by Elise Faber
Which earned her a smack from Heidi.
“What?”
“Stef is not an idiot,” she snapped.
“I—” Stef began.
Heidi held up a finger. “Not one word from you, missy. You are beautiful and kind and smart as shit, and just because Jeremy didn’t see that doesn’t mean it’s any less true.”
“Heidi,” Stef said.
“It’s true and just because the guy had a little dick and—”
“Heidi,” she repeated, more firmly this time.
“And thinks he’s got a pretty face—”
“You’ve never even met him.”
“I saw his picture, and that was enough for me . . .” She trailed off, her glass nearly tipping over in her earnestness to set it on the coffee table. “I knew he was one of those frat boy fuckboys.”
“I’m not sure that’s actually a thing,” Cora pointed out.
“It is,” Heidi said.
“Technically, I think it’s two things,” Kels added, both helpfully and not.
“And none of this is really pertinent to this situation,” Tammy said, her voice as gentle as her hand patting Stef’s knee. “As much as I want to see Kate’s attempt at glass shoving.”
Stef snorted.
Cora’s lips twitched.
Heidi lost it altogether.
Kels merely put a finger up and stated with authority, “The governing board has affirmed Jeremy’s status as Douche Canoe and Stef’s as Much Better Off Without Him. Now, we shall all drink to that before returning to First Dates and—”
There was a knock at the door.
“Curfew,” Kate groaned.
But Kels was already tipping back her glass and stumbling to her feet. “My Tanner’s here!”
He was there.
Along with Brad and Jaime. The three boys having gone to catch a hockey game before returning to gather up the girls. Tanner took Kels and Cora home. Brad and Jaime took Heidi, Kate, and Tammy, since the latter was their younger sister and the newest member of their friend group.
She was wonderful.
They all were.
Even with their drunken shenanigans as they were bundled out the door, trying for one last margarita, insisting on cleaning up, pointing out to their new audience how much of a douche canoe Jeremy was (especially when Kate asked what had happened to the pretty vase that had previously sat on the shelf and had thus been claimed by Jeremy the prior Monday), and then waxing poetic about the wine, the moon, and ironically the pretty pink color of the wax of the candle Stef had burning on the kitchen counter.
Not that Stef herself was immune to drunken shenanigans, considering exactly what she’d blurted when she was supposed to be watching a silly reality show.
Still, she’d never had anyone stand up for her without reservation, without knowing if she were a hundred percent right. Not before these women.
So, Stef knew she was lucky, damned lucky to have found them.
Even if they had snared the final three good men on the planet.
The damned lucky bitches.
So, she told them.
Which earned her a round of hugs, more cackling, and then, eventually, a quiet apartment.
A quiet, lonely apartment.
Chapter Four
Ben
Sweetheart growled at him when he sank down onto one end of his couch.
The end without the tiny set of stairs he’d bought for the damned dog.
So the damned dog could easily get on his expensive couch and make herself at home.
“At home” meant snarling at him if he dared sit down on said expensive couch.
“Shut it,” he muttered, sipping on his beer and reaching for the remote. “And I’m not turning on Dr. Pol,” he added. “No matter how much you like to watch the male animals get castrated, you ball buster.” A snort. “Literally.”
Smirking at his own joke and ignoring her huff, he kept drinking and turned on the TV, cued up the guide.
His company was public.
The stock price was good, although it was too early to truly tell if his gamble would pay off. Okay, that was a cop-out. He knew it was going to pay off. The company’s valuation was solid, investors were pumped, his business was steady and increasing and steady.
A good bet.
A great investment.
So, all would be good.
And for the first time in six fucking years, he could take a breath. He could relax. He could . . . do something that would be relaxing. He just needed to figure out what that would be.
Sex.
Yeah, he could do that. He should do that.
When was the last time he’d had an orgasm? Okay, and adding to that, when was the last time he’d had an orgasm that wasn’t courtesy of his own hand? Months? Years?
Sweetheart huffed again.
He squinted at the guide on the TV, hit something at random, and if that something was Dr. Pol then it wasn’t because of the ornery dog next to him.
Ben jerked up, his beer sloshing over his hand, splashing onto his expensive couch, probably staining it irrevocably.
The marathon of Dr. Pol was still going strong, a line of empty beer bottles on his coffee table, and—his eyes flicked down—the devil dog was curled up next to his thigh. Sweetheart had her head on his thigh, and when he glanced down at her tiny white head, her lips tightened.
“Shut it,” he muttered, lifting the bottle to his mouth then wincing and reaching forward to plunk it on the table, ignoring the displeased sound that she made.
It was nearly midnight on a Friday, and he was on the couch with his dead mother’s dog—drunk on the couch with the dog because he was so out of practice relaxing that five . . . he squinted . . . six? . . . beers meant that he was gone.
Room spinning.
Veterinarian on the TV screen shuffling around.
Dog who was the worst dog in the history of all dogs on his lap.
Months since his last orgasm. Years since his last pussy.
For all intents and purposes, he should be out celebrating with a model on each arm. That was what all the tech guys who made it big in Silicon Valley did. They lived large and partied hard, somehow managing to shed their nerdy roots and revel in the excess.
Well, he wasn’t much of an excess guy.
And frankly, he was a nerd all the way down to the marrow of his bones.
Before Sweetheart had highjacked his viewing habits, he’d been an all Sci-Fi all the time guy. Stargate, Farscape, The Expanse, Van Helsing, old movies he’d seen a million times. The more out there, the better.
He liked to escape.
His reality had been more than e-fucking-nough.
But the last few years, he hadn’t needed to escape—or at least, he hadn’t needed that escape. Work had been enough. There hadn’t been a necessity for fantasy.
Now . . . he was a CEO with some time on his hands.
His phone buzzed, and he reached into his pocket to extract it—much to Sweetheart’s displeasure—and saw a notification on his screen.
For an app he’d never downloaded.
You’ve got a new match.
Trailed by some fucking emojis.
“What the hell?” he whispered.
And then he knew.
His fingers worked on the screen, ignoring the notification in lieu of calling the one person who would have the balls to download an app like this onto his phone.
It was nearly midnight on a Friday.
He didn’t give a shit.
It rang twice, three times, and then Claire picked up. “Hello?”
Music blared in the background, a thumping bass told him his assistant had more of a social life than he did, and maybe he was an asshole for calling her at midnight on a Friday.
But in that moment, he didn’t care.
In that moment, he was tempted to fire her.
Which would make his life a fucking nightmare because she was the best person he’d ever hired.
Silence.
Well, silence from the woman, not silence from the background. The bass still thumped, and the noise was intense, so much so that even though he kept the phone a few inches from his ear, he could still hear it.
Same as he could hear her shouted out, “You need to get laid!”
Now, it was his turn for a blip of silence, before he snapped, “I’m your boss, for Christ’s sake!”
This time, she didn’t miss a beat. “You’re my boss, who’ll be a better boss if you get laid,” she said. “So, consider it my civic duty or office duty or . . . whatever, consider it my duty to humanity to get you a woman so that you can fucking relax.”
The balls on this one.
“I should fire you right now.”
“Except you won’t,” Claire said. “Because I’m the shit, and you couldn’t survive without me.”
Unfortunately, she was right.
“So, enjoy the kickass profile I put together and get swiping. Find some way”—a hint of humor in her tone—“or rather, someone to take the edge off.”
Then she hung up.
Hung. Up.
On him. Her boss. The CEO of the company that would set her up for life.
If she didn’t get her ass fired.
His phone buzzed.
You’re not going to fire me.
Ben narrowed his eyes at the text as another came through.
Now unwind a little. God knows you deserve it.
He kept his eyes narrowed. More buzzing commenced.
I know it’s inappropriate, but I love you and care about you.
His glare relaxed, and his fingers moved on the screen.
Fine. You’re not fired.
A beat. Then, his phone vibrated again—
I love you too, Claire. That’s what you’re supposed to say.
That wasn’t something he was capable of saying. Not any longer. Which, aside from him working nearly every waking moment, was probably why he was single. All the money in the world couldn’t overcome the fact that he didn’t have it in him to love anymore.
Sighing, he dropped his phone to the couch cushion, thanking God that it didn’t buzz again.
Claire would get back to her night.
He would risk Sweetheart’s snarling and get another beer.
Then tomorrow, he’d get back to work. Implement phase two of Hunt Inc.
Because work was all he was capable of. That was it, and anyone who thought that he might be able to give anything more than that was just going to be disappointed in him.
But even with knowing all that . . .
For some reason, he picked up his phone.
And he opened the app.
Chapter Five
Stef
She loved San Francisco.
She loved her friends—well, the ones she’d made in the last six months, not the jerkwads who’d abandoned her after she and Jeremy had broken up.
Heidi and company were the best. Even if they did get her drunk.
Okay, that was part of the reason they were wonderful.
Also, she loved margaritas. Also, she’d finished the remnants of the sweet and sour drink from the blender, and now she had decided she was really in love with margaritas. And her friends. And San Francisco.
And especially in love with the squishy, floating feeling that had invaded her limbs.
What she didn’t love?
The lack of sex in her life.
Sure, she had her drawer of friendly vibrators, but . . . it wasn’t the same.
Okay, sometimes it was better. Especially compared to Jeremy and his incompetent penis.
But oftentimes her vibrator time was . . . well, a bit lacking. She wanted more than just a cock. She wanted a hot, hard, strong body poised on top of her. She wanted a man to pick her up and pin her to a wall, pounding deep and hard and—
Hard.
The trouble was that there weren’t a lot of men who were interested in a frumpy scientist who had an obsession with Stargate.
Especially when her friends had taken all the good men.
“Bitches,” she muttered.
Which was why she was lying in bed, wearing her favorite cozy pajamas and trying to work up the urge to . . . swipe right.
Because the man on the app was gorgeous.
When she’d first seen him, her vagina had jumped up, doing a happy dance—complete with pasties and sparklers and a skimpy thong. Well, not so much skimpy because skimpy and her body type didn’t mix, but she’d at least slip into some high-cut bikini bottoms, and she’d definitely shave her legs.
Maybe her armpits, too.
He was so worth an extended shower and using her expensive soap and spending an hour blow-drying her thick-ass hair.
He would be worth Spanx and lace and—
“Just do it,” she whispered.
But the problem with swiping right was that this beautiful man with the sexiest smile she’d ever laid eyes on would invariably swipe left on her picture, and she’d still be here, lying in bed, in her pajamas, and reaching for her vibrator instead of the man himself.
And Fred would be locked in his crate, judging her for getting herself off. Again.
But she couldn’t flick the bean with her dog in bed next to her.
That was just . . .
She shuddered.
It was also . . . not the point. The point being that she was single, and she was horny, and she was drunk.
So drunk. So horny. So alone.
Le sigh.
That picture called to her again, her thumb hovered over the screen, so close to swiping—
“No,” she muttered. “No men.”
Men were untrustworthy fuckers, who brought unnecessary complications.
Despite their hard cocks that could occasionally bring her to orgasm.
“Ugh.”
She tossed her phone on the mattress, hit play on her show, and settled in with her glass of wine (thanks to her hidden stash that her friends hadn’t found, ha!) and her sexy, just as fictional as the man in the app, Colonel Jack O’Neill.
See?
Her life was full.
She had good friends. She had good vibrators. She had a good job.
She had a great dog.
“I don’t need anything else, do I, Fred?”
Her fluffy friend, with his adorable golden retriever face and his fuzzy tail, glanced up at her, tail thumping on the mattress. Yeah, no. No orgasm was worth locking him in his kennel. He was exhausted after a long day of doggy day care, the excitement of her friends coming over, and currently curled up in the space where her imaginary man might reside.
Another see?
Because she didn’t have room for the app man, any more than she had room for that fictional colonel.
It was her and Fred and her bottle of wine.
That was good enough.
Except . . . it wasn’t good enough when she finished her episode and went to the kitchen for another bottle of wine, letting the show continue to play. It wasn’t good enough when she finished that wine over another episode, and her mind got thinking again, only this time swirling because she was plumb full of wine, of margaritas.
It wasn’t good enough when her reserve disappeared into the wind, and she used her drunk coordination to pick up her cell, her lack of inhibition to . . . swipe right.
Bleary eyes shutting, she let her arm drop to the bed, the phone slipping out of her grip, sleep claiming her fast and heavily.
And in the morning, SG-1 still rolling on autoplay, when her headache and hangover meant that she’d almost forgotten about the fictional man and her drunk swiping . . .
In the morning, she woke up, peeled back her lids, squinted with bleary eyes, and saw—
He’d swiped right, too.
Oh, fuck.
Chapter Six
Ben
He’d expected an immediate response.
He’d
seen the red lips, the shoulder-length brown hair, the brown eyes that on first glance looked open and happy, but on closer inspection, held a slice of sad.
That sad had called to something inside him.
The eight beers he’d consumed, probably.
But still, he’d ignored everything in him telling him to delete the app, to ignore the woman, to ignore the fire that had begun burning in his gut when he’d seen the sad, and he’d swiped right.
And then he’d expected something to happen.
Instead, he’d gotten a screen telling him he had a match and then . . . nothing.
Now, there was still no response, it was morning and for some fucking reason, he was Googling what he should do after a match and realizing that he probably needed to be the one to take that first step. Which meant he was currently neck-deep in online advice telling him to send a message with everything from “Hey” to snapping a picture of his dick and texting it to her.
The first didn’t seem like enough.
The last seemed like a surefire way to get blocked and ruin any chance of tasting those pretty red lips.
So, now he’d opened up the message center and was staring blankly at the box he should be filling with words, with a pithy joke or pickup line, and was back to contemplating deleting the app again, just to put himself out of his misery.
Then his phone pinged.
With a message from her. From Stef McKay.
Hey.
She got to just say hey?
Seriously?
What the fuck was that bullshit?
Well, two could play that game. His fingers worked on the phone screen, sent those same three letters back.
Hey.
Take that. Back in her court, Ms. Stef McKay.
Then he realized he was being an idiot and knew he should be saying something else. This was basically a business deal. A transaction that would get them both something mutually satisfactory.
If he looked at it that way, all would be good.
Nodding to himself, he took off his fucking horrible with women hat and put on his business one, and then typed out a message.