by Emma Hart
Table of Contents
Title Page
THE HOOK-UP EXPERIMENT
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Chapter One – Peyton
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Chapter Two – Peyton
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Chapter Three – Peyton
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Chapter Four – Peyton
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Chapter Five – Elliott
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Chapter Six – Peyton
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Chapter Seven – Peyton
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Chapter Eight – Elliott
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Chapter Nine – Peyton
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Chapter Ten – Peyton
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Chapter Eleven – Elliott
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Chapter Twelve – Peyton
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Chapter Thirteen – Elliott
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Chapter Fourteen – Peyton
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Chapter Fifteen – Peyton
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Chapter Sixteen – Elliott
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Chapter Seventeen – Peyton
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Chapter Eighteen – Peyton
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Chapter Nineteen – Peyton
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Epilogue – Elliott
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THE END
About the Author
Books by Emma Hart
THE HOOK-UP EXPERIMENT
By Emma Hart
THE HOOK-UP EXPERIMENT
Book One of The Experiment Duet
Copyright © by Emma Hart 2018
First Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Cover Design and Formatting by Emma Hart
For my son.
The ever-present inspiration for my fictional kids.
Thanks for letting me borrow part of your breakfast obsession for Briony, little guy.
Chapter One – Peyton
Brothers are assholes. And I’m still waiting for algebra to help me with my taxes.
The dick pics were endless.
Six inches.
Four inches.
Eight inches.
Three inches plus Photoshop.
Really, they were all the same.
And it was a miracle if any of the men they were attached to were able to combine the size of the prize with the motion of the ocean.
In fact, the only difference in the dicks was where the owner of it wanted to put it. A mouth, a vagina, a butt… Another man’s butt.
Those were my favorite types of matches to make. Good dicks were hard to find for women and for men—and sometimes, I matched more than just a hook-up for the gay population of New Orleans.
No wonder my brother fucking hated my business model. I had two gay weddings, one adoption, two proposals, and four long-term relationships under my belt. Not to mention a host of fuck-buddies.
He had one relationship and two break-ups.
Not that I was surprised, but orgasms clearly outweighed the whole getting-to-know each other stage.
I mean, seriously. There’s not much more intimate than your cock inside someone else’s ass.
Not that I’d know. The only cocks I owned came with batteries and lived in my drawer.
Or that I’d ever put anyone’s cock up my ass…
I shook off the thought of anyone entering my exit. That was not a thought anyone needed to have while at their grandma’s house for dinner.
I moved the guy whose profile was in front of me to a ‘maybe’ section. The girl I was hooking up was particular about what she wanted, and that only served to make my life easier.
You wouldn’t tell your hairdresser she could color your hair whatever if you wanted to be blonde, would you?
I clicked onto the next profile as Ed Sheeran began crooning through my headphones. Shifting on the sofa, I swung my legs up onto another cushion and repositioned myself to where I could see if Mimi was coming back in from the kitchen.
She might have been accepting of what I did, but that didn’t mean she wanted to be a part of the selection process.
The next profile loaded. He’d attached several pictures of himself, but I read through the submission first. Just out of a long-term relationship, looking for a feel-good fling…
We were onto something for my little red-headed friend.
Happy with the rest of his profile, I clicked on the attached photos. The first was of his face.
Handsome. Dark-haired. Exactly what she was looking for.
Next up: His body.
I let out a low whistle. Abs for days. Shoulders that gave away his strength.
Next up: The peen.
Oh, damn.
I loved it when people followed instructions—and didn’t lie in the measurement part of their submission. He had not been lying when he’d said he was seven inches—and the photo showed that to be a solid seven, too.
Ding ding ding! We had a winner!
Something hit me hard in the back of the head. I screamed, jumping and almost sending my laptop flying to the floor.
“What the hell?” I snapped, tearing off my headphones and glaring at my brother. “Where did you come from and why did you hit me?”
Dom stared at me. “You’re working? Here?”
Quickly, I saved the profile as The One and closed down my screen. “Well, yeah. Mimi knows. She doesn’t care.”
“I don’t want another man’s penis to be the first thing I see when I get here!”
“So? Look down your pants when you walk through the door. Oh, that’s right. You still wouldn’t see anything.”
He flipped me the bird as Mimi walked in, wiping her hands on the bright-yellow, floral apron tied around her waist.
“Dominic!”
He threw his arms out. “I can’t make a gesture at her, but she can look at male genitalia in your living room?”
Mimi crossed her arms over her plump body and stared him down with a fierce, dark gaze. “Dominic Austin, I remember catchin’ you looking at female genitalia in my livin’ room once upon a time, and that was for nothin’ more than your own pleasure.”
My older brother looked at me and her. “Mimi, she’s looking at dicks for pleasure.”
“Actually,” I said, standing up. “I take no pleasure from looking at penises when they’re being matched to someone else. Unlike you and your teenage porn obsession.”
“Oh, yeah,” he continued, following me into the kitchen. “Because you don’t watch porn.”
I pulled a bottle of water from the fridge.
Sometimes, it sucked that Mimi didn’t allow alcohol in the house.
“I never said I didn’t. That’s the difference between me and you, bro. I don’t lie.”
“Lord, give me strength,” Mimi muttered, shuffling over to the stove and continuing to pray under her breath.
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“Have you or have you not had a crush on Chloe since twelfth grade?”
Dom froze, blinking his long, dark eyelashes at me. “We’re not talking about me, Peyt. We’re talking about your penis obsession.”
“As mighty convenient as that is,” Mimi drawled, her no-nonsense attitude mixing with her deep Southern accent to cut through our immature sibling squabbling, “Y’all’s dinner is almost ready, so set the darn table before I add human meat to this stew.”
Both of
us did as we were told. Dom grabbed all the placemats while I opened the cutlery drawer. It was the way we’d always done it, and it would never matter to Mimi if we were ten or twenty-something. Hell, even if we were fifty, she’d expect us to do it.
That was the rules. If we come for dinner, we set the table, and we clean up everything after.
I laid out napkins as Dom put three glasses upside down and got the water jug from the cupboard. By the time we were done, Mimi had a massive bowl of stew ready for him to set in the center of the table.
He grabbed it, and I picked up the plate of freshly baked bread to go with it.
My nose twitched at the delightful smell, and even my stomach rumbled, but I knew better than to touch that food until one: Mimi had her plate, and two: she’d thanked God for the food and prayed for our souls.
And everyone wondered where I got my dramatic streak from.
Mimi took a seat and held out her hands. We placed ours in hers, and she said, “Dear Lord, thank you for the food upon this table, and thank you for the strength to deal with my hellion grandchildren. And thank you for the strength to get through this dinner without beatin’ them both with my spoon. Amen.”
See? Dramatic.
If anyone needed beating with a spoon, it was Dom for starting it.
“Amen,” we muttered, echoing her.
Mimi chuckled, pulled her hands from ours, and looked pointedly at Dom. “Well? You gonna serve your dear old Mimi?”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
“Mimi…” he groaned.
“I will make a gentleman outta you, boy.”
“What about making a lady out of Peyton?”
“Hey!” I interjected, turning over Mimi’s glass and grabbing the jug. “I’m a lady. I let men hold open doors for me, and I’ve never flashed anyone getting out of a car.”
Dom stared at me. “Peyt, you once told me you’d only let a man hold a door open for you if he’d smack your ass as you walked past.”
“Damn straight,” I said, making sure Mimi had enough ice. “If he’s holding the door, he better smack my ass as I pass. If not, I’ll get the damn thing myself.”
Mimi held up a hand. “Once heathen of a grandchild at a time, Dominic. You might need less work than her.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it. I knew better than to argue with her.
“While I agree on that point,” he said, shooting me a quick look. “I don’t understand the purpose of serving you food. If I tried to serve a woman food on a date, I’d be up for getting castrated. Give her too much; she thinks she’s too skinny. Give her too little; she thinks she’s fat.”
“Yeah,” I said. “And if he pisses her off, he can’t get laid.”
“Young lady, you will watch that mouth at this dinner table, or I’ll bend you over that sink.” Mimi didn’t even look at me, but I got the message.
Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Peyton.
I obliged.
Mimi then shot Dominic a similar look, and he quickly spooned some stew into her bowl. When he was done, he filled his own before leaving the spoon for me.
“And that’s why you’re no gentleman,” Mimi said, tearing a piece of bread in two.
“She doesn’t count,” Dominic replied.
“Boy, ‘course she counts. If you can’t respect your sister, you think any self-respecting young woman is gonna take two looks at you past your pretty face? Psht.”
I said nothing. I knew she’d have a smartass comment for me, too.
Really, it was a rookie mistake. He knew better than to play with Mimi.
If there was ever a woman who could mix modern with traditional, it was her.
Case in point: I could look at penis pictures in the living room but say “pissed off” at the table was worthy of a threat for a mouthful of soap. And there was no doubt she’d do it.
She’d probably break into your house and do it while you slept. Put it in your coffee. Mix it into your dinner. As long as you learned your lesson, she didn’t care how it happened.
Nobody said another word while we ate, especially not Dom. Judging by the little sulk he had going on, he’d had enough of Mimi shutting him up tonight.
Which was, naturally, utterly amusing to me.
When we were done eating, Mimi excused herself to have a cigarette in the yard—which was how God gave her strength if you asked her—we got to clearing the table and washing the dishes.
“Heads, I wash. Tails, you wash.” Dom produced a quarter from his wallet.
I sighed and leaned against the side. “Fine.”
He flipped the coin onto the side.
Heads.
“Well, just as well. It’s the most head you’re gonna get,” I said, turning off the tap and grabbing a towel to dry the dishes.
He rolled his eyes and pulled up his sleeves. “Now, I remember why I hate dinner with you.”
“You’ve put up with it for twenty-seven years.”
“And I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
I glared at him and took the first clean plate. “I still have a chance to do it to you.”
“Only if all the cocks you look at don’t burn out your eyeballs.”
“Dom, seriously! Unless you watch exclusive girl-on-girl porn, you willingly look at other men’s cocks, too.”
He froze. “And that’s me switching to girl-on-girl.”
“Look, bro, there’s nothing wrong with looking at dicks.”
“You would say that. Looking at them pays your rent. Shit, Peyt, you probably look at more cocks in a day than I look at my own.”
“Yes,” I said slowly, “But you have to find yours first.”
“You’re a bitch.”
“I know.” I grinned and put the stack of now-clean plates on the table.
He shook his head and scrubbed the side of a bowl. “Can I ask you a question? A serious one?”
“Uh…Sure. Go ahead.”
Dom got the last bit of stew off the side of a bowl and put it on the side for me. “Do you ever get bored of what you do? Just making people hook-up?”
“No,” I answered honestly. “Do you ever get bored of setting up relationships?”
“No, but I don’t spend several hours of my working day looking at genitals.”
“You just do that in your spare time, right?” I paused. “Right, serious. Put away the annoying little sister act.”
He nodded.
“No. I don’t. I guess… I get why people want a no-strings hook-up or even a series of them. Like the girl I was looking for earlier? She has a really great job, and she’s super successful, and all the men she’s tried to date are intimidated by her. But, she’s also lonely. So, she wants someone she can meet up with a couple times a week, get dinner, and screw.”
“There are people you can pay for that?”
“Ah. Why pay when I can find it for free?”
Even he couldn’t respond to that.
“People really do that? Find fuck buddies through PAD?”
PAD. Because you didn’t always want to say Pick-A-Dick in public. “Yeah. Some are accidental. They have great chemistry and keep seeing each other. Some people like my client from earlier is out to get a long-term, physical relationship without the emotional strings. The guy I think fits her wants the same thing because he just broke up with his girlfriend of three years. It works for everyone.”
“Really?” Dom put the pot Mimi used to cook the stew on the side and looked at me. “Do you really believe people can have sex regularly and not feel anything for each other?”
I reached for the bowl, then paused. “It’s just sex, Dom. It doesn’t always have to come with an emotional attachment. You’re not emotionally attached to someone you pick up in a bar and bone on the sofa, are you?”
“That’s different.”
“No, it’s not. All I’m doing is scheduling a one-night stand with someone they’re sexually compatible with. Why go out and risk finding Mr. Tap, Tap, Squirt, when
I can find Mr. All Night Long?”
“Your mind is a warped place, little sister.”
“What? Because I believe it’s possible to have a sexual relationship with someone and not fall in love with them?”
He dropped the cloth in the sink and looked at me. “What? So you don’t talk? Don’t ask how anyone’s day was? You just walk in and have sex?”
In an ideal world. “It’s called friends with benefits.”
“Friends with benefits don’t work.”
“Have you ever tried it?”
“Well, no, but…”
“Exactly?”
“Have you, Peyton?”
Aw, shit. “I have friends. Who I have benefits with,” I answered lamely.
Dom folded his arms across his chest. “Have you ever had a purely sexual relationship with someone?”
“Fine. No.” I threw my towel into the cooking pot. “I have people I’ve had sex with a few times, but not frequent enough to constitute any kind of a relationship with. But I know you can do it. Which makes me right, and you wrong.”
His eyes glittered. “Prove it.”
I stopped. “Wait, what?”
“Prove me wrong. Find someone in that little hook-up database of yours who you’re “sexually compatible” with and prove me wrong.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“No, it’s not. You say it’s possible; I say it’s not. Someone has to test it out, and since I’m the one who has to be proved wrong, you have to be the test subject.”
Well. The orgasms would be worth it… So would the satisfaction of proving him wrong.
I picked the towel back up. “What’s the deal?”
“You sleep with one person three times in less than two weeks. If you can prove you’re not in love with them, I’ll give you five hundred bucks.” He smirked. “If I’m right, you owe me five hundred bucks.”
“This is getting more ridiculous by the second!”
“And I get to pick your hook-up.”
“That’s so wrong on so many levels!”
He held out his hands. “Well? It’s down to you, Peyt.”
“Let me get this straight. You want to go into my confidential database, pick a guy for me to sleep with three times, and not fall in love with, just so you can pay me five hundred dollars?”