It’s never too late to make the best impulsive decision of your life.
Jo Masters isn’t the party girl she used to be, but now that she’s a woman without obligations, she’s ready to recapture a little of her misspent youth. Her niece’s wedding, with its open bar and dark dance floor, proves to be the perfect opportunity to let loose.
Gregory Stark is just trying to make it through his son’s wedding day... and make some time with the gorgeous brunette on the bride’s side of the aisle. His kid’s wedding probably isn’t the best occasion to put the moves on the sexy woman, who introduces herself only as ‘Josie’, but his best friend is closing in on her too and he has to act fast. With a couple of tequila shots under his belt, Greg propositions Josie -- and neither wants to refuse.
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Excerpt
The line at the bar wasn’t
long, but she needed a drink--a real drink--and she needed it fast.
Jo twirled her empty champagne flute and tapped her toe as the DJ
made a cringe-worthy segue between Louis Armstrong and Pink. A pang
of regret tweaked her stomach when she spotted her eldest brother,
Tony, leading his baby girl from the dance floor, but that was
nothing new. She’d suffered so many pangs in her life they’d
become a part of her autonomic system. Breathe in, breathe out, pang.
Blink, sniffle, sneeze, pang.
Go to bed alone--again--pang!
At the tender age of twenty-six,
her niece had managed to accomplish everything Jo never had. Kaylin
had a career, a home of her own, and a man she loved so much she
actually glowed. Literally glowed. Jo hadn’t known such a glow
since her mother stopped slathering her sunburns in Noxzema.
Radiant happiness was enough to
drive a woman to drink.
Three groomsmen bellied up to the
bar and jockeyed for position in front of the pretty blond bartender.
Their voices rose as they trumped each other’s orders. Each
successive suggestion was an obvious attempt to prove the issuer was
more worldly, and therefore manly, than the last. The misguided boys
must have believed their ability to chug grain alcohol might make or
break their chance at ending the evening in the poor girl’s bed.
The bartender eyed them with hardly-contained disdain. The posturing
little pricks didn’t notice. Jo couldn’t help but smile when the
girl rolled her eyes and went back to stacking glassware.
What little buzz Jo had managed
to eke out of two glasses of table wine and a flute of champagne
began to wane. She considered goosing one of the guys to shock him
into gear, but then another tuxedo-clad man, murmuring quiet excuses,
slipped in front of her. The groomsmen jumped when the newcomer
gripped their padded shoulders.
“Three beers for these guys,
please. Give them the imported stuff.” Casually, he stuffed a
twenty-dollar bill into the pitcher serving as a tip jar. “Having
fun, fellas?”
The groomsmen replied in the
affirmative, but their cheeks glowed pink. Bravado squelched, they
grabbed their beers and beat a hasty retreat. The hero of the hour
turned to face Jo. Recognition kicked in. Saliva pooled in her mouth
and a tingle of awareness prickled the fine hairs at her nape. Her
savior was none other than the father of the groom. It took a
fraction of a second for her brain to source the pertinent facts
Kaylin had imparted on Ben’s father. Gregory. Greg. Divorced,
devoted dad, and hot as Hades on a summer day. Confronted with him
now, Jo was happy to confirm the acute case of the bright shinies
hadn’t skewed her niece’s powers of observation. Gregory Stark
was all that and more.
He’d
sneaked glances at her all through the ceremony. Now, he grinned
right at her. “Good to know I’ve still got it.”
His dark eyes glinted with
amusement. She wasn’t sure if he was referring to his ability to
circumvent a bar line, or the fact that she’d been unable to resist
returning every one of the furtive glances he’d tossed her way. Jo
decided to play it neutral.
Rolling her parched tongue up off
the carpet, she nodded the approbation he was obviously seeking.
“Effective.”
No lie. He was the most
attractive man she’d laid eyes on in forever. Which made perfect
sense in a bizarre Karmic way. Of course she had to meet this man
after she’d poked a nail through her last pair of control-top
pantyhose.
Still, there was no reason she
couldn’t catalog every bit of him for later use. With a practiced
eye, she gauged him to be a few years older than her. Her guess put
him somewhere in his mid-fifties. Unlike most men, he hadn’t packed
on any extra cushioning for the slide into the AARP years. He was
tall and lean, his movements as taut and compelling as the lines
bracketing his eyes and those sculpted lips. His jaw was smooth and
shiny, clean-shaven, but the shadow of a heavy beard loomed below the
surface. Jo wanted to know what else he kept hidden under the slick
exterior.
He’d been seated in the front
pew at the ceremony beside his ex-wife and her husband. Jo wondered
what he’d done to earn ex status. For the life of her, she couldn’t
imagine any woman willingly giving this man up for the paunchy
redhead who’d taken his place.
He nodded toward the array of
bottles behind the bar. “Champagne?”
“God, no.” The response was
automatic. She hated champagne. Pure desperation forced her to resort
to the glass poured for the toasts because the dinner wine was long
gone. Now he was offering her more. The sparkling wine seemed an apt
choice for him. He looked like Cary Grant, what with the wings of
silver in his dark hair, the crinkly brown eyes sparkling with
mischief, and the tuxedo. Maybe he was offering her champagne because
Cary Grant would offer her champagne. Cary would call her “darling.”
Would Gregory Stark call her “darling?”
Something tugged at her fingers.
She stared in rapt fascination as he removed the forgotten flute from
her hand and placed it on the bar. “Oh. No. No more champagne.”
She managed a weak twitch of her lips. “Thank you.”
A proprietary hand landed in the
small of her back. Jo surrendered to the gentle pressure, closing her
eyes and imagining the pads of his fingers to be electrodes. Sparks
sizzled along her spine. He spread his fingers wide as he drew
alongside her at the bar. Arousal swept through her like a hot flash.
Unlike those endless minutes of core meltdown, this heat wasn’t
something to be endured. His touch was a treat to be savored. She
opened her eyes and found him staring at her, his lips parted and his
eyes shining bright.
“What’ll it be, then?”
“Tequila. Three shots.”
The answer popped out before her
brain engaged. It was a ghost from her past. A remnant of the
reckless youth she’d left buried under a pile of soul-crushing
responsibility.
“Whoa. Three?” He craned his
neck and scanned the room. “Maybe I should get one of the younger
guys back.”
Once upon a time, three was her
magic number. The key to managing everything life had thrown at her.
Good and bad. The magic of three stopped being effective not long
after she’d turned thirty--a bitter disappointment she’d never
managed to reconcile with herself. Turns out, fate had her number in
another way.
Well, screw fate. She’d played
the good girl long enough. Emboldened by the wine and the heat of his
hand scorching her back, she looked him square in the eye. “I have
no use for boys, thankyouverymuch.
Don’t worry. It’s okay if you can’t keep up. I won’t think
less of you.”
He laughed. Not a chuckle or a
chortle, but a deep, rumbling, full-throated guffaw that wrapped
itself around her and drew her closer still. Or maybe he pulled her
in with his hand. Either way, she was within sniffing distance, so
she took a hit. Pure man. No flowery cologne masked the warm and
musky mix of soap, shaving cream, and some kind of whiskey. Thank
God.
“Set ’em up,” he told the
bartender.
The girl lined six tiny glasses
along the side rail. Pale amber liquid dribbled onto the bar when she
moved from glass to glass. She piled wedges of lime on a napkin and
plunked a saltcellar beside it. The furrow of concentration between
the bartender’s over-tweezed eyebrows smoothed when Greg shoved
another bill into the tip jar.
His hand fell away from Jo’s
back as they moved to the side of the bar. She kept her gaze
purposefully averted, trying not to pout over the loss. She raised
one of the shot glasses in silent salute then downed the tequila
without benefit of salt and lime.
The alcohol blazed a trail of
fire in her throat. Jo gave her head a toss to soothe the burn. The
frank admiration in her companion’s gaze made her pussy tingle with
arousal. Her body’s response to this gorgeous stranger startled
her. Deep in her heart, she feared she was past all desire.
He leaned in closer. “What’s
your name?”
The answer leapt to her tongue,
but she bit it back. For one night, this night with this man, she
didn’t want to be sad old Aunt Jo. She wanted to be the woman she’d
been back in the days before she had to be seated with one of her
cousins to round out a table. She wanted to be the girl who thought
she had all the time in the world.
Fixing Kaylin’s new
father-in-law with a bold stare, she raised a challenging eyebrow.
“Jose.”
“As in Cuervo?”
“Exactly.” When he opened his
mouth again, she held up one hand and dredged up the name she used in
those wild days of time and tequila. “But you can call me Josie.”
He blinked once then cocked his
head, studying her for one long moment. He reached for a glass. The
wry twist of his lips told her he was certain she’d given him a
fake name, but he didn’t seem to care too terribly much. He eyed
her over the rim of the tiny glass. “Nice to meet you, Josie. I’m
Greg.”
Silver cufflinks flashed as he
tossed the shot back. He chased the booze with a low growl. A golden
drop clung to his upper lip. Jo wiped it away with the pad of her
thumb but froze as she pulled away. They stared at one another,
arrested by her sheer audacity. Mortification set the tips of her
ears on fire. She tried to finish her retreat, but he captured her
wrist.
“Thank you.” He gave her a
gentle squeeze. “Tell me, Josie, are you a pussycat?”
Jo laughed. And, damn, it felt
good. She was flirting with a handsome man, and he was flirting back
with enthusiasm. Quite a rush for a woman long out of practice. She
swallowed the lump in her throat and lowered her gaze along with her
wayward hand, wondering if her rusty skills were obvious.
“Uh-uh. Don’t try to play shy
with me now,” he admonished. When she didn’t respond, he leaned
close. His breath stirred her hair and tickled her ear. “You’re
the most intriguing woman here, and you damn well know it.”
Pleasure ran warm and thick in
her veins. Jo closed her eyes, giving herself over to the vague pain
of her nipples tightening and the quickening of her pulse. “Do I?”
“I noticed you in the church.”
A shiver tripped along her spine.
She tipped her head, surrendering to the moist caress of his breath.
“You did?”
“I couldn’t stop looking at
you.”
Though she’d noticed, the bold
confession still stunned her. In the way of women too used to being
invisible, she’d denied the tingle of knowledge. Hard to believe a
man so handsome might find her attractive. For too long she’d
played the part of plain old Aunt Jo.
“I can’t stop looking at you
now.” The husky admission pried her eyes open. “I had to find
you.”
The urgency in his tone gave her
the boost she needed. Oh, how she wanted to be Josie with the tequila
shots once more. With him. For him. Flashing a sly glance, she
reached for a second tiny glass. “And now you have.”
He snatched a glass from the bar
and touched the rim to hers. His gaze bore into her, unwavering and
intense. “And now I have.”
About the Author
Maggie Wells is a deep-‐down dirty girl with a weakness for hot heroes and happy endings. By day she is buried in spreadsheets, but at night she pens tales of people tangling up the sheets. The product of a charming rogue and a shameless flirt, this mild-‐mannered married lady has a naughty streak a mile wide.
Fueled by supertankers of Diet Coke, Maggie juggles fictional romance and the real deal by keeping her slow- ‐talking Southern gentleman constantly amused and their two grown children mildly embarrassed.
Connect with Maggie
Giveaway
$25.00 Gift Card and a light weight Three Little Words blanket
Derrick West spends winters on his sailboat in Florida, and summers at his cabin in the northern Rockies. He grew up in the Midwest, graduating from a large university there before embarking on an adventurer’s lifestyle working as a smokejumper, river guide, and mountaineer. He writes as an outlet for the innate sense of romance he believes lies within all of us.
