by Piper Rayne
“Let me buy you lunch,” Hannah says. “What would you like?”
“It’s funny because I feel like I should have Santora sausage.” She looks at our table. “It’s my friend’s family company.”
We all smile.
Then she stands. “I’ll be right back.” She heads to the counter, ordering her sandwich or sausage or whatever.
“What are you thinking?” I whisper.
Hannah shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t really know her, but she seems professional.”
“And wealthy, wait until you see the amount of the check.”
We both raise our eyebrows to Victoria.
“What? I’m the bookkeeper, am I not? I saw a bunch of zeros before I put it in my purse.”
We laugh.
“Our mission is to reach as many girls as possible. So, I think it’s something we should consider.” Hannah leans back in her chair. “Now here are three guys who could probably put your Unicorn Cock vibrator to shame, Chelsea.”
I turn my head toward the door and in walks Mauro, Cristian, and Luca Bianco, all of them dressed in shorts and t-shirts. Sweaty but probably still smelling entirely edible.
Not as much as Dean though. No one can beat that guy in my books.
“Hey, Bianco brothers,” I call out.
They each stop, wide welcoming smiles on their mouths.
“Chelsea, I heard a rumor about you.” Luca eyes my left hand. “And it’s true, huh? Dean’s going to make an honest woman of you?”
“Again?” Cristian asks.
Mauro hits him in the stomach. “Great news.” He bends down and kisses my cheek.
“Thanks.”
He doesn’t pull away right away. “I’ll leave the other rumor to myself.” He winks telling me his brothers haven’t heard that there’s a little one holding its own in my belly. So far so good. Knock on wood.
“Thank you for that.”
“Luca!” their mom yells and points from behind the counter.
“Seriously, have you not heard about the loser line?” Cristian follows his brother over to his mom. Once he’s hugged her, he heads to the back while Mrs. Bianco lectures her youngest son for the millionth time about giving his hookups the deli number.
“Aren’t you mackadocious.” Lennon looks up to Mauro.
He studies her for a second. “Thank you?”
“Definitely a compliment. I mean you don’t hold a candle to my man, but I imagine you’d make a great hero in a romance book.” She winks and then sits down in her chair.
“Doesn’t the hero always end up falling head over heels for a girl?” Mauro asks.
“Yep,” me, Victoria, and Lennon say in unison.
“Yeah, I’m not sure about that then.” His hand grips my shoulder. “I need to get to work, just stopped by for a sandwich. Have a great day ladies.” He nods.
“Your man?” Lennon asks, and I catch sight of Dean and Reed crossing over from the courthouse, already assuming we’d be here.
“No, that’s my man.” Dean walks in with a smile on his face as Reed’s going on about something. Probably baseball.
“Oh, I do love a briefcake,” Lennon says. When we all look at her for an explanation, she says, “You know a beefcake in a suit?’ “Truthfully, I like them in just about anything.”
Dean kisses me on the cheek and as usual, his hand runs over my stomach.
Reed grabs a chair and sits next to Victoria, pressing a sweet kiss to her lips. “How’s your day?”
“Better now,” she says.
I give the introductions, the guys shaking hands with Lennon. “You guys are so sick in love.” Lennon’s gaze pings around. “Where’s your man, Hannah?”
“Oh, I don’t need a man.” She waves off Lennon’s question.
“I agree with that, but a warm body is nice from time to time. My guess is you’re next?”
“Yeah, never again,” Hannah says.
“Oh, don’t worry, everyone knows you save the best for last,” Lennon says with another wink.
“There’s always something unique with the first,” Victoria chimes in.
“Everyone knows the middle one is the best. The first is practice, the third they throw all rules out. The middle is where the gold is.” I laugh.
Lennon and Hannah look at one another. “Nah, last is the best.”
Just then a guy walks in. Tall, dark wavy hair, piercing hazel eyes, all decked out in a suit. It takes him no time at all for him to find her. Although she can’t see him, his smile widens, and he approaches the table, bending down to kiss the back of her neck.
She startles and whips around. “You’re lucky I didn’t karate chop your nuts!”
He laughs. “After eight years I would hope you’d know my lips from another man’s.”
“Oh, I know your lips, Mr. Banks.”
They share another kiss and it’s nice to see a couple together so long still so in love.
“Brady called and Bianca is acting like she’s the CEO, telling Evan what to do. Saying he’s the mail boy.”
Lennon can’t fight the smile. “I told you she’ll be the youngest female entrepreneur on record.”
“With her brother doing all the dirty work.”
We all laugh. “They have Santora sausage here. Want one?” she asks her husband as he grabs a chair from a nearby table and drags it over. Seeing the table shrinking, Reed and Jasper pull another table over. The guys go order their food and by the end of lunch, all of our cheeks hurt from spending time with Lennon and Jasper Banks.
* * *
Later that night, we walk into Torrio’s. I told them I’d only stay for a little while but after getting the news that our venue for the gala has pulled out for some unknown reason, Hannah needs some company and a few Vespers under her belt.
“I have no idea what to do. It’s July. Invitations were being printed which means I have to get them reprinted, but I don’t even have an address. Girls, we need to brainstorm.”
After our nice lunch, the shit hit the fan for the rest of the afternoon.
“We’ll figure something out,” Victoria says.
“As if I need anything else bad tonight,” she says.
I look over my shoulder, finding the silver fox walking in with a cocky smirk on his lips.
“Ignore him.” Victoria squeezes Hannah’s forearm.
Hannah takes her drink to her mouth and silver fox takes a seat at a table behind us. Why does he enjoy torturing her?
She rolls her eyes. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out.” She fluffs it off.
“We’ll find a venue. Don’t worry.” I drink my water with lemon that I’m already growing tired of.
I see Roarke stand and I keep my eye on him as he heads to the bar, waiting patiently for a drink.
Victoria and Hannah start talking about the possibility of pushing back the gala date and having a winter gala instead. Sounds like Hannah’s warming to the idea. All the while, my eyes are on the silver fox and my gut churns when I know for certain he’s heading toward our table.
“Ms. Crowley, I couldn’t help but overhear that you’re in need of a venue.” He places his drink down and eyes the spot next to me.
I slide over in the booth closer to Victoria. Hannah narrows her eyes at me.
“Thank you,” he says in a deep voice.
“Sure,” I respond and again Hannah gives me a death look.
“I’m not interested.” She sips her drink.
“What if I can get you not only a venue, but the venue?”
We all wait for the rest of his offer because none of us were born yesterday.
“I’m sure your price is more than we can afford,” Hannah says with a saccharine smile.
Hannah is so impressive. So cool. So collected. But I think she may have found her match.
“Oh, Ms. Crowley, you have it all wrong. You know as well as I do that the art of negotiation is simple. I give you something you want, and you give me something I want
in return.”
She twirls her glass around by the stem. “And what is it that you want, Mr. Baldwin?”
Victoria and I look to Roarke with intrigue.
“You.”
* * *
Can you imagine how Hannah reacted
to Roarke’s offer?
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SCROLL ahead for a sneak peek into an enemies-to-lovers FREE book, CHARMED BY THE BARTENDER. You can’t miss meeting Cole Webber! “The laughs, the swooning, it was all perfection.” ~ Amazon Reviewer
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I need another jolt of liquid courage before this guy shows up. I look up to order another drink expecting to see the pretty blonde who’s been serving me all night, but instead my eyes meet a set of hazel eyes fringed with dark lashes. Those eyes are set in the face of a guy whose bone structure would make any model jealous. Further inspection tells me that his body is no less impressive. Muscles bulge beneath his taut t-shirt, the hard planes of his chest and abs clearly visible beneath. My gaze darts back up to his face to see a half-crooked smile and a gleam in his eyes that tells me he knows how hot he is.
After some work to reconnect my brain synapses with my tongue I’m finally able to speak.
“Hey. You don’t look like the last bartender,” I say and push my empty glass toward him.
“You’re right. She’s much cuter than I am.”
His grin widens. And oh! There’s a dimple, too. I’ve always been a sucker for a guy with a dimple. Then again, who isn’t? I think of dimples as being the key to the chastity belt.
“Ready for a refill?” He nods down to the empty glass.
When I remember that a stranger is on his way to meet me so we can have sex together, panic flares inside me. I desperately need that drink.
“Yes!” I say with too much enthusiasm.
He doesn’t comment on my over-excited nature, thankfully. “What’ll you have?”
I ponder for a moment, thinking that I need something stronger than what I’ve been drinking—I’m going to need to be buzzed for this—but unsure what to order. “Something that will put hair on my chest,” is my brilliant response to his question.
His gaze darts down to my cleavage. “Now why would you want to go and ruin a perfectly good chest like that?” He arches a brow, but instead of waiting for me to reply, he turns and begins to make my drink.
My face heats and a small portion of the confidence I’ve lacked lately returns. I smile to myself as he grabs a glass and adds ice to it, enjoying the way the muscles in his arms contract and relax as he sets about his work.
I’m so lost in ogling his body that I barely notice when he sets a drink in front of me.
“For the lady,” he says in that deep, slightly raspy voice.
“Thank you.” I lean forward and draw the drink up the straw, not missing the way he’s watching my lips with intense focus. The sweetness of the cola hits my tongue first and then the taste of whiskey followed by something else I can’t place. “This is really good. What’s it called?”
“A Stiffy.” One corner of his lip tips up in a grin.
“What’s in it?” I ask as I lean in for another sip. I’ve never been a huge whiskey drinker, but this stuff goes down smooth.
“It’s my own creation.” He winks and leans over the bar so close to me that his lips are practically touching my ear. “If I told you there’s no telling the things I’d have to do to you to keep you quiet.”
A shiver runs up my spine and he must notice because he chuckles as he backs away, amusement lighting his eyes.
“What’s your name?” he asks.
“Whitney Knight. Most of my good friends call me Whit, though.”
He places both palms on the bar top and lets his weight transfer to them, causing all the muscles to bunch up. Not that I notice because that would be slutty since I have another guy on his way here to screw my brains out.
The scent of his cologne wafts my way as he leans in just a little. “I hope I have the pleasure of being able to call you Whit someday then.”
I swallow hard, my tongue feeling heavy in my mouth. “What’s your name?” I ask in a breathy voice that probably gives away how turned on I am at that moment.
“Cole,” he says simply.
Cole. Just one look at this guy and I know he’s trouble. What I can’t be sure of yet is whether he’s more trouble than he’s worth.
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Cockamamie Unicorn Ramblings
Let’s see, what can we tell you about Afternoon Delight…
* * *
We’ll start with Chelsea Walsh. Her character was supposed to be similar to Chelsea Handler’s character in This Means War when we introduced her in Break the Ice. Hence the reason for her name. In Breaking the Ice we wanted her to test Beckett and give him hell for sitting back and not acting on his feelings for Skylar for so long. The kind of character that knocks on the hero or heroine’s head saying wake up and see what you’re missing out on.
* * *
As things often do with us, things changed. We decided midway through that Chelsea would be one of our Divorcee Dating heroines (see Manic Monday). Which meant she had to have been married. So we threw in a quickie marriage in Break the Ice, wiped off our hands and said done. Or so we thought. At this point the hero was not going to be her ex-husband! Uh-oh!
* * *
Dean matured from a bad boy to having the stuffy exterior of tax attorney to being her ex-husband. Originally, at the end of Manic Monday, Victoria got a message from Chelsea saying that she’d messed up again by marrying her ex in Vegas a second time. They were going to be there for Skylar’s bachelorette and that would have been perfect because they could have met Lennon and Jasper at a blackjack table (perfect scenario if only it would have worked out). But there were timeline issues and we just couldn’t make it work in a way that allowed us to do what we wanted to with Hannah’s story in Happy Hour. Needless to say, Chelsea and Dean’s story changed—A LOT!
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And for any readers wondering about Chelsea and Dean’s first marriage. We purposely didn’t do any flashback scenes because we wanted their story to be about the here and now…how they’ve both grown and how Chelsea was finally able to open her heart again at the risk of having it broken again. BUT…that would make PERFECT box set material, don’t you think?
* * *
That’s about all the 411 on Afternoon Delight.
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Our usual dream team plus a few new additions who need a round of applause.
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Letitia from RBA Designs.
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Ellie from Love N Books.
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Shawna from Behind the Writer.
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Sarah Ferguson and Social Butterfly PR
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All the bloggers who continue to make room for our books!
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Heather and Angela for being (not so early) readers. One of these days we’ll be ahead of the game. LOL
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All our early ARC readers.
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And of course, all our unicorns. <3 Without you we wouldn’t be able to keep doing what we do. This industry becomes more challenging every day, but we push on because we have you in our corner shouting from the rooftops and encouraging other readers to try our work. <3
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Be on the lookout for Happy Hour. As with the entire series, our hero, Roarke Baldwin has a lot of ground to make up if he wants to win Hannah Crowley’s heart! Should be interesting!
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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 USA Today Bestselling authors for
the price of one. Our goal is to bring you romance stories that have "Heartwarming Humor With a Side of Sizzle" (okay...you caught us, that's our tagline). A little about us... 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.
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Also by Piper Rayne
The Modern Love World
Charmed by the Bartender
Hooked by the Boxer
Mad about the Banker
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The Single Dad’s Club
Real Deal
Dirty Talker
Sexy Beast
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Dirty Truth
The Manny
Doggie Style
Chore Play
* * *
Bedroom Games
Cold as Ice
On Thin Ice
Break the Ice
* * *
Charity Case
Manic Monday
Afternoon Delight
Happy Hour 7.12.18