Excerpt

First Rule: Attraction is the first phase of the biological imperative to procreate. It is not an involuntary response.

Club Atlantis, Santa Rita, California
22:27 hours

"DEEP DOWN, every woman wants to be seduced."

The words of his instructor echoed in his head like a mantra as Marvin Musselmann zeroed in on the brunette sitting alone at the table furthest from the dance floor. A sparkly beaded handbag on the Plexiglas stool next to her told him she had a companion. A female companion.

He glanced at Cody Zimmer, fellow student of the Rules, who was his wing man. "It's not going to work."

Even if he got her phone number, he wasn't carrying any pens in the pocket of his new dress shirt. What was he going to write with? He could remember thousands of bytes of software code, but when it came to a woman's phone number, it erased itself from his memory faster than a virus could take out a hard drive.

"It will work." It was Cody's job to spot him the way a trainer would spot a beginning athlete. "You know what to do. You just have to execute."

"I can't."

"You only have to do it once," Cody assured him for the seventh time. No, eighth. The seventh had been in the car, just before the valet had taken his keys.

No keys, no pen. Marvin felt naked.

"Now, go on. By the time her friend comes back, you'll have scored and you can spot me."

"Okay. Okay." Marvin shook out his hands as if he were going to belly up to a video game, and blew out a few breaths to increase the oxygen in his blood.

Game face.

And for God's sake, don't forget the Rules.

The woman looked up as he approached. Before that bored, "oh no, not another loser" look seeped into her eyes and unmanned him, he smiled. His instructor had told him he had a good smile. He'd bought new clothes, since the gabardine trousers and 1976 Grateful Dead T-shirt he habitually wore to work at Applied Infographics were not, he had been informed, appropriate in a social situation.

The smile and the clothes, so far, had staved off that look he dreaded.

"You have beautiful eyes--I was admiring them from over there." His mouth was dry, so he swallowed and moistened his lips. "Do you mind if I sit down until your friend comes back?"

She shrugged, and relief flooded him. As he sat, he touched her wrist. "I hardly ever go downtown any more, but I'm glad I did tonight."

Now her gaze was definitely interested. His fingers slid under her wrist to the pulse point, and his heart rate picked up. The moment of truth. He would either have to beat feet back to Cody and drown his humiliation in alcohol, or he'd clinch a companion for the night. He had two condoms in his wallet and enough money for a nice hotel room.

But no pen for her phone number.

Stop. Focus, he told himself. Don't lose your nerve.

"They call this place Atlantis because it's supposed to look like we're under water. I like all these undulating lines and the clear furniture." The woman leaned toward him, her gaze locked on his mouth. He forced himself to keep talking as he stroked her wrist with his forefinger. "And the way people are spread out over three floors, enjoying themselves. I really like that."

Her lips parted. "Me, too," she said. Was that a breathless note in her voice?

My God, he thought. This really works.

"Celie, who's this?"

The sharp voice over his left shoulder made Marvin turn, startled. A blonde with a swimmer's smooth muscles picked up the beaded handbag he'd moved to the third chair at the table, caution and surprise in her eyes.

His fingers never breaking their electric connection with the brunette's skin, he said, "I'm Marvin. Celie and I were getting to know one another."

"He's my date," the brunette said dreamily. Her eyes never left his face.

"I thought I was your date." The blonde dropped into the third chair. "Honestly, I take two seconds to go to the ladies and you're--"

"Marv, buddy, I thought I'd find you down here." Cody touched the back of the blonde's neck as he slid into the fourth chair, and she blinked. "Why don't you introduce me to these beautiful ladies?"

Marvin did--well, the blonde introduced herself when Cody put out his hand for a handshake.

And Marvin watched the Rules work their magic work a second time.

It was a miracle, especially for a guy who hadn't had a date since his dissertation was completed. Surreptitiously, he patted his back pocket. Wallet, money, and condoms. Still there.

Sex. The final frontier.

Marvin could hardly wait.

CHAPTER 2
Carmel, California
17:35 hours

COOPER MAXWELL, Investigator Level II, member of the elite California Law Enforcement Unit whose personnel were handpicked from every police department in the state, hunched his shoulders under his tuxedo jacket and considered the horror of the situation before him.

"We don't really have to dance." He appealed to Danny Kowalski, narcotics specialist, who was standing next to him in a penguin suit just like his, cummerbund and all.

"If I have to dance, you have to dance," Danny said flatly. "Don't even try to fake a phone call and weasel out of it. At least you get the maid of honor--Linn's sister is a nice kid. I get the third cousin or whoever she is, and all I know about her is that she's available. Which I've heard at least fifty times from as many different people."

"We are dead meat, you know that." Cooper's tone reflected his sense of impending doom. "Once you dance with them, they've got you wrapped up for the rest of the evening. And even as big as this place is, there's no escape."

The two of them returned to their surveillance of the wedding reception. The lawns of software mogul Jay Singleton's Carmel, California, estate stretched down to his private strip of beach. White tents flapped in the gentle breeze, while tables loaded with hors d'oeuvres filled the space between two open bars. Behind them, on the patio, Kellan Black and his new bride, Linn Nichols, were in the process of cutting the cake. Cooper just had time to open his mouth to shout a warning when Linn mashed carrot cake with cream cheese frosting all over her beloved's innocently open mouth.

Good thing he knew Kell gave as good as he got. Linn better look out for her dress.

And he and Danny had better look out for predators disguised as bridesmaids in strapless plum silk. He didn't object to the maid of honor, Linn's sister Tessa, in principle. She was at this moment blowing in the ear of a guy he understood to be Singleton's director of security. He'd heard a rumor that Tessa was psychic, but he found it hard to believe that a girl as blonde and funny and, face it, sexy as Tessa Nichols could do stuff like locate people by touching something they'd once worn.

He sighed. He could go for blonde and funny and sexy right now. But she was off limits. Instead, there was the third cousin and several others like her, all with a thirtieth-birthday deadline and deadly purpose in their eyes. Was this some kind of massive matchmaking scheme? Could Linn really be that evil? What had he done to piss her off?

"Paranoia will destroy ya," he muttered under his breath, and looked around. Not even six o'clock and he was already on his third beer. He needed to get the next one cued up.

Shazam.

He blinked and elbowed Danny in the ribs. "Hey. Look over there." Obediently, Danny suspended his triangulation of each bridesmaid's current position and looked over at the bar, where the bartender was handing over a glass of white wine. "That's no third cousin."

Cooper hoped she was no relation of Linn's at all. The less family gossip that got back to his fellow investigator after her honeymoon, the better. If he had his way, he wouldn't be heading back to his hotel room alone tonight.

The woman took the glass and turned to speak to her companion, a no-nonsense brunette whom Cooper dismissed from the radar immediately. Instead, his gaze traveled in an appreciative line from the crown of her red hair, which was bobbed at the nape of a neck as graceful as a swan's, to the toes of her strappy, high-heeled sandals. In between, he spent several seconds at rest stops--on the curve of a pair of breasts that would make a sculptor weep, on a waist that only served to accentuate a derriere that was just a shade curvier than perfect, and--thank you, ocean breeze--on a pair of legs, bare of stockings, that went all the way to the top of the side slit of her floaty green dress.

"I think I'm in love."

"Congratulations," Danny said gruffly. "I think I'm going to commit suicide."

"And leave the third cousin in the lurch?"

"If this is the apex of my life and all I have to look forward to, yes."

"Cheer up. There's still beer. Good stuff, too. Singleton's no cheapskate. We need a trip to the bar. Now."

"Lead on."

Cooper sidled up next to the redhead and flashed his very best I'm-totally-harmless-and-great-in-bed grin. When the brunette caught his eye, he downgraded it to I'm-totally-harmless, then turned to the bartender and ordered a couple of Sam Adams.

"Bride's side or groom's?" he asked the redhead when he and Danny were both armed with what they needed. Standard wedding question. The answer didn't mean a thing, but you could get away with asking anyone that and opening the conversation.

"Neither. I'm crashing."

Her tone was clipped and impatient when, from the look of her, he'd expected sultry and maybe southern. As for the crashing part, that wasn't his business. "Thank God. Someone has to improve the scenery around here."

Her gaze, as neutral as her gray eyes, rested on him for a second, then moved past him to the crowd. "Looks nice to me. I should be used to the ocean, but I'm not."

Was she a recent arrival from the Midwest? He tried to place an accent, but she didn't seem to have one. "I wasn't talking about the geography." He tried on another version of the killer grin.

"I was. Come on, Bella. At least we can get some food out of this."

She grabbed her friend by the elbow, turned on the ball of one slender foot, and left him standing there.

O-o-kay.

Fortunately, he was not a man to give up easily, as any number of drug dealers and lowlifes could tell you. The lady was a stunner--and her left hand ringless. Both very good reasons to pursue all avenues of investigation with all possible speed.