WELL, hello, Zane thought, his inner skirt-chaser perking up. A little blonde was hurrying toward him on the Public Garden’s pedestrian bridge. The temperature was near ninety, for which he was grateful. The pint-sized bit of booty wore a strappy Harvard T-shirt with a shelf bra built in. She had great arms, slim but muscled, and truly mouthwatering tits. Jiggling on her ribs with the energy of her strides, they were no bigger than oranges but beautifully shaped and high. Her lack of stature aside, her legs and hips were great— precisely the sort of limbs faded blue jeans were meant to drape. Her hair was a Peter Pan pixie cut. Cute, he thought, and ideal for showing off her cheekbones.Observing that she seemed to be looking for something, Zane stepped politely into her path.“Need help?” he offered when she jolted to a stop.She had big gray eyes, startled at the moment and unexpectedly piercing. Without warning, his throat tightened. For a second, he had the odd sensation that he k
Like his CFO, Zane Alexander packed an extra punch in person. For one thing, he was plain old big—6’4” or 5” with muscle packed onto his muscle and shoulders she was certain could still play quarterback. Staring at him from her height-challenged state easily could have overwhelmed her.Rebecca was fortunate she was ballsier than she looked.Her hormones had a harder time digging in their heels. He was a hunk and a half. Great body. Great face. Killer smile and blue eyes. If Trey was quirkily good-looking, Zane was flat out handsome. His hair was a thick sandy color, expertly styled to create a just-rolled-out-of-bed, finger-combed casualness. He wore the same uniform as the rest of the magazine staff: straight-legged jeans topped by a short sleeve Henley with the Bad Boys logo on the left breast. No one looked bad in it, but as he leaned forward over his knees on that willow- shaded bench—the better to meet her gaze—he was drool worthy.The gray waffle cotton hugged his torso lovingly
Rebecca lived in a single family two-story Victorian. The residence wouldn’t have been fancy even when it was new, but Zane supposed it had character. When he picked her up, she’d explained her brothers’ basement apartment plan. Zane had assured her the strategy wasn’t stupid, and that she’d have no trouble learning how to be a landlord.“You’re a boss already,” he’d said. “You’re used to keeping on top of things.” The dumpster hulking in her front yard was less obvious in the dark. As he parked his old silver convertible in her driveway, Zane reminded himself she had a lot of pressures on her: new job, changing home, boys becoming more independent and expecting her to let them. For a person as tightly wound as Rebecca, this wouldn’t be easy. She might not be in the mood to hop into bedwith him.This, needless to say, wasn’t a thought he was used to having about women.Overall, tonight had left him off kilter. He wondered why he’d told her about his father hitting him. Because she wa
TREY had Elaine arrange his Wednesday appointment with Rebecca. He told himself it made sense to talk at the Lounge. Rebecca could confirm that the kitchen and dining room were set up to suit her. Yes, Zane was back in Boston and, yes, he might read something in Trey’s body language if he saw him with her. That wasn’t why Trey didn’t want Rebecca at headquarters. He had no plans to pursue her. Anything Zane might misinterpret was moot.Aware the excuse was slim, he shook his head and opened his laptop at one of the dining room’s finished booths. He’d come early, and Rebecca wasn’t there. Possibly, he should have had sex with Zane more than once this morning. The thought of his new chef arriving made his libido feel antsy.He’d left the street entrance open, but Rebecca knocked anyway. Trey’s palms broke into a sweat as he went to greet her.“Hey,” he said. “Glad you made it.”This wasn’t very bosslike, but he was grateful anything came out of his mouth. His pulse was going haywire, hi
The call was close, but Rebecca escaped The Bad Boys Lounge without jumping Trey Hayworth’s bones.He’s your boss, she repeated. Sleeping with your employer is asking for trouble.Too bad she wanted to ask for trouble. And ask and ask and—“Shut up,” she snapped to her rearview mirror. As she pulled her car into traffic, her face was hot—not merely from arousal but also annoyance.Trey would have Elaine forward his stylist’s info? The man couldn’t peck one email with his own fingertips?Oh Lord, what was her problem? An email wasn’t a lock of hair. And she didn’t need a memento of her non-relationship with him. Maybe most absurd, because she’d refused Trey’s referral of a stylist, now she was hoping Zanewould call her. It was tomorrow. Twelve hours into it, to be precise.Stopped by a red light, she glared at her shoulder bag, which she’d thrown on the right-hand seat. Her cell phone was in there, and it wasn’t ringing.She could ask the twins for fashion advice, but they wouldn’t be
It was beautiful. She was beautiful. For the first time in a decade, Rebecca acknowledged that. Her face held a hint of the girl she’d been, but her body was a woman’s. She looked seductive in the thin clinging silk: firm where she ought to be, soft where a man would like. She was better than naked wearing it. She was enchanting.Squeezing her feet into the teetering sandal heels brought her back to reality, but she was determined not to do this half-assed. She’d always taught the twins the best thank yous were wholehearted.As a precaution, she gripped the handrail when she went down the stairs. Zane was in the living room, working on his laptop. He looked up at the clack of her sandals. His reaction was priceless. He rose to his feet, hand on heart, as if she were a bolt of lightning that had struck him.“Wow,” he said and swallowed.“I have to keep this,” she confessed, laughing. “It looks too nice on me.”“It looks amazing.” He took her hands as she reached the bottom, holding the
“We’ll take this easy,” he assured her.She wasn’t worried. She and Trey had managed . . . and then she realized maybe this wasn’t the most appropriate comparison to make. She couldn’t help it. Trey was leaner overall, but erection-wise, they were around the same size.The image of Trey’s highly aroused penis rolled into her mind: the wider flare of his cap, the dragon’s tail circling his root. Her pussy contracted, embarrassing her.Being turned on by the memory of another man wasn’t appropriate either.Thankfully unaware, Zane smiled at the increase in her wetness. Tipping his cock down between her labia, he angled it to notch her. To her delight, he bit his lip as he pushed inside.This, of course, wasn’t her only reason to be happy.“Oh boy,” she said, palms sliding up his back. “Oh wow, that feels good.”He entered her in one slow glide, working his right hand beneath her bottom to ensure his cock squeezed in all the way. All the way felt incredible, like she was filled and then
REBECCA had plenty to keep her busy in the wake of cutting things short with Zane. She pulled her semi-new crew together, putting them through their paces in the fully loaded Lounge kitchen. Her friend Raoul bounced around like a kid in a candy story. Trey’s choice of equipment—and his willingness to buy more—made him her head chef’s new hero.“Finally!” he crowed. “Everything is how you like it. We’ll throw mud in the faces of those culos at Wilde’s Bistro.”Rebecca secretly hoped so but merely smiled when he said this.She and the crew tinkered with her recipes: cooking times, temperatures, this ingredient or that. The results Rebecca achieved by herself, with every detail under her control, weren’t the same as what a busy brigade of line cooks produced. Rebecca’s crew was skilled and proud of it. Nonetheless, some needed coaching to reach her high standards. Those who weren’t used to her methods tried her patience, but they worked through it. They all knew consistency was key. They
Mike’s bronzed chest, with a sprinkling of sun-kissed hair, felt familiar and foreign under her finger tips, his hands lifting up under her thickened breasts, face gazing down and marveling, as if looking at a work of art for the first time. When his eyes met hers they were smiling, and he touched her lips with one finger. “I do love you.” Hand on her belly. “And her.”A lump in her throat made it hard to speak, Dylan’s hard, muscled form behind her, leaning against her back and ass. Heady from the touch of both, she tipped her face up and drank in Mike’s words. “I love you, too.” His smile, his mouth, their tongues touching as she was enveloped by manflesh, manskin, the two men who completed her—it made her feel truly, madly, intensely loved.Cherished.Dylan’s words were a trigger for so much more as he nipped her ear and whispered, “I love you, too.” Mike released her and she spun around, arms lifting over his shoulders, his muscled forearms on her back
A palpable tension sat between him and Mike on the car ride up the mountain, a third partner who wasn’t nearly as appealing as Laura. Unresolved emotions, unspoken words, and a sense of uncertainty made the air thick, kept Dylan’s nerves on edge, and finally forced him to blurt out, “I was a total douche. I should never have made us wait to tell her about the money, and I almost blew it, and now here we are with maybe—kinda—sorta—a chance with her, and I don’t want to fuck it up again.”Cringe.“If you’re a douche, I’m a bigger one. Mega douche. Thor the Douche,” Mike bantered back, his voice jovial, but his face serious. Eyes on the road, he seemed to feel the change in the car. They were talking. Really talking, once again.“How do we make this right with her?” Dylan’s words had an urgency, a plaintive tone he could hear in his own voice and hated.Mike shrugged. “I think this time we actually listen to her and Josie and do what Laura wants.”
Mike held the smartphone’s camera up and surveyed the soot-covered room slowly. Laura’s apartment building had just been opened for him and Dylan to come down, the fire investigation completed enough that they permitted residents to remove vital items. The conclusion: an electrical fire that started in the breaker box in the basement, directly under Laura’s place.She was damn lucky. A few more minutes and...well, he wouldn’t be holding a camera streaming live video to her on her smart phone, her sweet face asking questions and giving directions as she rested under a down throw on his couch, looking relaxed and healing nicely.His couch. At the cabin. When the fire investigators told her she wouldn’t be able to go back to her apartment for weeks, if not months, the structural damage too great for people to live there, the news had seemed to crush her. Quick to offer help, he and Dylan had both tried to get her to move in. Cabin vs. apartment?She’d chosen
Barely four hours had gone by since Dylan’s phone call, and Mike had to absorb his first encounter with Dylan since their fight four months ago, seeing the two loves of his life endangered by fire, and now he had just learned that Laura was pregnant with their baby. Their baby. All three of them. He didn’t want to view it as his, or Dylan’s. But he had no idea Dylan felt the same way!Pointing at Dylan, he said, “You, too?”The smile on his partner’s face was so telling, impish and serious all at once in a way only Dylan could pull off. “Me, too. She’s ours. Not yours. Not mine.”Would Laura agree? Mike wasn’t sure. Seeing her there, on her side, radiant and scared, made him want to bar the door and protect her from whatever the world threw her way. Radiant! Hah! Now he knew why she seemed to be glowing when he saw her yesterday at Jeddy’s, through that window.A happy pregnant woman, full of life. Full of his child.His daughter.
A fireball was in her crotch, pushing hard, so hard, to come out. Laura couldn’t breathe, scratching at her neck, trying to claw open her trachea to get air, air, air. Oxygen was gone, her throat spasming as her vagina split open, divided in two, and out came an enormous, glowing-orange sphere, shooting across the surgical room and catching the wall on fire.Screaming, she opened her eyes to find a nurse pushing buttons on some sort of box, a man in scrubs holding her arm down, and six very worried eyes watching her from a few feet away.Eyes she knew.She was on her left side and the nurse had her face in both hands, eyes boring into her. “Laura! Laura! I need you to breathe slowly, to focus. We can’t find the baby’s heartbeat— ”Baby! Heartbeat!“—and the more you panic, the harder it is to get the monitor hooked backup.”Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. The nurse took her through the motions, andLaura calmed
Wah wah wah wah 345 wah, Somerville, Dylan heard, his ears ringing as he sat up fast, the cold night air hitting his bare chest when the down comforter slid to his waist. The dispatcher’s words sounded so familiar.When she repeated the address again, his blood ran cold. Then the words:multi-unit fire.If you had told him even a year ago that he could move that quickly, shove on pants and boots and a jacket, be down God knows how many sets of stairs and out the door and in his car in less than two minutes, he’d have told you were a fool.Tonight? Not tonight, though, because that was Laura’s address the dispatcher just announced, followed by the words multi-unit fire. Blood pumping hard, he fumbled for his phone (thank God it was still in his pants from yesterday) and as he peeled out of the garage he tapped through his Contacts list to Mike.Multi-unit fire.Weaving across two lanes, he sped to her place, the drive inching by s
She snorted. Funny how there already was a third.The lie mattered, but what also mattered was that she had been ready to think about kids, to imagine pregnancy and birth and babies and toddlers and all the roly-poly love that came with them. If she was pregnant—she allowed herself to think in hypotheticals, her hands mechanically shampooing her greasy hair, the feeling of rinsing like a baptism, washing away the past month of dysfunction—then it would be OK.Everything would be OK. To be more precise, it would all work out in the end because she absolutely, positively, undeniably was not pregnant. And couldn’t be. It just wasn’t true, and as long as she willed it to not be true, she didn’t have to face any of the long term consequences of having a billionaire baby daddy.Or two.A quick rinse was all she could manage as her legs and arms felt like jelly, her body shivering no matter how much she turned the shower faucet for more hot water. Time t
“Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead!” Josie shouted, yanking open the curtains in Laura’s bedroom, the pink cloth swaying in a pattern that made Laura’s stomach queasy. Ugh. Bad enough she was exhausted; did Josie really need to make her nauseated, too? The coarse sun blinded her with too much, the glare off the world striking her as so harsh, too unyielding. Give her a nice, grey day with white cloud coverage so she could dip herself back into life.Let her suckle her depression, for it gave her so much comfort. Being a victim meant never having to think through your own actions, not reflecting on regret, and it definitely gave her ample excuse for eating entire pints of ice cream and wallowing in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” marathons.It had been a month since the guys...well, there wasn’t an easy word for what they’d done to her. The Big Reveal? The Big Not-So-Reveal? Laura’s Public Humiliation? Whatever you called it, a month had passed and somehow she’d survived
The sight of Mike’s back as he began to run away was unbelievable. Dylan stared, mouth open, the keys loose in his palm. The guy was running home? It was at least ten miles, which was nothing for Mike, but he was dressed in jeans, a polo shirt, and Merell shoes—not exactly runner’s clothing in August in Boston. He’d turn into a puddle of goo by the time he crossed the Charles River.Maybe that was the point.Right now, though, he really didn’t have a spare ounce of caring in him for anyone but Laura. How could he have been so callous? Man, he had totally misjudged how she perceived him and his every move. The “It’s always complicated” joke not only fell flat, it seemed to have been the nail in the coffin of any chance they may have had to rewind their botched attempt at waiting for the right moment to tell her about their money. Ego be damned; he could admit when he was wrong. He was man enough. And boy, oh boy, was he wrong.Mike didn’t even want to be in