An Accidental Gentleman (25 page)

Freeing the ring, she squished the silicone between her fingers. The soft band featured nothing sticking out to get snagged, nothing shiny to scratch, and nothing they’d need a diamond saw to get off a swollen finger.

Bouncy. She flexed the material, popping the circle between her fingers again and again.

The first time she’d fantasized about Brian, a smidge over a year ago, he’d been Prince Charming. She’d been certain she’d never want that. Never want him as anything more than a fuck on the trunk of a sun-warmed car.

But now his car sat in their garage. In their home, where they lived—together.

She slipped the band around her ring finger. For all that it claimed to be silicone, the ring sure seemed to conduct an electrical charge. Shivering, she extended her hand.

The dark blue didn’t look so wrong around her finger.

“Husband and wife.”

The words didn’t sound so wrong, either.

“Beautiful.”

As she spun around, Brian stepped through the door from the house. Barefoot and shirtless, he wore a pair of jeans hitched over his hips, the fly half-open. Slapping the back of his hand to his mouth, he covered his yawn.

Fuck, she loved a sexy, sleepy man. “Afraid you’d miss the moment, were you?”

He ambled toward her and rubbed the back of his head until his hair stuck out. “Bit of a gamble. May I kiss the bride?”

“That a ploy to get me back in bed?” Meeting him halfway, she kissed the smirk from his face.

“Might be.” Lips soft and sweet, he grazed her forehead and cheeks. “The day’s early.” He chased his gentle brushes with harder, deeper kisses at her throat. “Is it working?”

The backs of her legs hit the bumper on the coupe. “You gonna fuck my brains out, Mr. Fix-it?”

Nuzzling her collarbone, nudging her shirt aside, he nodded. “I promise, Mrs. Fix-it.” He raised her hand and kissed the flexible ring. “For the next fifty years.”

“Do it.” Belief came easier now, the strength of his commitment bolstered in the year of his nice-guy manners and bad-boy bedroom games. She’d accidentally gone and found a gentleman. One she couldn’t resist teasing with the phrasing they both knew so well that his mouth shaped the words as she spoke.

“I dare you.”

Be sure not to miss M. Q. Barber’s Erotic Contemporary

Her heart is in his hands…

After her marriage ends in betrayal, Eleanora Howard finds herself struggling to navigate the dating scene as a thirty-one-year-old divorcee. But feeling undesirable, and living alone in the house she once shared with her ex, is hardly the recipe
for finding new love—until she meets Rob. He’s just the kind of charming, old-fashioned guy she needs—but he’s also eager for intimacy…

After serving in the Air Force and getting a well-paid civilian career, Rob Vanderhoff planned to settle down with the right woman and raise a family. But at thirty-six, he’s still single and searching—until he meets Eleanora. She’s everything he wants. All he has to do is draw her out of her shell. Soon he’s taking her on high school style dates, fanning the flames of her desire—and helping Nora re-discover the sexy, adventurous woman they both know she really is…

A Lyrical Originals novel on sale now!

Learn more about M. Q. at

http://www.kensingtonbooks.com/author.aspx/29485

Dead last. Again.

The four of them went out after work every Friday, and every Friday Eleanora sat and smiled while guys bought drinks for Sharilyn. Hit the dance floor with Amber. Chatted up Chelsea’s breasts.

Even the sidekicks—wingmen, whatever guys called themselves—refused to give her a second glance. She couldn’t blame their lack of interest on the ring. She’d taken off the meaningless metal circle before the divorce had been finalized.

But to the endless crowd of broad-smile bar-hoppers, she rated five seconds of stilted conversation between texting or checking sports scores or playing Angry Birds. The highlight of four hours of boredom. Single life almost matched the worst tedium of married life.

That’s what she got for saddling herself with David and galloping through her twenties with his ring on her finger. He’d been her first. Her only.

Now she performed rotating roles as babysitter, chaperone, and charity case. She didn’t belong at a too-small table packed alongside tight-skinned and perky-breasted girls who flashed their IDs with the affected nonchalance of twenty-two-year-olds.

She downed the final sip of her third beer of the night. She didn’t dare hop in her car and head home yet. Given her luck, she’d end up pulled over and facing a drunk-driving charge. David would love any excuse to point out her idiocy. Hiring a lawyer without him finding out would be impossible in this town. She’d never live down the humiliation.

“—and it’s deep, too.”

Chelsea laughed along with what’s-his-name. Dog Collar Dude. Not attractive, but he had deep pockets. Probably thought he’d be getting in deep with Chelsea tonight, payment in exchange for buying round after round of drinks. God knew he hadn’t taken his eyes off her breasts.

Laughter came dangerously close to making Chelsea spill out of her silky, sleeveless v-cut. Eleanora’s closet didn’t hold a shirt anywhere near so revealing. Boring and staid, as much an accountant in her fashion picks as in her career choices. And in her bedroom habits.

She tilted her brown bottle. All gone. No magical extra swallows remained to knock David’s voice from her head.

“Whoa.” An unknown quantity stumbled to a halt beside her chair. “Your friend’s hot.”

Fantastic. The newest Mr. Drunk-and-Horny leaned in close and drenched her nose with the scent of teen body spray. Probably the same disgusting brand he’d used in high school. Probably lived in the same bedroom, too.

“Oh? Which one?” She’d come to this lousy bar with three friends—well, acquaintances—and he didn’t have a chance with any of them.

The skinny blond kid blinked as he scanned their table. Jesus. He looked barely old enough to buy the three beers he held, and she’d celebrated thirty-one six months ago.

Sooner or later she’d have to inform her coworkers she wasn’t going out with them anymore. They were twenty-four, twenty-five, and poaching college boys was fine for them. For her, the whole scene smacked of desperation. Three months of this bullshit added up to quite enough.

“Uh, all of ’em?” He presented a dopey smile.

“Damn, Ellie. Picking ’em young tonight, aren’t you?” Sharilyn swung her martini glass upward, sloshing vodka over the rim. “Good for you.”

“Yeah, no, I’m not—”

The kid wobbled into her chair. “I don’t feel—”

Vomit splattered her shoulder and rolled down her chest. Ugh. Should’ve dodged faster. She shoved him back.

Stumbling over his own feet, he landed on his ass, spilled his three beers all over himself, and retched. The acrid stench of puke replaced the flood of body spray in her nose. A toss-up, really.

She laughed over the chorus of oh-my-gods from the rest of the table. At least the night wasn’t boring anymore.

* * * *

“Oh, fuck.”

Rob swallowed the last of his beer. Lucas had better hurry up with the refills. “What now?”

They’d hit a handful of bars already. Brian had found trouble with every damned one. With Lucas staying at his place for the summer, he’d been playing mother hen for the last three weeks.

“I think my baby brother’s puking his guts out.”

“Take him home. Happy beer-buying birthday and all, but he’s done for the night.” He’d celebrated his own twenty-first on base with a pack of fellow tech geeks. Good guys, including Brian. How had fifteen years gone by so fast? “Pour him into bed.”

“Yeah.” Brian grimaced. “Soon as I figure out what to say to the woman with puke running down her shirt.”

“Try an apology.” He shoved his chair back and stood, scanning the tables for Lucas’s god-awful sea-green pullover. “Where is he?”

He spotted the vomit-splattered woman about the same time Brian answered, “Your four o’clock.”

Shit. Lucas had spewed at a full table, and he couldn’t get eyes on him. Man down. Threat?

No punches thrown, so far as he could tell. A circle of horrified and disgusted faces clustered to one side, their owners staring at the floor. One guy held his phone up. On the far side of the table sat a laughing woman with a beautiful smile and a stained shirt. Damn. He hadn’t taken a woman home in almost four months, and Lucas had party-fouled the first to catch his eye. “C’mon, let’s go rescue Lucas and get out of here.”

Looked like tonight wouldn’t be the night to break his sexless streak.

* * * *

“Oh my God, Ellie, seriously, how can you laugh about this?” Light glinted off glitter-speckled fingernails. Amber pushed back from the table. “Yuck. Danny, take me dancing.” She dragged her boy of the night away with a theatrical flounce.

“You do kinda reek, Ellie.” Sharilyn wrinkled her nose. “Not your fault, but eww.”

Waving in front of her face, Chelsea nodded.

Dog Collar Dude flipped through his phone. “Fuck, I missed the kid’s first splash. You think he could upchuck again? The visual’d make the video so much better.”

Eleanora glanced down with care. The regurgitated beer soaking into her shirt quickly lost its amusement value. The kid had added a puddle beside her chair. He barked out coughs like a hoarse dog.

“No, I don’t think he’s got anything else in his stomach.” She poked his knee with her foot. “Kid? You all right? You got somebody we can call for you?”

No answer, unless she counted more retching. Between the sound and the smell, her stomach started to turn.

A second man with the same pale hair as the first dropped to the floor beside the kid and laid a hand on his back. “Shit, Lucas, I thought you might’ve passed out.”

“Are you all right, miss?”

Sex on a stick. Thick thighs encased in denim inches from her eyes. She launched her head back and her chin skyward. Eyes up. Ohhh, bad idea. The stranger loomed over her with his strong jaw and his short, dark hair and his no-nonsense eyes.

“No, of course you aren’t.” His aborted hand movement stopped short of her shoulder. “Ugh, he did a number on your shirt. Let me give you a hand.”

He slipped around the other side of her seat. Cupping her elbow in one hand and pressing against her back with the other, he coaxed her to her feet. Large hands. Warm hands.

Her body jangled like a change jar spilling on tile.

“Look, he’s really sorry, or he will be when he’s sober.” The stranger glanced down, shaking his head. “He’s twenty-one today.”

She nodded. The blond guy picked the younger one off the floor. First legal drinking day. Okay. She filed the data under
don’t care
and waited for details about Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome.

“You can’t wear that home.”

Her chest had snared more attention in the last five minutes than in three months of flaunting herself at bars. She’d found the secret of dating. When introversion and modest assets failed, distress attracted the good guys. Not how she’d hoped to find someone.

The man with large hands squeezed and let her go. Peeling off his shirt, he revealed a to-die-for body. Solid, toned muscles from top to bottom. Too bad his jeans came almost to his waist. Denim blocked the enticing slope heading into his pants. God, David had never reached such nonchalant bare-chested perfection.

Her rescuer held out his shirt and gestured her toward the back of the bar. “Here, let me give you mine for tonight.”

No fucking way. This guy couldn’t be for real. She stumbled over her chair.

He steadied her with a quick hand on her clean shoulder.

“Thanks.” Oh, hallelujah. She’d started thinking she’d never find her voice. “That’s, umm, I appreciate it.”

“Least I can do, miss.” He guided her in front of him past the line for the ladies’ room and stopped at the door.

“Yo, man, you gotta put your shirt on.” A beefy guy in a black shirt with the bar’s logo over his chest held out an arm. “Carrying it don’t count. You can’t be shirtless, not in here.”

She disagreed with strenuous, silent objections. Her gentleman deserved to go shirtless wherever he liked.

“You wanna run around half-naked, you gotta head down the street to the Lazy Eight.”

Making that man put his shirt back on would be a crime. Her skin heated at the slow slide of excitement between her legs. Thirty minutes of fantasizing and foreplay with David left her dry as a desert compared to three minutes of standing next to Shirtless Gentleman. The longer she lingered in his orbit, the harder her lungs worked to serve up oxygen.

Lust walloped her with embarrassing swiftness. She lacked the looks and flirty attitude to pull a guy without adding a vomit-soaked shell to the mix. Riding off into the sunset with Shirtless Gentleman glinted so far out of the picture the location didn’t exist on her map.

“Yeah, I get that.” Shirtless Gentleman raised a hand. “You can toss me out in a minute. Right now, this pretty girl’s got someone else’s puke on her clothes, and I’m going to make sure she’s safe while she’s changing.”