Love, Chocolate, and Beer (Cactus Creek #1)(52)

Her shoulders lifted in humor. “Yep, the make-your-own-dessert bar of beer fondue and beer cracker s’mores, along with beer-flavored floats and sundaes.” Pausing for a second, she bit her lip and turned a questioning gaze his way. “Does the game theme seem too juvenile? I just thought it would be fun for couples to work together to annihilate the other couples, but...”

He pulled her into his arms. “I’m sure everyone here is as bloodthirsty as you, my dear.” Kissing away the worry lines on her forehead, he pointed over to folks amusedly discussing the selection of games. “Look, it’s already a hit. I think you’ve got a winner here, sweetie. Really.”

She let out the breath she’d been holding in relief. “You know, even after our little wager is over, I’m thinking of keeping a scaled-down version of all this up here—weekly beer pairings and tastings along with some games or activities.” Her eyebrows hopped up excitedly as she got yet another idea. “Oh, I could hook up one of the popular motion-activated video game systems to the big screen!”

An indulgent grin tilted his lips.

“What? It’ll be great. Your parents play those kinds of video games.”

True. Quite competitively, in fact.

Her eyes rounded with inspiration again.

She was just too cute. He smiled in anticipation.

“Dance contests!” she exclaimed.

He arched an eyebrow. “Dance contests?”

“Sure! Nothing intense like Dancing with the Stars. Just basic, fun partner dances like the Tango or a spicy Latin number. Xoey could teach them and they could all have a dance-off. Or maybe I’ll just have Xoey choreograph a new, sexy line-dance for them to do in groups.”

“That does actually sound like a fun way to get to know people,” he admitted.

She looked at the couples all around. “I just really want everyone to have a good time.”

Christ, she was a sweetheart.

With a tender gaze, he threaded a hand through her hair and looked in her eyes. “You really do, don’t you? You just want them to enjoy their dates.”

“Of course.”

Huh. If it were Quinn at the reins, customer happiness would be important, sure, but their experience would still be congruent to the bottom line. Not so for Dani though—she simply wasn’t built that way. He pulled her in close. “You’re amazing. Have I told you that lately?”

“Not in the last hour.” Her hand flew up to cover his mouth. “And not again for another few hours, please. Before we end up doing a lot more than what we did that first night in the storage closet.”

The woman was just arguing against herself at this point.

He tried convincing her without words to take a stroll down to that memorable closet now. She inhaled a shuddering breath and covered his heated eyes with her other hand. “Enough of that too. When you look at me like that, my clothes tend to want to fall off.”

Her eyes dilated when his teeth gently scored her palm. “Okay, that’s it,” she muttered. “Out you go. You need to take your sneaky enemy distractions back to your turf.”

He tried his best to look wounded.

“Save that look for after Valentine’s Day when Ocotillos declares victory,” she poked with oodles of sass. “You have seen the preliminary online voting tallies, haven’t you?” She blinked prettily with a patronizing pat on his arm.

His gorgeous foe was having the time of her life rubbing it in and egging him on. Yes, according to preliminary feedback online and around town, it did seem Ocotillos had a slight edge in the throwdown voting, but only by a slim margin. “Don’t get too comfortable on top, honey because you just gave me an idea for one last romantic promotion that’ll be our surprise sprint to the finish this week.”

When her competitive curiosity at what had him so confident put a little extra flare in her eyes, Luke grinned, deciding her take on life was right. Competition was the devil’s aphrodisiac.

And boy, was it intoxicating.

He could see the thrill of the new hurdle in their game already hitting Dani as well. Eyes glinting in challenge, she unconsciously touched the tip of her tongue to one of her canine teeth, almost as if testing its sharpness, the way she did whenever he goaded her. So sexy.

“Okay, well you all have fun with this little event of yours. I’m going to get started on this new idea of mine.” He dropped a kiss on her lips and left before she could pry any details out of him. As he headed to the stairs, he could feel Dani’s curious, hot gaze on his back.

A few steps down the stairwell, he chuckled when he overheard Xoey’s comment to Dani: “You two have the most bizarre form of foreplay.”



*



LUKE HOPPED ON HIS office computer to check the shop’s blog page to see if there had been any activity since he’d launched his little challenge yesterday.

Thirty-one replies. Not bad. He skimmed through the response threads to peruse what people had posted so far. A smile hit his lips when he saw exactly what he’d hoped to see today.

Random acts of romance.

Last night, seeing all that Dani was doing to make magic happen between perfect strangers at Ocotillos had made Luke realize he’d been focusing more on his ‘new’ Valentine’s Day rules and less on the root of the holiday itself, the people Dani had been focusing on all along.