The Manny

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The Manny Page 21

by Piper Rayne


  She squats down, holding her arm out so Payne and Via move closer.

  “What do you say, guys? Should we marry him?” A tear slips from her eye.

  Payne nods and Via tries to grab for the ring.

  “Then it’s a yes,” she says.

  Her eyes meet mine and for the first time in my life, my heart pitter-patters.

  I place the ring on her finger.

  “Close your eyes and cover Via’s,” I direct Payne and place a hand on each of Layla’s cheeks, pulling her down for a kiss.

  A few morsels of Splenda sweeten my mouth and I kiss my fiancée, knowing life is only going to get sweeter from here because I have the real thing in my arms, not a fake, artificial substitute. Life is good.

  The End

  Wondering what kind of girl will make Leo

  take a chance at love?

  Doogie Style

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  Sexy Beast Excerpt

  “Why so glum?” Charlie, the bartender and MC of tonight's fundraiser plops down in the chair next to me.

  I down a swig of my beer, eyeing her over the rim of the bottle.

  “Ah...the boy.” She follows my line of sight to the table my daughter is now leaning over. If that little shit so much as tries to look down her shirt, he’s toast. “You going to knock him out?” she asks.

  I shift my gaze away from my daughter, back to Charlie Rose. Charlotte is her real name, but as long as I've known her, which is close to birth, she's been Charlie. She grew up in this town with her three older brothers, one being my best friend. Well, my best friend until he moved to Los Angeles to live the bachelor life while I continued to raise my daughter solo. All in all, he's a good guy. The entire Rose family was my second family growing up.

  “You're unusually chipper tonight,” I comment and take another swig of my beer.

  “Well, I'm happy that Ava will be able to re-open the bakery.” She crosses her legs and the small table for two leaves me plenty of room to notice how slender they are.

  Charlie grew up years ago. Her breasts developed, her hips expanded, and that tomboy I knew growing up who followed me and her brother Vance around transformed into a beautiful woman.

  “I saw your donation. Very nice,” she says.

  I nod again and study the label of my beer bottle to stop myself from checking out her legs again.

  A long, drawn out sigh leaves her lips. “If you're that bothered by it, go over there and ask her to stop.”

  Did I mention, Charlie expresses her opinions?

  Openly?

  All the time?

  The only time I enjoy it is when she's giving Dane shit for something.

  “So she can hate me?”

  “She'll never hate you. You're her dad,” she says.

  I blow out a long breath and roll my eyes just like Sydney does to me constantly these days.

  “You don't get it.” I down the rest of my beer, raising my hand for the waitress.

  “No waitresses, remember? Fundraiser.” She stands, grabs my bottle and disappears.

  Now that I’m alone with my thoughts again, I appraise my daughter who is now sitting back down in her chair, fiddling with her phone, while jackass Xander is doing the same. The difference is, I can't see Sydney's face and Xander has a teasing smile on his. It reminds me of some douche in a locker room bragging about his latest conquest.

  I rub my eyes. I have to calm down. She's twelve, not sixteen.

  A cold beer is placed in front of me. A Budweiser, my beer of choice.

  Charlie plops herself back down at my table.

  “Thanks.”

  “No problem.” She shrugs.

  Cat bounces over to the table with six-year-old Lily right next to her. “So, you ready to start?” she asks Charlie, then gives me a sweet half-smile.

  Cat is my buddy, Marcus', girlfriend, Lily his daughter from another woman. They fell in love this past summer and I can't deny that I'm a little envious of him. Not that I’d want to put an ‘available now’ sign on my heart after my wife Melissa's passing, but it’s the moments I see them share sometimes when I miss her the most.

  The soft kisses they think they're sneaking, or the hand holding on the way out to the car. Hell, even when he opens the door and pulls out the chair for her. I'm not one hundred percent sure it’s the act itself or her soft smile and loving eyes I’d receive in return I miss the most.

  Charlie hops to her feet. Always ready to pounce on whatever needs to be done.

  “I'll be back.”

  I tip my beer in her direction, my gaze shifting back to Syd, finding her by herself, her thumbs flying across the screen of her phone.

  It isn't until Charlie's up on stage, under the lights, announcing the first donation to be auctioned off, that I realize the curves of her body have transformed her into a full woman now, which means that honoring her brother's wishes of making sure she ends up with a good guy is going to be even harder for me now.

  I shift in my seat trying to get comfortable refusing to believe that my dick is in full chub mode right now because of the girl whose pigtails I used to pull to try to drive her crazy when she was younger.

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  Cockamamie Unicorn Ramblings

  The Manny was Piper’s idea. She bought a premade cover with a man in an apron under her other author name. Like a lot of premade covers Piper buys, it sat on her computer. She tends to be a tad impulsive when pre-made covers pop up on her feed. Hey, all of us authors do it though.

  One day, Piper said “Hey, Rayne, I have this cover” … and the story idea was ignited. Then came Doggie Style and Chore Play and voila we had the Dirty Truth Series. We were so excited about this series, Piper started writing Doggie Style before we even started the Single Dads Club series.

  Then Vance, Charlie’s brother came into the picture. We wanted a brother’s best friend troupe with Sexy Beast and who else could be the brother but someone from our upcoming Dirty Truth Series? We like to believe in the six degrees of separation with our characters. After Vance was born, we had to decide what kind of guy he was. Although Doggie Style was originally going to be book one in the series, we didn’t see Vance as a dog clothing designer. We had to do some rearranging and so we pushed Doggie Style to be book two in the Dirty Truth series.

  Vance, The Manny was brought to life and we knew where we had to go after the Single Dads Club Series, but we were in the middle of summer. Kids home from school, which meant Rayne was knee deep in the latest slime recipes, and not getting words in. And seriously, can this slime fad with the kids just die already!?

  End of August, our kids went back to school and we worked our fingers to the bone to get The Manny done and complete. We were on to writing Doggie Style when our proofreader told us, you need more scenes. “I need more Manny and not so much Vance and Layla,” she said. So, the infamous diaper scene, the ice cream scene and the call from Charlie at the end were last minute additions. What would we do without her? From the early reviews it seems the diaper scene was a hit!

  We’d like to thank our team as always without them The Manny wouldn’t be what it is.

  Letitia from RBA Designs for the hot covers and for changing pictures and themes midway.

  RJ Locksley for line editing. Thanks for working just as fast as us to get The Manny back in our hands quick.

  Shawna from Behind the Writer for her eagle eye proofreading skills and her honesty in telling us when we’re missing key elements to our story.

  Enticing Journey Book Promotions for their organization and patience. We have to be your worst clients as far as time line. We promise we’ll try harder

  All the bloggers who carved out time to promote us and/or read and review the book.

  Michelle New for yet another set of awesome graphics.

  Our first readers of a really shitty, unedited copy—Heather and Angela.

  All our early
ARC readers, first for wanting to read our stuff early and then for posting their reviews.

  And of course, all our unicorns. We made you wait for two months without a book and you’re loyalty amazes us. All the unicorn shares, the posts about how much you love our characters. You keep us trucking on this venture. Thank you!

  To all our readers – Thank you for trusting your quality reading time to us. We know there are a lot of choices out there, so we hope you got what we promise to deliver … humor, heart, heat.

  Be on the lookout for Leo in Doggie Style coming this November.

  xo,

  Piper & Rayne

  About the Author

  Piper Rayne, or Piper and Rayne, whichever you prefer because we’re not one author, we’re two. Yep, you get two established authors for the price of one. You might be wondering if you know us? Maybe you’ll read our books and figure it out. Maybe you won’t. Does it really matter?

  We aren’t trying to stamp ourselves with a top-secret label. We wanted to write without apology. We wanted to not be pigeon holed into a specific outline. We wanted to give readers a story without them assuming how the story will flow. Everyone has their favorite authors, right? And when you pick up their books, you expect something from them. Whether it’s an alpha male, heavy angst, a happily ever after, there’s something you are absolutely certain the book will contain. Heck, we’re readers, too, we get it.

  What can we tell you about ourselves? We both have kindle’s full of one-clickable books. We're both married to husbands who drive us to drink. We're both chauffeurs to our kids. Most of all, we love hot heroes and quirky heroines that make us laugh, and we hope you do, too.

  www.piperrayne.com

  [email protected]

  Also by Piper Rayne

  The Modern Love World

  Charmed by the Bartender

  Hooked on the Boxer

  Mad about the Banker

  The Single Dad’s Club

  Real Deal

  Dirty Talker

  Sexy Beast

  Dirty Truth

  The Manny

  Doggie Style (11.2017)

  Chore Play (12.2017)

 

 

 


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