Operation Date Escape

shelves lined with clay pots, piñatas, and fancy sombreros. “No.” She turned back to Cole. “Have you?”
    He shook his head . “No. Joe suggested it.”
    “Nanci said they’re going out tonight.”
    “Without her bag of goodies?” he said with a grin that had his dimple deepening even more.
    She blushed at the mention of the sex-toys she and Cole had collected from the sidewalk outside of her office on their way there. “Joe’s safe for tonight. Unless she takes him home with her. She’s got an entire curio filled with her ‘toys’.”
    “I don’t think Nanci’s sexual arsenal collection would bother Joe one bit. The guy’s got the major hots for her.”
    “It goes both ways,” she said reaching for her menu. “She really likes him. At least what she’s learned about him via the phone calls they’ve been sharing.” Nanci and Joe weren’t the only ones who had the hots for someone. The more time she spent with Cole, the ‘hotter’ she got.
    “Must be some interesting conversation going on between them,” he muttered as he glanced over his own menu. “I’ve never known Joe to take so many cold showers.”
    “Nanci has that effect on men.”
    “She’s not the only one.”
    Her pulse skittered wildly. Was he implying that she... No , she thought, giving herself a mental headshake. She must have misunderstood him. She wasn’t the sort of woman who drove men to take cold showers.
    “You know,” she said, looking everywhere but at him , “between the music and the authentic decor, I feel like I’m vacationing at some resort in Mexico.”
    “You could be.”
    “What?” Her attention shifted, focusing solely on Cole.
    “If you’d like to be sitting at a resort in Mexico, I could make that happen. How do you feel about Cancun?” he asked as he grabbed a tortilla chip from the basket. “I’ve got vacation time still available for the taking.”
    She couldn’t tell by his expression if he meant what he’d just suggested, or if he was just playing around with her. The man did like to tease. “You’re not serious.”
    He plunged his chip into the salsa. “Sure I am.”
    “You hardly know me.”
    “I know enough,” he said, taking a bite of the salsa coated tortilla chip. “And don’t forget, tonight I’m breaking out of my too-perfect shell and showing you my bad boy side. So, in answer to your question, the offer still stands.”
    Her stomach fluttered with the possibility of spending a week or even a weekend at some beach resort with Cole the bad boy. Who was she kidding? Even Cole the good boy made her hot, no matter how hard she tried to fight it. They were sitting in the middle of a busy Mexican restaurant, surrounded by papier-mâché animals and clay pots, and all she could think about was doing the naked cha-cha with her date.
    “Kelsie?”
    Her gaze shifted to the toothy grin that had moved across his handsome face. “Yes?”
    “What are you hungry for?”
    You. “W..what?”
    He nodded to his left where a waitress stood waiting to take their order and asked, “What’ll you have?”
    “Oh, sorry.” She looked down at her menu. “I think I’ll have a chicken burrito with a side of Cole cake.”
    “Cole cake?” The waitress leaned over to peer at the menu in confusion.
    “I believe that would be corn cake,” he clarified with a chuckle. “And I’ll try the steak fajitas. Hold the guacamole. Oh, and we’d like a side of con queso dip, please.”
    As soon as the waitress collected the menus and hurried off toward the kitchen, he leaned in across the table. “Cole cake, huh?”
    “Don’t let it go to your head,” she warned in a hushed whisper, and then quickly followed that up with, “Either of them.”
    “Too late.”
    Her eyes widened and her pulse quickened. He was really good at being bad.
    “So about Cancun...?”
    “I’ll think about it.” The words were out before she could stop them.
    “Good.” He reached for his drink and sat back smiling.
    What was she thinking? She couldn’t go to Mexico with him. Not with those seductive tropical nights, sugary beaches, and crystal clear water. And definitely not with Cole lying around bare-chested under that hot Mexican Caribbean sun.
    “I can’t go,” she blurted out.
    “That was quick.”
    “I...uh, my mother wouldn’t like me flying off with a man I barely know.”
    The humor glinting in his dark eyes told her he wasn’t buying her excuse. “Then I guess you’ll have to go out