by Taryn Quinn
Lucky straightened and grabbed a soda for himself, popping the top. “Well, if Ivy can’t help, then you gotta get your mom involved. They live for that stuff.”
“Are you kidding me? She’s on like fourteen town committees. She barely has time to sleep, when you factor in her work at the gallery. Besides, who says I need a damn decorator? I didn’t at my old place.”
He laughed and took a long drink. “Yeah, and it looked great. Not. Most of the rooms didn’t even look lived in. You can’t do that in a swank place like this, man. Forrester’s taken all these apartments up a notch.” He let out a belch. “When you invite over that sexy chick who strips for tuition, you don’t want to make her sit on the floor. Then again, if you do, I have a better chance.” He nudged my shoulder. “I still owe you one for the Sanders’ sisters.”
He’d imparted so much in that barrage of information, I didn’t even know what to unpack first. “Uh, the Sanders’ sisters were almost a year ago.”
“Hell no. They were this spring.” He frowned and drank more. “Weren’t they?”
“Try last fall. And I didn’t hook up with both, just Judy. You just didn’t like that they both weren’t immediately bowled over by your baby greens.”
“Says you. What happened with you guys?”
I shrugged. “We went out a few times. We’re still friends. Just no spark.”
“But she’s smokin’. Doesn’t that count for something?”
I shrugged again and finished off my lemonade, feeling like a class A chump. How could I tell him I was developing an aversion to casual dating? Not because I wanted something serious. Hell no.
Lucky and I were Crescent Cove’s original bachelors. When all the single men around us tumbled like timber for the whole marriage and babies scene, we stood strong. We didn’t want any of that. Pleasures of the flesh were enough for us, thank you.
No commitment. No stress.
No way, not in baby central anymore. How could you possibly enjoy a no-strings hookup in a place like the Cove? We’d become known across the northeast for ease in procreation. The damn town bird might as well have been the stork.
I gestured to the remaining items left in the back of my SUV. We’d packed that sucker like a Tetris game, taking advantage of every millimeter of space. “You going to help me with this stuff or what?”
“Help? I’ve been carrying most of it while you stand around out here sipping lemonade like a southern belle.” To show off—as usual—he picked up my bookcase under one arm and grabbed another small shelving unit with his other hand. Then he winked at me before heading inside.
Since I knew quite well his posturing probably had to do with the woman he’d mentioned probably innocently dancing in her own apartment, I grabbed a couple of small end tables and followed him toward the sexy music.
After we went upstairs, I stepped around him to open the door to the hallway before we continued on toward my apartment. The music only grew louder as we walked.
Apartments branched off in two directions. There were only a few on each floor, and for now, there were three levels. There was still room for more on the very top floor, but Forrester was taking his time there, gauging interest, before he decided to make it one big place or split it up like the other ones. On the roof, there was a communal gathering space for all the tenants’ use.
This property right across from the lake was in a prime location, what with Macy’s Brewed Awakening on the bottom floor and the Cove’s real estate market booming. I’m sure Forrester liked being the hottest ticket in town.
“Holy shit,” I mumbled as I walked into the back of Lucky, who had stopped dead outside my door.
And who could blame him, because the door across the hall was cracked open, just enough to reveal a scantily clad blond winding around a pole that had been drilled into her floor. Or attached there somehow, well enough to support the gyrations she was doing around it.
To it.
“Told you,” Lucky said smugly, panting slightly from what he held. He appeared to be glued in place and had not set it down yet.
“Does she realize the door is open?”
I was fervently glad that it was, even if I felt a bit like a pervert watching her. Her eyes were closed as she moved to the music, so she didn’t know we were out here, but she was dressed—albeit in a minuscule way.
When Lucky didn’t reply, I tried again. “Since the door is open, maybe she wants us to see?” It was a mostly hopeful question.
My conscience was screaming now. I had a sister and a niece and of course a mom. I taught kids. Spying on her wasn’t kosher.
Unless she had some exhibitionistic tendencies and didn’t mind if we peeped on her. At least she wasn’t naked.
I would just keep telling myself that.
“I cracked the door open a little, wanting to see where the music was coming from,” Lucky admitted, voice low. “She hadn’t latched it though. I’m not that bad.”
“Asshole.” I jabbed the pointed corner of one of my end tables into his back.
He grunted and dropped the bookcase on his toe. His unholy bellow of pain made the gorgeous blond stop dancing, just as I set down my furniture and moved toward her door to firmly pull it shut.
Well, that had been my intention anyway. I didn’t make it all the way to closing the door, because her face fucking slayed me.
I could admit I hadn’t noticed it before, as occupied as I’d been with her fluid movements. She was seriously coordinated. Flexible. Hot as fuck. But then she just had to have a stunning face to match, with fiery eyes—color undetermined from this distance—and full lips and enough cleavage to kill a man who’d been abstinent for, oh, close to eight months now.
The last woman I’d asked out had ended up engaged to the sheriff within weeks. So, that kind of gave a reading on the state of my love life.
“What in the goddess are you doing?” she demanded, lowering the music and marching to the door at a rate of speed sufficient to make all the dangling threads from her top flutter over her abs.
She had a twinkling jewel in her navel. I was reasonably sure the beam of light from it had rendered me cross-eyed. Possibly altered some of my bodily functions as well.
That was as good an excuse as any for my current…pants predicament.
“Eyes up here, pal.” She tapped her forehead. “Were you breaking in?”
“Hardly. The door was open. I was shutting it for you. Never know who’s around.”
“Wind did it,” Lucky muttered from behind me.
I glanced back to see him leaning against the wall, gripping his foot. His boot was lying sideways on the floor.
I probably should’ve felt guilty, but he knew better than to pull stunts like that. Nudging a door open wasn’t cool. She didn’t know us. The last thing we wanted to do was scare her or make her feel uncomfortable. And I was her new neighbor, for fuck’s sake. If he made things weird between us, I’d be the one dealing with the fallout.
“Look, we apologize.” I cleared my throat. “The music lured Lucky to your apartment, and the door wasn’t latched, so he made an ill-advised decision to open it. We apologize,” I repeated, glancing back at my best friend, who nodded with a sigh.
“Sorry, ma’am.”
“Ma’am?” She frowned and crossed her arms. “Just how old do you think I am?”
“Barely legal?”
She arched a brow at my quip. “Since I suspect that’s your attempt at flattery, I will say you’re both wrong. I’m not old enough to be called ma’am, though who is? And I’m also not young enough to remember having a fake ID to get drinks. Although I rarely imbibe to excess.” She flushed. “Well, unless bestie service calls.”
“How do I call you through that bestie service?” Lucky pulled on his boot and flashed her a winsome smile. “Truly, you won’t meet a friendlier guy in all of the Cove.”
“She’s new in town. Don’t scare her off already. At least I assume.” I gave her a smile of my own. One f
ar less toothy than Lucky’s.
“I’m fairly new to actually living in town, but I’ve worked here since last year.” She squinted at me. “Are you sure we haven’t met before?”
“Unless I was drugged unconscious, there is literally no way I could forget meeting you.” It was probably the most sincere thing I’d ever said, but Lucky snorted out a laugh just the same.
She just kept squinting. “I’ve seen you before. Are you—” She snapped her fingers. “August.”
I scowled. “I’m definitely not August. If you think I am, I’m leaving.” Not that I could go far.
Across the hallway. Yeah, that would soothe my wounded ego.
“His reputation as the hotter brother is on the line,” Lucky informed her. “Mind you, the only one who ever said he was hotter was Caleb himself, when he was preening in the mirror.”
“Caleb.” She rolled the name around in her mouth as if she was tasting a fine wine. “I definitely can tell the difference between you.”
Was that a subtle dig? Or maybe not so subtle? I threw back my shoulders and puffed out my chest. I didn’t think I was the equivalent of a body-building male model like my best friend, but I cleaned up quite well.
I’d definitely never gotten any complaints.
“August has a picture of you guys on his desk,” she continued. “You two and your sister.”
“How do you know August?” I wasn’t over being compared to him, even if it had happened my entire life.
I wouldn’t have said I suffered from middle sibling syndrome, but I had to admit I got testy sometimes. August was one of those guys who did everything well. He was a supremely talented craftsman, a good friend to practically the whole town, and now he had a perfect little happy family with Kinleigh and their baby.
But that was neither here nor there.
“I work for him. Well, technically, I worked for Kinleigh, before their stores and everything else merged.” She spun a damp curl around her finger. “They’re so happy. It’s lovely to see.”
I grunted. As did Lucky when he picked up the furniture he’d dropped, along with my end tables, and somehow managed to heft them all into my apartment in one trip. Then he banged the door shut.
“What’s his problem?” she asked.
I turned back to her and sent up a silent apology to Lucky. Technically, he’d spotted her first, even if that spotting had been through shady means. Bro code and all that.
But I was the one who was moving into this building. She was my new neighbor. I was honor bound to chat with her and get to know her while she looked so attractively sweaty.
Okay, so side benefit.
I lifted a shoulder. “His paper plane has been unexpectedly grounded.”
“Don’t think its made of paper. Unless he’s one of those who stuffs toilet paper rolls in his jeans. Do guys really do that?”
I had to grin as I leaned against the jamb. “Guys really do a lot of things, though I think socks are more common.” I shrugged. “Sorry, can’t say definitively.”
“Oh, right, because of course you’ve never needed to do anything like that.”
I didn’t bother to hide my smirk. Hey, she’d continued this particular line of conversation, not me.
“If I was the ogling sort, I’d just look to see myself. But I prefer a little mystery.”
“What’s your name, Mystery?”
“Luna.”
“Nice to meet you.” I held out a hand and she clasped it after a moment. I waited for sparks. Expected them, for some weird reason. When there was nothing, I frowned. “Do you have a last name?”
“Nah.” She released my hand with a satisfied smile. “I’m like Madonna. Who needs more than the first?”
“Us ordinary people who teach school, for one. I don’t want my students calling me Cal.”
“But that’s what the hip teachers do, isn’t it?” She smiled again, this time in a much less practiced way. “What do you teach?”
“Second grade at the Catholic school.”
Her expression warmed exponentially. “It’s Hastings.”
“What?” Why was she so damn beautiful? It shouldn’t be legal.
“My last name is Hastings.”
“Mine is Beck.” I rubbed the back of my neck as Lucky turned on the music in my apartment and started singing along loudly.
Since when did he like Sinatra? Or like butchering Sinatra, because wow.
Her lips twitched. “I know that. You know, August and all. But thank you for the confirmation.”
When I lingered in the doorway, not wanting to leave just yet, she arched a pale brow. “Since you’re just moving in, you can’t need a cup of sugar.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised what I might need. You don’t happen to have any children you’ll be enrolling at school?”
“No.”
“Any husband to help you make those nonexistent children?”
She glanced over her shoulder at her fully furnished apartment. I couldn’t see much with her blocking my view, but the place felt relaxed and serene. Much like the woman herself. “Appears not.”
“How about a boyfriend?”
“Are you auditioning?”
“I’d like to know what the audition consists of before I sign up. If it involves that shiny pole over there…” I gestured into her spacious apartment, which seemingly had the same layout as mine. “Regrettably, I’ll have to pass.”
“Let me think about it and get back to you.”
I knew a brush-off when I heard one. I needed to seal the deal. “Why don’t we discuss it over lunch tomorrow? I’ll cook,” I offered, before remembering that my apartment was half empty and the rest was a disaster zone.
“A second grade teacher who cooks,” she mused, tapping her irresistibly glossy lips. “In the package of an outrageous flirt. Very interesting.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m outrageous. Exactly. More like persistent.” I flashed her a grin. “So, what do you say?”
One-click WRONG BED BABY now!
Available MARCH 30th
Kensington Square
Kensington Square's office park is a hot bed of sizzling legal briefs, occasional dick-tation, and lots of hot sleepless nights! Never know what will happen in this small town romantic comedy series, but beware of the steam fogging up your glasses...
Meet the residents of Kensington Square
Kensington Square World Chart
Have My Baby
Claim My Baby
Who’s The Daddy
Pit Stop: Baby
Baby Daddy Wanted
Rockstar Baby
Daddy in Disguise
My Ex’s Baby
Daddy Undercover
Wrong Bed Baby
Lucky Baby
Crescent Cove Standalones
CEO Daddy
Crescent Cove Bites
Fireman Daddy
Mistletoe Baby
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Find the rest of our books at
www.tarynquinn.com
Kensington Square
His Temporary Assistant
My Boss’s Secret
Afternoon Delight
Dirty Distractions
Drawn Deep
Deuces Wild
Protecting His Rockstar
Guarding His Best Friend’s Sister
Shielding His Baby
Wilder Rock
Rockstar Daddy
Rockstar Lost
Standalones
Bad Kitty
Filthy Scrooge
Holiday Sparks
Jingle Ball
Saving Kylie
Unwrapped
Quinn and Elliott
Rockers Reading Order
Lost in Oblivion
Winchester Falls
Found in Oblivion
Hammered
Rock Revenge
Brooklyn Dawn
The Boss
Tapped Out
Love R
equired
Boys of Fall
About Taryn Quinn
USA Today bestselling author, Taryn Quinn, is the sexy and funny alter ego of bestselling authors Taryn Elliott & Cari Quinn. We've been writing together for years, but we have found a love of small town romance that doesn’t quite fit with our crazy rockers and romantic suspense.
And so…Taryn Quinn was born!
Do you like…
* Ultra sexy—check.
* Quirky characters—check.
* Sweet mixed in with the sexy—check.
* RomCom shenanigans—check.
* Office romance—check.
* A crazy baby town that has exploded into a few side series—check.
So, c’mon in. Pour a glass of wine—or grab a coffee if you’re like us—put your feet up, and lose yourself in one of our books.
For more information about us…
tarynquinn.com
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