“Wait, is this the morning sex you were having a year and a half ago?” Natalie asks Gretchen.
“Yeah,” Gretchen admits, then leans across the table, a little tipsier than the rest of us, tapping Natalie’s hand. “Well, what about you, Cab Sex Girl? C’mon, give us your latest tale.”
“No more cab incidents. But we did do it in the kitchen last week.” Natalie pretends to look sheepish, but I can tell she’s secretly proud.
“Remind me not to eat at your house anytime soon,” Kelly jokes.
“What about you, Kel?” Gretchen swivels around to face Kelly, reaching into the blue bowl nearest her to grab a handful of cherry-flavored jelly beans. She pops one into her mouth, then rests her chin in her hands, waiting for Kelly’s answer.
I start dealing the next hand, doling out two cards apiece before I lay down the flop.
“It’s pretty good,” Kelly says, back to the bright and peppy persona that defines her. “We had this one epic fight, and then agreed we needed to do a better job communicating. Which I know sounds totally cheesy, but it’s true. So we talk more, and we also have sex more.”
Gretchen pumps a fist, then glances at her cards. I do the same, and am pleased with my hand. Not only do I have three jacks, a gorgeous man is waiting at home for me. I go all in, pushing my red, white, and blue chips into the center pile, exaggeratedly, for effect, not caring to act cool or put on a poker face. I have a winning hand.
“So, Jane,” Gretchen slurs, the fourth glass of champagne hitting her full blast as she reveals she’s only holding a queen high, “you haven’t told us any sex stories and you’re the one with the new man. You have the good stuff.”
I wait for Natalie, the last one left. Kelly has folded. My sister shows her cards, two aces, two queens. I lay down my three jacks. There’s a moment at the table when we all sort of look to each other, as if to ask who won. After all, we’ve never pretended we could take down anyone in a tournament. Gretchen whips out her cheat sheet, a list of all the poker hands.
“And the pot goes to the brunette!”
I wrap my arms around the chips, pulling them all toward me, knowing Ethan will be thrilled that I’ve won and that I’ll take him out for pad thai tomorrow night when it’s my time with him. As I count my chips to cash them in, Gretchen tries again. “C’mon, Jane. Give us something. Tell us a story.”
Part of me wants to tell them everything—that Matthew is the most incredible lover in the solar system, galaxy, universe. And that I get to have him. But is that fair? I’ve already won $103 tonight and I get to have him, too. An embarrassment of riches, indeed.
But you have to give the audience something. “I don’t like to kiss and tell,” I say coyly, twirling a strand of hair with my index finger for effect. “But I’ll leave you with this thought.”
Then I add in a dramatic pause. I remove my lip liner from my blue shoulder bag, apply it, then add the lipstick. I sling the bag over my shoulder and stand up, placing both of my hands flat on the table. “Every night, my friends. Every single solitary night.”
…
I take a cab to my home in Murray Hill, eager to see my man. He has a key now, so he texted me to tell me he was already there, that he’d be patiently waiting for me. Matthew knows how to keep himself busy. He’s perfectly content with whatever paperback he is onto now. He eats up books.
But he’ll be there when I get home in a few minutes. He’ll smile when I come in and keep reading as I brush my teeth, wash my face, and join him in the bedroom. He’ll watch me as I undress and slide into bed next to him. Then he’ll place his book on the nightstand, the same nightstand where I keep the review he wrote just for me in the drawer.
He’s no longer able to review my albums for Beat, due to conflict of interest. But the day my album was released, he gave me a handwritten review, in his choppy, slanted penmanship and said, “This is what I would have written.”
I once said that the best songs come from broken hearts. I’m going to need to issue an addendum to that statement. I still believe that’s true, but there are also great songs that have nothing to do with love at all—witness The Clash’s “London Calling,” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” John Lennon’s “Imagine”—and then there are great songs that are all about love, full-bore, head-on, crazy-about-you love. Think about Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line,” The Beatles’s “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” Oh wait, that’s about sex. Well, there are some pretty good songs about that, too. And Jane Black has now added to the canon of shtupping songs with a few heady numbers of her own on her new album.
I didn’t frame that review. But after I read it, we decided to make a list of all the great sexy songs. That’s in the nightstand drawer, too, and several tunes are already crossed off. Because we made a vow to make love to every shtupping song ever written. Turns out there are a hell of a lot of those, too.
I unlock the door and find him lounging on my couch, reading a book. He tosses it on the coffee table, stands up, and walks over to me.
Okay, so maybe he can’t wait till I brush my teeth and get in bed, and that’s fine with me.
“Please tell me you won enough for me to retire and live the life of the arm candy of the sexiest rock star I’ve ever known,” he says, pressing his palms together in a plaintive prayer.
I smile broadly. “As if you’d be content to be arm candy.”
“I’d be willing to try.” He pulls me in for a kiss. As soon as his lips touch mine, I am warm all over, my skin tingling. I angle my body against his, signaling that I can’t wait much longer either.
“I want more,” I tell him.
“You will always have more with me, Jane. Don’t you realize that now? I have an absolutely insatiable appetite when it comes to you.” He takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom, opens the nightstand drawer, and considers the list. He taps the list with a pencil. “Oh, look what’s on it. ‘Physical.’”
I laugh as he tosses the paper on the nightstand and pulls me down onto the bed. “We’re not doing it to my song.”
“Why not?”
“That’s weird, don’t you think?”
“So you want to use Olivia Newton-John’s version?”
“I’d have to break out my leg warmers then.”
“Oddly enough, I’d still find you fetching even in leg warmers,” he says, then pins me down and rains kisses all along my neck, then from my jawline to my earlobe. “Or we could just use any of those songs you wrote about the English Sex God you’re madly in love with.”
“Hmm,” I say as if I’m deep in thought. “I did write some songs about you. Some songs about how much I want you, and how much I love you,” I say, wrapping my legs around his waist.
“I intend to give you inspiration on both counts for a very long time. For always, in fact.”
“Always?”
He nods resolutely. “Always. Because that’s how long I’ll want you, and that’s how long I’ll love you.”
I like the sound of that. I like it a lot.
Epilogue
Matthew
One Year Later…
“Almost there.”
As we near our destination, Jane stops ogling the scenery through the tinted windows of the town car—even though the view is simply of red and white brick buildings and homes in this section of London—to make a pronouncement: “For the record, I am ridiculously excited to finally see the Abbey Road crossing.”
“It’s a crime that you’ve performed in London twice and never stopped by for a visit,” I say.
“I know. But it’s being rectified today.”
“Alas, such is my role in your life. Rectifying all past violations of proper codes and procedures of visiting London as a rock star.”
Familiar blocks flash past the windows, like a countdown. I’ve been here many times, so I know we’ll be arriving any minute. I ask the driver to pull over on the next block.
“Absolutely
, sir,” he answers.
Ethan elbows me, and shoots a crazy grin. “Sir! They all say sir, here.”
“But of course. We’re in the homeland now. Everything must be proper,” I say, teasing Jane’s seven-year-old son.
Ethan straightens up, adopting a very serious tone. “Hello. Now I am British. Now I will talk funny.”
“So you’re trying to say I talk funny?”
“Kind of,” he says with a shrug.
I turn to Jane, hold out my hands as if to say what can you do?
“Well, I think it’s been double and triply noted that I’m rather fond of your accent,” she says, leaning her shoulder against mine. “You know, that whole I’ll Objectify You song and all.”
I reach for her hand, lace my fingers through hers. I don’t want to say much in front of Ethan about the genesis of that song, but suffice to say it stemmed from one of our most favorite activities. A daily practice, if you will. But then, many of the songs on her last album were also inspired by love as well, and many of the tunes on her next one, too. She’s been writing like a fiend in the last year, and is about to release another album in a few weeks. But before she goes on tour, we’re taking a vacation, and her son is with us.
“So what did you think of Hogwarts?” I ask Ethan, as the car idles at a stoplight.
He gives me a funny look. “Was that really Hogwarts?”
“Of course it was Hogwarts,” I say, doing my best to remain completely serious. “Doesn’t Hogwarts exist?”
“If you say so,” he says, but he seems skeptical that Buckingham Palace is a school of wizardry, and I suppose all things being equal, that’s a good thing.
The car slows to a stop on the left side of the road.
Jane shakes her head in amusement, her long curly hair framing her gorgeous face. “Still think that’s the weirdest thing in the entire world. You drive on the wrong side of the road here,” she says.
“And I still find it odd that you Americans manage every day on the right side of the road. Who can even fathom that kind of vehicular insanity?”
The driver walks over to her door and opens it first, and I reach for Ethan’s elbow when Jane’s not looking. “You ready, mate?”
He nods, a serious look on his face. “I am all set, Matthew.”
“You’re only doing this because it means The Doctor is going to live with you full time, right,” I say with a wink, referring to my dog who Ethan has become incredibly fond of. We regularly take The Doctor for walks in Central Park, and he rarely tires of throwing her a Frisbee. They’re a perfect match since she rarely tires of catching one.
“Yes, sir,” he says playfully. “But I also think my mom likes you.”
“Let’s hope she likes me enough.”
Then we join Jane at one of the most popular tourist spots in London, but yet, I don’t think she’ll mind that it’s a draw. Jane’s never seen it before and that’s a damn sin as far as I’m concerned.
I watch her take it in, and she’s wide-eyed and smiling, and seeing her happy never gets old. Fine, it’s a street crossing, but it’s more than a street crossing. It’s an icon of music history and if there’s one thing that thrills my rock star of a girlfriend it’s the legends of music.
“Let’s reenact it,” she declares and grabs my hand, then Ethan’s.
I kind of knew that was coming. It’s impossible not to walk in the Fab Four’s footsteps, and so what if there are only three of us?
“Wait! We need four,” Ethan says, then solves the conundrum immediately. “Let’s ask the driver.”
So the four of us cross Abbey Road, recreating the album cover. When we reach the other side, I’m nervous but also thoroughly ready for what’s next.
I nod to Ethan and he takes my iPhone from his back pocket. “Hey, mom. Do you like this song?”
She looks at him curiously, waiting for the notes to reveal themselves. Then the familiar opening sounds of “All You Need is Love” play.
And that means it’s my turn.
“I can’t think of a better song to express how I feel for you or a better moment to ask you a question I’ve been wanting to ask for some time.” I reach for her hand as her eyes widen, and she clasps a hand to her mouth. “Jane Black, you are the most amazing woman I’ve ever known, and the last year with you has been the happiest of my life, so I see no reason why every year shouldn’t be like that. I am insanely, madly, completely, absolutely and thoroughly in love with you, and it would do me the great honor if you could become my wife.”
Then I drop to one knee and reach for a small velvet box in the pocket of my jeans. I open it, and she’s already saying yes. There are tears in her eyes, happy tears on her cheeks, and her arms are around my neck.
I slide the ring onto her finger, and my heart is soaring with her answer.
“Does that mean I’m going to be a baroness?”
I laugh. “I would be delighted to refer to you as Mrs. Baroness Jane Black.”
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About the Author
A #1 New York Times Bestselling author, and #1 Wall Street Journal Bestselling author, Lauren Blakely is known for her contemporary romance style that’s hot, sweet, and sexy. She lives in California with her family and has plotted entire novels while walking her dogs. With fourteen New York Times bestsellers, her titles have appeared on the New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal Bestseller Lists more than 100 times, and she’s sold more than 2.5 million books. To receive an email when Lauren releases a new book, sign up for her newsletter! laurenblakely.com/newsletter
Also by Lauren Blakely…
Burn for Me
Melt for Him
Consumed by You
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