Cocktales

by The Cocky Collective

  “What about this one,” I pointed at my cock.

  “Do you have a permit?”

  I smirked. “Cute.”

  “Hey, I’m just saying I don’t want anything to go off and ruin the moment.”

  “If you don’t take off your fucking dress I’m going to go off and ruin the moment…”

  “Crude.”

  “Also true.” I set my gun on the table, pulled two small knives from my back pocket and then peeled my shirt over my head. “Your turn.”

  “Oh, so now we’re taking turns?”

  “It’s polite and I’m trying to set a good example for Violet.”

  “Nothing about you carrying a gun around and murdering people is a good example.”

  “Really?” I deadpanned. “Because the way I see it, I’m showing her not to take any shit from anyone and kill people who do. Nothing wrong with that.”

  Luc gaped. “You’re kidding right?”

  I shrugged and motioned for her to turn around.

  The zipper was long, too long. Why the hell did dresses need long zippers? Why weren’t there buttons or snaps like on track pants? Someone needed to invent that, so men like me didn’t have to torture ourselves with the sound of a dress slowly zipping down a woman’s back.

  It just reminded me that clothes were in the way.

  I zipped down to her ass then pulled the dress down over her hips letting it fall to her ankles and her tall black heels.

  She turned in my arms and jerked me toward her with my jeans. I bit back a curse the friction was almost my undoing. Her eyes locked on mine as she slowly unbuttoned and another damn zipper.

  I always imagined how I would die.

  Assumed it would be looking down the barrel of a gun.

  Not, death by zipper.

  Death by waiting. Why the hell wasn’t I doing this four weeks ago?

  The minute I knew she could?

  “Sergio and Val are fine with Serena,” Luc whispered across my lips, her hands already tugging my jeans down.

  Our foreheads touched. “Let’s leave Sergio out of it since we’re both half naked and I’m seconds away from burying my cock inside you, yeah?”

  She gripped me with her hand and squeezed. “Yeah.”

  “Damn it.” I slammed my mouth against hers as we stumbled back toward the bed. I hovered over her as she wrapped her legs around me. “I swear the fifth time we do this tonight I’ll go slower but rounds one through four—” I slid my tongue past her lips then retreated. “Not gonna happen.” She gripped my shoulders and whispered. “Good.”

  I thrust into her as her scream died across my lips. This, this woman was the reason I was alive… the reason I wasn’t sucked into an oblivion of darkness and death.

  I rolled my hips and closed my eyes as she clawed at my back and then found my mouth deepening the kiss while I moved inside her.

  This woman.

  Was my everything.

  “Chase—”

  She matched my rhythm. I knew it would be over too soon.

  Six weeks.

  Never again.

  “I love you,” I whispered as she clenched around me her nails digging into my skin my teeth grazing her neck as waves of pleasure pulsed between our bodies.

  “I love you too.” She locked eyes with me.

  I clenched my teeth and chased my release as she clamped down her thighs and pulled me in.

  And minutes later when we were both lying there staring up at the ceiling. It wasn’t the sound of her screams or my ability to make her orgasm, but her light snore that brought joy to my face.

  The perfect life.

  I had it.

  And I would die protecting what was mine.

  Pre-Order Rachel’s next book Dirty Exes:

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  About the Author

  Rachel Van Dyken is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today Bestselling author of regency and contemporary romances. When she's not writing you can find her drinking coffee at Starbucks and plotting her next book while watching The Bachelor.

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  She keeps her home in Idaho with her Husband, adorable son, and two snoring boxers! She loves to hear from readers!

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  Want to be kept up to date on new releases? Text MAFIA to 66866!

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  Website

  @RachVD

  Code of Conduct

  April White

  The first chapters of book one of the Smartypants Romance series set in the world of Quinn Sullivan's Cypher Security Systems: Shane Matthews is a PI who destroys cheaters, and Gabriel Eze is the Cypher agent whose client is in her sights. Shane's secrets become Gabriel's mission, and yet somehow, she just can't stay away...

  Copyright © 2018 by April White

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  One

  Shane

  “If you think they’re cheating, they probably are. Or you are, and you’re just trying to wipe your conscience.”

  – Shane Matthews, P.I.

  I intimidate people. It’s one of my superpowers.

  I learned the benefits of intimidation early. A five foot, nine inch-tall, thirteen-year-old California girl with the finely-tuned battle instincts of a dedicated RPG gamer can wield a well-timed glare like a weapon. Now in my late twenties and six-one, I had confidence, athletic ability, and superior survival skills to add to my arsenal of intimidating glares.

  I also had a pretty badass array of prosthetic legs with cool functions and Swiss Army-type gadgets at my disposal. But most of my clients didn’t even realize they got Black Widow with an Iron Man leg when they hired me. And the morons of dubious judgement who prowled the streets and bedrooms of Chicago certainly had no idea who was coming for them.

  My other superpower was less “kick your ass” and more “drain your bank account and ruin your life,” but it was dangerous enough to add a little extra steel to my spine, which also helped disguise the limp that no amount of carefully-weighted titanium could erase.

  The limp and the height were the reason I’d arrived early to the little, out of the way Northshore restaurant for my date with Chicago business mogul, Dane Quimby.

  I say “date” because that’s what he thought it was. To me it was a job with a high probability of being mostly unpleasant, but served with a side dish of smug satisfaction.

  I use the Black Widow analogy because of my Iron Man leg, but I grew up on a steady diet of Charlie’s Angels reruns. Even though I’d been compared to Jaclyn Smith, the “glamorous” P.I., I was way more Kate Jackson, the “athletic” one. My own P.I. license had taken six thousand hours and a test to earn, and as far as I was concerned, the fact that it was only legal in California where I’d lived until last year was just a technicality. To get a license in Illinois required a twenty hour training course and forty hours of firearms training, neither of which I’d done. I wasn’t a fan of guns, and didn’t really want my fingerprints on file with the State of Illinois, because … reasons.

  So, here I was, waiting for a married guy to buy me dinner before he tried to get into my jeans. They happened to be my favorite skinny jeans, with enough lycra to make sitting possible without blood-flow constriction, and they were tucked into my super-favorite tall riding boots. The boots were flat and therefore comfortable. They also did a great job of hiding my prosthetic lower leg from Judgy McJudgersons and their stale notions of “h
andicaps.” Someone would have to get me naked to know I was a below-the-knee amputee, and no one but my dog ever saw me naked.

  Dane chose the location for our “date,” which was notable for its lack of pretension and, indeed, any redeeming quality whatsoever beyond a curvy waitress and a cheap menu. I had nothing but respect for large-busted women, since I could only imagine the back pain and underwire bras they endured. I was just as happy with the two-dimes-and-a-piece of tape version of lingerie which kept my nipples from becoming a distraction that diminished my powers of intimidation.

  The waitress greeted Dane with an enthusiastic kiss on the cheek when he came in, and I smirked at the difference between his internet dating profile picture and the truth of him.

  My date for the evening was vertically challenged, sporting blond from a bottle, and had the athletic build of a man who did his treadmill miles with the Nasdaq scrolling under his news, and the smile of a shark who negotiated deals for a living.

  His eyes found me with just the slightest double-take, and I he took stock of all my visible body parts as he approached the table.

  “Sophie?” He asked, wearing his version of a rakish grin. I didn’t bother to point out the bit of something green stuck in his teeth. Sophie wasn’t my real name, of course, because I am too paranoid to use verifiable information on the internet.

  I held my hand out to shake his. “Hello Dane, It’s nice to finally meet you.” Dane was obviously not paranoid enough, or just exceptionally cocky, as it actually was his real name. His wife hired me to discover if he’d been cheating on her, and it only took three internet searches and fifteen minutes to determine that he was on four internet dating sites and was practically a platinum card user of Tinder.

  He sat down across from me and shook his head with a chuckle. “You look exactly like your picture. I guess that means everything else in your profile is true?”

  It had taken me twenty minutes to hack into the website and data-mine his search histories, and another ten to build a profile to match his wish list. “Yes, I really am a tantric yoga instructor. Doesn’t everyone tell the truth online?” I said vapidly.

  He winked. “I can’t really talk about my time in Special Forces, so I guess you could say my profile is true-ish.”

  It had taken thirty minutes of background checks using mostly public databases to determine he’d been drummed out of the military for misconduct his first year. “Oh wow. Were you, like, a spy or something?”

  He chuckled. “You’re from California, aren’t you?”

  You mean my best Valley Girl imitation didn’t give it away? “I basically grew up on the beach.” Actually, I grew up backpacking in the Sierras, but I let him keep the mental image of me in a bikini.

  “I always thought I should live in Cali,” he said. “I’d work out on the strand like those guys in Venice Beach, and be friends with movie stars.”

  The effort not to laugh out loud was costing me. “I’ve seen those guys in Venice. You’d fit right in,” I said with a smile. My first job as an insurance investigator was in Venice and I had to navigate the gangbangers and homeless guys every day. Also, no one in California ever calls it Cali.

  He held up a finger and did the “I’ll have what she’s having” thing to order a drink like mine. I smirked at the waitress’s raised eyebrow. Wouldn’t he be surprised when he got sparkling water with lime instead of the vodka tonic he thought I had?

  “You must wonder what attracted me to you,” Dane said with a knowing smile.

  Actually, I was mentally calculating my billable hours and hoping to be done here in less than thirty minutes because … round numbers. “You read my mind,” I said with a low, breathy voice. To my own ears I sounded asthmatic, but experience had taught me that horny guys dig breathless women.

  Dane set his cell phone on the table next to him, screen up, so I’d see how very important he was when he got all those calls and texts he was expecting.

  “Your profile says you’re looking for uncomplicated with a side of kinky,” Dane said, leaning forward to trace the path of ice sweat down the side of my glass. Ew. His meaningful glance was all imagine me doing this to you, and I barely suppressed a shudder as I forced a languid smile.

  “I guess that’s one way to interpret my profile,” I said. The other way is to actually read the words, dumbass, which said I like simple pleasures and I’m open to trying new things. I pushed my drink away because he’d touched it and now his cooties swirled above it like poop molecules in a public bathroom, but which Dane took as an invitation to share because he was presumptuous like that. He slid his hand down the outside of the sweaty glass with a suggestive wink. This guy had all the moves.

  “So, tell me about tantric yoga.” His hand fisted up and down the glass before he took a big gulp. To his credit, he hid his shock at the bubbly lime-water well, but I shot the waitress a grateful smile when she set the fresh drink down in front of me.

  “Are you ready to order?” she asked. Dane was about to answer, but I quickly interrupted.

  “Could I have a minute?”

  “Sure, take your time,” said Tiffani, with an “i” dotted by a smiley face sticker. She walked away with the self-assured hip-sway of a woman who knows her own appeal.

  I turned my gaze back to Dane and answered his question with a slow, seductive smile. “Imagine the possibilities of a person who can hold her leg behind her head.” I conveniently didn’t mention that I wouldn’t actually be wearing the leg that I’d be holding behind my head. I pictured my peg leg prosthetic resting on my shoulder like a wooden bat. Of course I had a peg leg prosthetic, because who wouldn’t?

  Dane thought my low chuckle was for him, and I could just imagine the mental images with which he was torturing himself. And because the thought of giving him even a moment of pleasure was approximately as appealing as sucking all the snot out of a dog’s nose, I changed the subject.

  “Tell me about yourself, Dane. What do you do? I mean now that you’re out of Special Forces, there must be something you do besides work out.”

  He actually preened. “Oh, you know, I dabble in web development, mostly for social media.”

  This guy was awesome! What he really did, according to my background check and an hour’s worth of research on his company, was sold digital ad space. It explained his confidence in the ex-Special Forces cover, because if you could sell the promise of eyeballs – not the actual eyeballs themselves, mind you, just the possibility that x-amount of people might look at your thing for the two seconds it takes to scroll past it – you could probably sell birth control to your grandmother.

  “You must be really good at computers,” I purred. Actually, I was trying not to giggle, and had to drop my voice to keep from choking.

  “Oh yeah, baby. I’m the best.”

  Seriously, how had this guy ever gotten laid? Ever?

  “Are you on Tinder?” I thought about batting my eyelashes, but decided it was too much, and I’d probably blink out a contact lens anyway.

  “Of course I am. Aren’t you?”

  Of course he was. I shook my head and bit my bottom lip. I’d practiced the move in a mirror once and thought it made me look dim, but apparently dim was like catnip to men who lied to get laid. I looked at his phone. “Can I see your profile? I’ve been trying to decide if I want to join.”

  His grin went wide and he quickly unlocked his phone for me. “Sure,” he said, as he scooted closer and showed me the app. “You get in like this, and see, here’s my profile.”

  “That’s a great picture,” I said. “You look super fit.” And about a decade younger than in real life.

  “I know, right? I get a lot of matches with that pic.”

  “Do you mind if I scroll around for a minute, just to look?” I asked sweetly.

  He waved his hand at me. “Go ahead. Just don’t swipe right on any ugly chicks.” Dude, really? Just for that I’d be swiping right on the biggest, most redneck, Deliverance-looking guy I
could find.

  Tiffani approached the table again. “What can I get you, Dane?”

  I silently blessed her for her timing, and after my left-swipe on Junior No-Teeth, I navigated to Dane’s notes app and about a second later, air-dropped the whole file to my own phone. He had three banking apps in his office folder, and I clicked on one randomly. The account name was ADDATA, which was his business, so I switched to the next one. Dane was ordering something off-menu with a whole bunch of substitutions, so I took a minute to look back through his notes.

  I had been counting on Dane’s arrogance and stupidity, and the simple statistics of probability, and neither one disappointed. The notes app from his phone included a page of account information and passwords, which listed, among other vital things, his social security number (who doesn’t remember their own social?) and all his banking passwords. It took only a few more seconds to find Dane’s private bank account – the one which his wife suspected paid for his “entertainment” – and another minute to transfer half the money into an account she’d already set up in her name. The wife had wanted to take it all, but I convinced her that a cornered dog was likely to bite, and she’d have a better chance of getting the house if she left him some operating cash.

  “Hey,” Dane said suddenly. I cursed myself for jumping, then pasted a smile on my face. “Since you have my phone, you should just put your number in my contacts.”

  “Oh, sure. Do you want me to put it under my first, or my last name?” I was pretty sure the answer would be neither, and he confirmed my suspicions.

  “Just leave it open to that page and I’ll add your name.”

  I typed in the number to my favorite bankruptcy specialist as he finished up his elaborate and high-maintenance order with Tiffani, and then slid the phone across the table to him.