids. Their parents had moved to Bradford, Idaho, when Zoe was fifteen. Zach, at eighteen, had stayed behind to try his luck in Silicon Valley. When their parents had died, he’d set aside his dreams, moved to the small Idaho town to let Zoe finish high school and gone to work in the dot-com industry to support his sister.

Zach had given up everything for her. Zoe never forgot that. She owed him. Owed him for keeping her in school, for pushing her to excel instead of curling up in a ball of misery. Owed him for reminding her what family was, and what it meant to be loved when the whole world as she’d known it had turned into an upside-down hell. Not that he saw it that way. The few times she’d tried to express gratitude, he’d rolled his eyes and changed the subject.

Three years ago, after she’d quit yet another job, it’d been Zach who’d suggested Zoe pile all her qualifications into a portfolio and call herself a consultant. She could step in, boss people around, fix their problems, then leave before she got bored. Specializing in startups with growing pains, she evaluated, assessed and created business plans to help companies move to the next level. Or, a lot of times, to realize that they’d tapped out their market, in which case she pointed out options to reinvent themselves. It’d turned into the perfect—and very successful—solution to all of Zoe’s career woes.

And now her brother, who’d essentially given her her career, was losing his own company. She set her glass on the side table with a frown. Nothing like the heavy taste of debt to ruin a perfectly good margarita.

“He had this idea, though,” Meghan said, her tone hushed as though she was sharing secrets. “Zach was saying if he could get a hook, something special, he’d be able to make it work.”

“Something to convince buyers to try his system? That they could only get with it?” Zoe clarified.

“Exactly.”

“That’s a great idea.” Something Zoe had actually tried to suggest a few months back, but Zach had been in a weird macho I-can-succeed-my self-and-prove-I’m-not-a-loser mood so it hadn’t sunk in. If his business was in this bad shape, that probably accounted for his attitude, she realized now. What boredom was to her, failure was to her brother—pure hell. “What’s the problem?”

“Zach figures he needs one killer game. An exclusive attached to his system. And there’s only one game designer out there who’s really exclusive, you know? Who everyone’s heard of but who’s never worked for one of the big companies.”

Starting to see how this would circle back to her high-school reunion, Zoe waited.

“Apparently there’s this guy. He goes by Gandalf the Gaming Wizard. He’s the hottest video-game designer in the industry and he’s a total mystery. Nobody knows who he really is. Zach’s tried to reach him through Leeton, the company he works for, but no luck.” Meghan got up with a bad-tempered “huff” and stalked to the large plate-glass window to stare out over the San Francisco skyline. “I tried to help Zach research him, but it’s like digging in the dark. Nothing to go on but a few rumors.”

Which was where the reunion issue came in. Zoe reached for her margarita glass and downed the rest of the watery contents. Oh, yeah, she’d heard plenty of rumors about Gandalf.

Meghan turned and, apparently seeing the recognition on Zoe’s face, pointed in triumph. “You know him, don’t you?”

“No.” Not a lie. She had no idea who Gandalf was.

“But he knows you. He’s got the hots for you. Even Zach admits it, although he growled a little bit when he did. It’s obvious based on his launch game—Class Warfare.”

“Circumstantial,” Zoe dismissed, even though she knew Meghan was probably right. Five years ago, after hearing Zach rant about it, she’d checked the game out herself. The designer had obviously lived in Bradford at some point. The similarities were glaring: landmarks, sayings, class slogans. Her.

She gave a little shiver. She’d never been able to pinpoint if she was flattered or freaked that the main character, a busty heroine named SweetCheeks, had been based on her. Not so much in looks—or bra size—but in attitude. Some of her catchphrases, her habit of tapping her lip when she was thinking. The purple-tipped, spiked black hair she’d sported in school. And more specifically, the one-of-a-kind tribal wings tattoo on her shoulder blades Zoe had gotten at sixteen in memory of her mother.

It was like a strange homage to her teenage self. A nice antidote to the ignominy of being voted most likely to die a virgin. The guy obviously knew her. But him? As far as she knew, nobody had a clue who he was.

“Circumstantial my ass,” Meghan returned, slapping her hands on her denim-clad hips and glaring. “The answer to Zach’s prayers, the hottest video-game designer in the country, is from your town. And chances are, given that he knew you in school well enough to see your naked back, he’s likely your age. So he’d be at this reunion. Doh … it’s a connect-the-dots win. Even you can focus long enough to connect dots, can’t you?”

“Nobody likes a smart-ass,” Zoe muttered, her lips twitching as she uttered the lie.

“Sure they do,” Meghan claimed, sensing Zoe wasn’t going to slam the door on the discussion. “Zach and I love you.”

The trickle of guilt intensified.

Needing to move, Zoe got up and crossed the apartment to the kitchen. A push of the button on the blender whirred a nice loud distraction, as well as mixing up another batch of margaritas.

Central High. Cliquish, snotty and judgmental. Zoe had never fitted in. She’d been an odd dichotomy. A moody fifteen-year-old Goth-girl brainiac with a chip on her shoulder. She’d taken to the exclusive small town and its high school like a cat to water. Thankfully she’d had Dex. Because of him, her one friend, she’d been able to ignore how poorly she’d been accepted. Until she was sixteen and her parents had died in a car accident and she’d had to deal with another nasty small-town reality. Gossip. While she’d been trying to deal with her shock and grief, the gossip mill had gone into overtime, whispering on every corner rumors of her parents’ pending divorce and claiming it was over her mom having an affair with the school principal.

Zoe had wanted to drop out, go anywhere and hide. But Zach had insisted she graduate. He’d set aside his dreams to be responsible. Despite the rotten high-school experience, she was grateful that he hadn’t let her wienie out. Wasn’t it her job, now, to set aside her irritation with the past to give his dreams a chance? After all, she wanted him to succeed, And even more, she wanted to prove herself. To him. And to herself.

Zoe sighed. Talk about pressure. She carried the pitcher into the living room and refilled both glasses.

“You know he’d be pissed if he found out you were doing this,” she muttered to her sister-in-law as she sat back down. But she still picked up the invitation. “Nobody’s even sure if Gandalf is from Bradford. You know that, right? He could have just passed through. There’s no real reason to believe he’s going to be at the reunion.”

“Zach thinks he will be. Anyone that sentimental about his hometown would go to his reunion. The timing, a bunch of things in the game, suggest he’s your age. Zach’s been racking his brain to figure out a way to find the guy.”

The guilt was a waterfall now.

Seeing the crack in Zoe’s armor, Meghan moved in for the kill. She gave a perky smile and tugged a fat envelope out of her purse. “Look, here’s more information on the reunion. I found the link when I used that Web site, you know? The Classmates one? When I saw your class was having a reunion, I e-mailed them to send me the invitation package.”

Zoe’s eyebrow arched. So that’s how they’d really found her. She’d wondered. It wasn’t like she’d left a trail of breadcrumbs for her ex-schoolmates to track her down.

“There was even speculation about Gandalf there on the message boards,” Meghan continued, once she was sure Zoe wasn’t going to chide her for the behind-the-back maneuvering. “People wondering if he’s really from your school. What class he was in. If he’ll come to the reunion. That kind of thing.”

Figured. More gossip, this time cyber-style. Zoe just rolled her eyes.

“Even if he is there, it’s not like he’s going to be wearing a sign. The guy’s managed to keep his identity a secret from major competitors for five years. He won’t show up wearing a pointed hat and carrying a game controller.” Seeing the stubborn look on Meghan’s face, Zoe sighed. Then, as she did when faced with any impossible business challenge, she started breaking it down into smaller tasks to research, areas to consider, things to do. In other words, her brain had gone into strategy mode.

While she mulled all the angles, she absently took the reunion booklet Meghan held out. When she flipped the neon cover open, all thoughts of strategy fled; Zoe’s stomach knotted. With narrowed eyes, she looked at the grainy black-and-white picture of the king and queen. Brad Young and Candice Love. Her crush and the girl who’d stolen him away from her.