Cashmere and Camo

by Erin Nicholas

  More from Erin Nicholas

  Don’t miss the rest of the Billionaires in Blue Jeans!

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  Diamonds and Dirt Roads

  High Heels and Haystacks

  Cashmere and Camo

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  And don’t miss the Behind the Scenes and Bonus Scenes on Erin’s website!

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  If you loved the Billionaires in Blue Jeans, check out Erin’s other sexy, fun small town romance series, Sapphire Falls!

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  And next from Erin is a super sexy series set in the French Quarter of New Orleans! The Boys of the Big Easy series kicks off with

  Going Down Easy!

  Going Down Easy!

  I’m SO excited to take you to New Orleans in my new series! New Orleans is easily my favorite city to visit and I’ve been many times. I fall a little more in love on each trip. I always knew I’d set a series there eventually, but was waiting for the right characters and stories to come along. And now they have! I hope you’ll come along on this adventure with me in the sexy, fun sultriness of the Big Easy! ~ xo, Erin

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  Going Down Easy

  As far as flings go, single dad Gabe Trahan is pretty sure that Addison Sloan is his best bet. Once a month, Addison comes to New Orleans and then…It. Is. On. Until Addison returns to New York, it’s just hot, happily-no-strings-attached sex. And beignets. And jazz. But lately for Gabe, it isn’t nearly enough.

  Sure, maybe Addison’s gotten a bit hooked on Gabe. After all, who can resist a guy who’s so sexy, so charming, and so…available? But maybe he’s too available for her right now. Addison’s just moved to New Orleans, and relationships are definitely off the table. Besides, guys always bail when they learn her secret: she’s a single mom.

  Only Gabe’s not running. Worse, he’s thrilled. But Addison never signed up for ever-after romance, and Gabe won’t settle for anything less. Now it’s a battle of wills—and when it comes to the woman he’s falling for, Gabe isn’t above playing a little dirty.

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  Get Going Down Easy today!

  Read on for a sneak peek!

  Enjoy this excerpt!

  It was still amazing to Gabe Trahan how well Addison Sloan’s ass fit in his hands. It was as if it had been made specifically for him to cup and squeeze as he pressed her close while he kissed her. Or when he was dancing with her. Or when he was thrusting deep and hard.

  His body stirred at the thought of doing just that as she pushed her fingers into his hair and arched against him as if he hadn’t just given her two—count ’em, two—orgasms upstairs before she’d gotten dressed for work. But they were standing on the sidewalk in front of his tavern, and her cab was waiting. This was supposed to be a goodbye kiss, not a get-her-hot-and-ready kiss.

  The problem was, not only did her ass fit his hands perfectly, but the rest of her fit against the rest of him pretty damned well too, and it was extremely difficult to stop fitting against her once he started.

  Addison pulled back a minute later, breathing fast, her pupils dilated. “I have to go.”

  Yeah, he knew that. It was the second Monday of the month. That meant she was headed across town to the architectural firm where she was consulting on a once-a-month basis, to do whatever she needed to do there, and then she’d head to the airport to fly back to New York, and it would be another month until he’d see her again.

  He leaned in, putting his nose against her neck, inhaling her scent. It was his favorite thing about her. And considering he knew every inch of her intimately, that was saying something. This woman had a lot of really nice inches.

  “I know,” he said. “Just give me a minute.”

  She sighed, her fingers curling into his scalp. The sound was almost wistful. “Shit,” she said softly. “This goodbye thing was supposed to get easier.”

  Yeah, he would have thought so too. In fact, he would have expected that by the sixth weekend with her, he would have been over her. Especially considering they didn’t really have a relationship. They had sex. And beignets. And jazz.

  When she was in town, they stayed up all night Saturday night having the hottest sex of his life. Sundays they woke up late and spent the day in the French Quarter, eating and shopping and people watching. Then Sunday night, they burned up his sheets all over again. He loved showing her the classic New Orleans stuff—the café au laits and po’boys, the jazz bands on the street corners, the riverboats and the French market. She was addicted to it all. She couldn’t seem to get enough. And seeing it all through her eyes was like rediscovering it for himself.

  But they didn’t talk about anything too personal, and they didn’t communicate at all in between her trips to New Orleans. All he knew was that she was a restoration architect from New York who had been consulting with a local firm on a big project in the Garden District. She came to town once a month on Friday morning; showed up at Trahan’s, the tavern Gabe owned and operated with his brother, Logan, on Saturday night; spent the rest of the weekend with him; and then went to the architecture firm again on Monday before heading back to New York Monday night.

  When they were together, they talked about the food, music, and people around them at the moment. Occasionally they dipped into their interests and hobbies, their work, their friends to some extent, but nothing else. They kept it all in the moment, in the present, no talk of their pasts or their futures.

  He had no idea if she had siblings, what her favorite color was, when her birthday was, or what kind of car she drove. But he knew that she loved sex against the wall, that she had a particular fascination with his abs, that jazz music made her horny, and that the sounds she made when he sucked on her nipples were the hottest things he’d ever heard.

  And that was enough.

  Or at least that should be enough.

  She was a fling. A once-a-month diversion—that he thought about far too often in the time between her trips to New Orleans. A very fun way to spend thirty-six hours or so every once in a while.

  She didn’t even live in New Orleans. They barely knew one another. He had no desire to go to New York City.

  And yet, it was definitely getting harder and harder to say goodbye to her.

  Hell, after the first night she’d come to Trahan’s with her friend and local architect Elena LeBlanc, and Addison had ended up in his bed for the weekend, he hadn’t expected to see her again. But the next month, almost to the day, she’d been sitting on the stool at the end of the bar. And he’d been shocked by how happy he was to see her.

  “Quit your job and come waitress at the bar,” he told her now, pulling back and looking into her big brown eyes.

  She laughed lightly. “You mean, quit my job and spend my days giving you blow jobs behind the bar while you serve drinks?”

  It would have been playful and funny if he didn’t suddenly want that with an intensity that freaked him out. “Hell yeah,” he growled, lowering his head for another kiss.

  It was, as always, long and hot and not nearly enough.

  He started to back her up against the side of the building when her cell phone started ringing.

  She pulled back and dragged in a deep breath. She stared up at him. “Damn, you’re good at that.”

  “We’re good at that.” This was like nothing he’d ever felt before.

  Addison continued to watch him as she dug her phone from her purse and lifted it to her ear. “Addison Sloan.” She paused. “Yes, that’s fine. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.” She disconnected and smiled at him. “I have to go.”

  He took a deep breath and stepped back, shoving a hand through his hair. “I know.” Fuck, he should be relieved that she’d gotten the call and had to get in the cab. That was how he would have felt with any other woman. But no, he felt irrationally irritated that she was being called away.

  He took another step back. Maybe if he couldn’t smell her, he’d snap out of …whatever this was.

  It was not okay th
at he wanted her to stay and that he wanted to see more of her. If she did live in New Orleans, he would have called this off a long time ago. It didn’t matter what her favorite color was or when her birthday was. He knew the important things—she was a New York City workaholic who, obviously, traveled extensively for her job. She wasn’t what he was looking for.

  “So I’ll . . .see you,” she said, suddenly acting awkward.

  Gabe tried with everything in him to seem nonchalant about that. No, damn it, to be nonchalant about it. “Yep, see ya.” He never asked when. He never confirmed that she’d be back the next month. He always bit his tongue before asking any of that.

  “Thanks for . . .” She glanced up at the window to the apartment above the bar. “Everything,” she finished with a naughty smile that made him want to put her up against the wall of the building, taxi driver be damned.

  “You’re very welcome.” He couldn’t help the half smile that curled his lips. God, this woman was the best hot-good-time he’d ever had. “And thank you.”

  Her cheeks got a little pink, but she laughed and moved toward the cab. “My pleasure.”

  Yeah, it had been. Heat rocked through him as he watched her open the car door, slip inside, wave to him through the window, and then pull away, headed for the offices of Monroe & LeBlanc, the best restoration architects in town.

  Gabe took a big breath and worked on pulling himself together. He’d never been messed up over a woman, and he wasn’t about to start now with one who could never be anything more than the best lay he’d ever had.

  So what if her laugh made warmth spread through his chest? It also made his dick hard, and that was all that mattered. So what if watching her eat beignets made him want to pull her into his lap and hug her? It also made him want to hike up her skirt before pulling her into his lap so he could slide his hand up her inner thigh. And that was what he should focus on. So what if he really fucking wanted to know when her birthday was? He also wanted to know if she’d let him blindfold her in bed, and that was what he should be thinking about.

  He yanked open the door to the tavern and stomped inside, pissed that he was upset that she had left. Of course she’d left. She fucking lived in New York City. He was her New Orleans fuck buddy. That was it. And it was really, really good. Why couldn’t he just be happy with that?

  “Good morning, Sunshine.”

  Gabe came up short when he realized that he wasn’t alone in the bar.

  “I assume Addison just left,” Logan said from where he was perched at the bar, a cup of coffee to one side and paperwork spread out in front of him.

  Gabe glared at his brother and headed around the corner of the bar and straight for the coffeepot. “What the hell are you doing here so early?” Gabe was the primary bookkeeper for the business. Not the big tax and employee payroll type stuff. Their accountant, Reagan, took care of that. Gabe went over the weekend receipts and got the deposit ready for the bank on Monday mornings. He took care of inventory and ordering and paying the basic bills, while Logan was the one who dealt with repairs and maintenance on the building and appliances. They both handled issues with the employees, customers, and vendors, and, truth be told, it just depended on the day and the issue which of them was best at it.

  “We have that meeting at one,” Logan told him. “I’m getting some of the stuff together that they want to see.”

  “Meeting?” Gabe asked, turning with his cup of coffee and taking a long pull of the strong, dark brew. One thing he could say for his little brother—he made good coffee.

  “With the architects?” Logan said. “The restoration? Remember?”

  Of course he remembered. Well, he remembered that they were meeting with architects about restoring their building at some point.

  “That’s today?”

  “Yeah. In about three hours,” Logan told him with an eye roll. “Did she fuck you stupid or what?”

  Gabe frowned. “Watch it.” Even though, yeah, it kind of felt that way. He couldn’t seem to focus on anything but Addison this morning. Still, he hated hearing Logan put it like that.

  But he should be grateful to his brother for pointing out what this thing with Addison should be. Fucking. A fling. Orgasm central. Hot, no-strings-attached-and-thank-the-good-Lord-for-it sex. Something that he’d be getting over any fucking day now.

  Instead, he found himself wondering if he should send flowers over to the office where she was today. That would be okay. It wasn’t like he was sending flowers to her home or something. That would be more personal. And he wouldn’t write anything sweet or romantic on the card. These would be thanks-for-the-two-blow-jobs flowers. Or you-do-cowgirl-better-than-anyone-I’ve-ever-met flowers.

  “Hey, you okay?” Logan asked.

  Gabe realized he’d zoned out. Thinking about sending Addison flowers. And not your-ass-fits-perfectly-in-my-hands flowers. More like I-already-miss-you flowers.

  He could not send her I-already-miss-you flowers. Damn, he needed to get his shit together.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  Logan gave him a yeah-right look. “Damn, I knew I should have waited on her and Elena that first night,” he said.

  Gabe felt his hand curl into a fist and had to work to relax it. It was ridiculous to be jealous over the idea of his brother being the one to serve Addison that first night. And the insinuation that it would be Logan kissing her goodbye on the front sidewalk on Monday mornings if he had made her that first bourbon sour.

  But the idea of someone else flirting with her, touching her, kissing her, making her laugh, watching her eat beignets, wrapping his arms around her as they stopped to listen to a band on the corner of Royal and Saint Ann . . .he definitely wanted to punch something.

  If that wasn’t a huge red flag, he didn’t know what was. Dammit, he was a fucking mess.

  “Shut the hell up,” Gabe told his brother. “I forgot the meeting, but it’s fine. What do we need to get together?”

  Logan gave him a knowing grin but dropped the subject of Addison. At least for now. “I’ve got photos of the inside and outside from Grandma,” Logan said, pushing an envelope across the bar. “I’m putting together a list of things that have been done over the years, the stuff that’s original like the bar, the stair and balcony railings, the interior doors, the flooring in the back rooms. We also need to list the things that have been replaced and updated. The windows, the flooring out here, the exterior doors. That kind of stuff.”

  Gabe nodded as he leafed through the photos in the envelope.

  The building that housed the tavern and the living quarters upstairs had been in the Trahan family for five generations. It was one of the first buildings built in the French Quarter after the fire of 1794 and, obviously, required a lot of routine maintenance. The basic structure was in good shape, but some of the unique characteristics of the Creole-style building needed a special touch to restore it to its original glory—something that was extremely important to Gabe and Logan’s grandmother Adele. She was eighty-eight and had been nagging them to do the restoration for about three years. She’d gotten to the point where she was now claiming that she’d haunt the place if they didn’t get it done before she died.

  Gabe didn’t want that. He knew Adele would be an irritating spirit, unlike the three fairly good-natured ghosts that already, supposedly, occupied the building. He wasn’t sure he totally bought the stories, but they’d been passed down through the family for years, and he had heard some strange noises and had found things out of place for no reason. He’d never seen anything. And he was very okay with that. There was no reason to add a potential fourth haunting.

  Now they finally had the funds to do a true restoration of the building, and they’d been courted by two of the best restoration firms in the city. They’d decided to go with Monroe & LeBlanc. Not just because Addison had been consulting with them on another project and had mentioned to Gabe, more than once, that the firm would do an amazing job on the tavern—though her opinion p
robably had far more weight than it should, everything considered—but because Gabe and Logan both sincerely liked and trusted Elena LeBlanc, one of the partners. She was a regular at Trahan’s, and they considered her a friend. Plus, she’d brought Addison into the bar that first night and, hell, no matter how much he wished he wasn’t completely whipped, Gabe couldn’t deny that he was grateful to Elena for the introduction.

  “So can you make up that list?” Logan asked. “I’ve got this about done.”

  “A list of the things that have been replaced rather than repaired and restored over the years?” Gabe asked. “Sure. Reagan probably has a lot of it, right? We would have needed to report that stuff for taxes and stuff?”

  Logan sat up a little straighter. “I hadn’t thought of that. Yeah, she would. I’ll get that from her.”

  Gabe lifted a brow. “You’re going to do that list, too?”

  Logan studied the page in front of him. “Well, like you said, she probably already has those records. It won’t be hard to pull those out.”

  Gabe leaned back against the counter behind him and watched his brother try to pretend to be cool about talking to Reagan. “Right, so I can easily get that from her,” he said.

  “Don’t you have receipts and stuff to do this morning?” Logan asked.

  He did. But he would always take time to harass his little brother. “That can wait. Reagan might need a little time to pull everything together for us. I should call her right away.”

  Logan already had his phone out. “I’ve got it.”

  Gabe smirked and lifted his cup. Logan was a player. He loved flirting—and more—with the local girls and tourists alike who came into the tavern. He never spent a night alone unless he wanted to. He was cool and charming and could get a girl to giggle and blush faster than any guy Gabe knew. But when he was around Reagan, he stumbled over his words, fumbled paperwork, said stupidly inappropriate things, and generally acted like a doofus. Clearly, his little brother had a thing for the sweet accountant. But Logan wasn’t making any headway. Logan couldn’t seem to keep his foot out of his mouth, and if it were Gabe, he’d be hiding out whenever Reagan came around. But Logan seemed to think every time was going to be the time he managed to get his act together and charm her, so he kept trying. And Gabe couldn’t deny that he enjoyed the show.