Rush
Page 28
She nodded vigorously, her teeth gleamed at me from within her wide smile.
I stood behind her, letting my body graze the back of hers. My breath was heavy against her ear. She shivered. The fact that I could still elicit such a visceral reaction after all this time was a boost to my ego, and my heart. I didn’t think I would ever get enough of Everly Parker. And the surprise inside this room just meant we could spend even more time together, wrapped in each other’s arms, laughing, crying—well, Everly might cry—and suppressing our desire for as long as our bodies could hold out.
I placed my hand across her eyes and whispered, “Keep them closed.”
I reached forward, unlocking the door, then pushed it open. Guiding us inside, I kept my grip across her face and turned on the light with my free hand.
I heard her soft gasp and then she yelled, “Holy crap! We have our own theater.”
I had renovated the bedroom into our own movie theater. I remembered how much she’d loved the theater at my dad’s house. I thought it was the perfect place for us to curl up and relax.
“We don’t have very much spare time together.” Not with me running the hotel, and as soon as she figured out what she was going to do career-wise, we’d have even less time. “I thought I could bring date night to us.”
A sixty-inch television spanned almost one entire wall. Another wall housed my entire collection of DVDs. I’d bought Apple TV so we could access Netflix and iTunes. In the corner, I had even bought her a popcorn machine. Not to mention, I had spent two weeks trying to find the perfect double recliner set that had a removable middle so we could snuggle together.
“It’s awesome. I love it.”
She might like it, but I could see it in her eyes. I studied her face. It wasn’t the elation I was expecting. She was disappointed.
“You don’t like it?” My stomach seized.
“I do.” She lunged at me, wrapping her arms around me. “It’s wonderful. It’s just…I was expecting something else.”
“What were you expecting?” I hadn’t talked about the surprise at all. I had no idea what she could have expected.
She shook her head, not wanting to tell me.
“No way. I went to a lot of trouble to get this done without you knowing. You owe me.”
“I thought…” A blush fell across her face. She was embarrassed. What the hell did she have to be embarrassed about? She tipped her head up and rested her chin on my chest. “I thought it was going to be a sex room.”
“A what?”
“A sex room. You know…” She stepped away and waved her cute, little hand around. “…with like the swing and maybe one of those Liberator things, or some restraint apparatus.” Her face flushed. “Oh, God.” She cradled her face in her hands.
A sex room? This caught me completely off guard. Our sex life had been off the charts over the last six months, despite how busy we were. We’d been experimenting with new things—and watching a lot of porn to keep the ideas coming. No pun intended.
Just because the bucket list was finished didn’t mean I had to stop my mission to bring her pleasure. On the contrary, the game was much more fun when I got to make the rules. I would never get tired of bringing her pleasure and I’d never get tired of the rush I felt every time I made her happy.
I stepped in, placing my hands on her waist. “I’m happy to try whatever you want. I just never thought you’d want a whole…sex room.”
“We’ve just been spending so much time trying different stuff, I thought maybe…” Her shoulders slumped. “Plus, when I came home the other night, Sadie was here.”
I lifted my chin in realization. “She just stopped by to say hello.”
Everly had told me how helpful Sadie had been that day they’d gone to the sex store.
I laughed. “She wasn’t here on a sex toy mission.” If I had been coordinating a sex room, I wouldn’t have needed her help, but I was still shocked by her admission. “So you want a sex room.”
“It’s not like I want one, but I wouldn’t object if one day I came home and there were things to play with.” She grinned.
“Well, we do have a third bedroom.” I winked. I could definitely make it happen if that’s what she wanted. I hugged her close.
She sighed and rested her cheek on my chest. Her tiny whisper, traveled from below. “Is this for real?”
“Yeah, it’s all bought and paid for, babe.” For as long as I lived, Everly would be wanting for nothing. Even if that meant I had to sit back and watch her achieve it on her own.
She shook her head and looked up. “I mean this life. Us.” Her eyes softened. “Is this for real?”
I pulled her into my body, wrapping my arms around her as tightly as I could. “It’s very real.”
Everly Parker had changed my life. I could never repay her for the confidence she’d held in me, the belief that I could be anything that I wanted.
“You and I are going to get everything in this life that we want, and not because we have money.” I kissed her forehead. “Because we have each other.”
For my mom, who let me follow my own path.
Acknowledgments
I loved writing this book. It was a strange and simple task. Never has an idea flourished so vividly in my mind and never have the words flown onto the screen with such ease. I hope you love reading Everly and Max’s journey as much as I loved writing it.
Thank you to Sue Grimshaw! Your endless excitement and support during this whole process has been refreshing and much appreciated. Thank you for taking a chance on an heir to a porn empire.
Thank you to my agent, Victoria Lowes. Here’s to many more years of plotting.
Thank you to Amanda Usen and her super brainstorming skills. It’s amazing to have a job that makes it acceptable to talk about heroes with librarian fetishes.
Thank you, Cari Quinn, for inspiring me to try my hand at New Adult.
As always, thank you to the ladies who keep me sane, Lindsay Below, Stacey Kennedy, Cristal Ryder, and Debra Kayn.
BY GINA GORDON
Rush
About the Author
When her dream of becoming a mafia princess didn’t pan out, GINA GORDON went after her second dream: becoming a writer. And she hasn’t looked back. A self-proclaimed happily-ever-after junkie and cupcake connoisseur, Gordon loves spinning contemporary tales of knee-bending first kisses, unconditional love, and super-hot sex. She lives in Milton, Ontario, with her husband and their lovable dog.
ginagordon.net
Facebook.com/AuthorGinaGordon
@GordonGina
The Editor’s Corner
May flowers are abloom and so are our fabulous Loveswept romances—beautiful covers and stories to fill your eReaders to the brim!
New this month is New York Times bestselling author Tracy Wolff’s next Ethan Frost installment, Exposed—the more time I can spend with Chloe and Ethan the more “happy-happy-happy” I am. Next up is a new storyteller we’ve added to our list, Gina Gordon, and her risqué love affair, Rush, where a bad boy shows a straitlaced law student how to slow down and savor the good things. And what happens when you start falling for your worst enemy? New York Times bestselling author Missy Johnson and debut author Ashley Suzanne tell you all about it in Breaking Noah. The final installment of The Devil’s Den dancers by Violetta Rand also comes out this month, so look for Sin. The third book in Cecy Robson’s Shattered Past series Once Pure, will be on sale as well, where true love lands a knockout punch.
Western contemporary fans will be thrilled to know USA Today bestselling author Tina Leonard’s Last of the Red-Hot Riders will be available, featuring the toughest rodeo rider in Hell, Texas.
And, PNR fans, never fear—Witches Be Burned, A Magic & Mayhem novel releases from USA Today bestselling author Stacey Kennedy, where a rookie guardian sworn to combat the undead risks life and love in a world of violence, witchcraft, and seduction.
New Adult audiences will enjoy Amber Hart’s Captur
ed by You, the sequel to Until You Find Me, in which Raven and Jospin must fight for each other in a world where love is never safe—and power is deadly.
Meet new friends this month with Loveswept books—stories that invite you on fabulous journeys with some pretty amazing characters. Who knows, you may find a new book boyfriend, too!
Until next month ~Happy Romance!
Gina Wachtel
Associate Publisher
Read on for an excerpt from
Crushed
by Lauren Layne
Available from Flirt
Chapter 1
Michael
“Your shirt’s untucked in the back.”
I turn, giving a half smile of gratitude to the blonde who’s just followed me out of the unisex restroom at the Cambridge Country Club tennis courts.
She giggles as she runs a hand over her tennis skirt, smoothing it over tanned, toned thighs. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into doing that in a public restroom.”
Yeah. Right. I hadn’t talked Mindy McLaughlin into shit. Everything from the location to the position had been her idea.
But I don’t remind her of this.
If I’ve learned anything in my first month as tennis pro to the rich and richer, it’s that cougars don’t like being reminded that they’re the ones doing the pursuing.
I give her a wink as I finish tucking in my shirt, before scanning the courts to make sure we don’t have any witnesses to the fact that we just spent the first twenty minutes of Mindy’s sixty-minute tennis lesson fucking against the wall of a bathroom stall.
Luckily, it’s the middle of the day and hot as hell. Most people hit the courts in the early morning or not at all.
Mindy follows me to the benches, where we retrieve our rackets. “Should we finish up?” I ask.
She lets out a low laugh, running pink manicured nails down the front of my white polo. “I think we already did that.”
I ignore this, and hold up the tennis ball questioningly.
“It’s hot,” she whines.
It is. Way too fucking hot to play tennis. She still has forty minutes left, but I’m not all that surprised that she wants to bail. We both know she didn’t come down here for the tennis.
It’s just as well. I hate the damn sport. I only work the courts three days a week, and my lesson schedule is packed with women who are probably better at tennis than I am.
I’m passably decent at tennis, because, once upon a time, I was one of the spoiled brats taking lessons, not giving them. I don’t love the sport. I’m not like these other douche bags that work the courts and make a big show of how they could have gone pro if they wanted.
My tennis skills aren’t why I was hired, and I damn well know it. Growing up on the Upper East Side of New York taught me early that women of the idle rich class get bored easily. A boredom they often ease by taking up with men other than their husbands.
Fortunately for me, most of my life I was blissfully unaware that my own mother fell into that category of straying housewives.
Ignorance truly is bliss.
And when ignorance is over?
All hell breaks loose.
“Same time next week?” she asks, moving toward me and tilting her face up.
I know what she wants. A kiss that I have no intention of giving.
I sidestep, setting my racket and ball on the bench.
“Can I buy you a drink?” she asks. She does an unnecessary stretch that strains her white top across full—definitely fake—breasts.
For the briefest of moments, I feel chokingly bored by it all, but I force myself to embrace the boredom.
“No, thanks. I’ve got a lesson after this.”
“What about tomorrow? I was thinking I should maybe add a second lesson in the week. To keep me loose.” She winks.
Christ. Really?
“Can’t,” I say. “I’m working the gym tomorrow. I alternate giving tennis lessons and being a personal trainer.”
I like the latter a lot better. It involves air-conditioning.
Her eyes light up both with interest and a competitive gleam. “Do I know any of your personal-trainer clients?”
Probably half of your book club, Bible club, and Junior League.
I’d screwed a good portion of them, too, and it’s obvious that Mindy McLaughlin is eager to know her competition.
“Well,” she says, leaning forward when I don’t respond, “if you ever decide to take a little break, you know just who to call.”
“Sure do,” I say, giving her a sleepy look that’s always seemed to have a way with women.
Well, all women but one. The one who mattered.
Normally, I’d be more than happy to be late to my next lesson in order to scratch Mindy’s second itch of the day and help her forget that she’s married to a high-powered judge with a potbelly.
But Mrs. McLaughlin has one unavoidable disadvantage working against her.
Today is Wednesday.
And on Wednesdays, I have a client I want more than Mindy McLaughlin.
After a few more failed come-ons, Mrs. McLaughlin finally gives up, although I know she’ll be coming with her A-game next week. Her skirt shorter, her lips glossier, her invitations more blatant.
I check out her ass on principle as she walks away, running the towel over my face before finishing a bottle of water in three gulps.
One more lesson before I can escape to Pig and Scout, the dive bar where I sometimes work nights. Generally, I count the hours until P&S; it’s a welcome break from all the pretension.
Although…
Today is Wednesday. And on Wednesdays, I’m not in such a hurry.
Despite what the other guys think about their athletic skills, I know we “tennis pros” are merely the pool boys of the country club. We’re supposed to be ripped, a little bit dangerous, and not clinging too closely to our morals.
I have no problem with any of those, especially the last one, even if it does get old after a while.
But my hour a week with Kristin Bellamy makes it all worth it.
I see Kristin approaching out of the corner of my eye, but deliberately don’t turn to check her out, even subtly.
See, forty-two-year-old women like Mindy McLaughlin are forever afraid they’re “losing it.” They need the confirmation that they’re still worth looking at.
But twenty-two-year-old girls like Kristin Bellamy know they’ve got it.
The trick to reeling those in is making them wonder if you’ve noticed.
“Hey, Michael.”
I turn to face her, keeping my expression indifferent. “Kristin.”
Yeah, I definitely notice her.
She’s wearing only a white sports bra and a tiny white tennis skirt. I’m pretty sure the club has some sort of policy requiring members to wear a little more clothing, but considering the place is run by a bunch of doddering old dudes, I doubt they’re going to order Kristin to cover up her tanned, toned stomach and perky tits.
My eyes don’t linger, returning quickly to her face, and she appears not to mind that I don’t check her out.
It’s a game we’ve been playing for weeks now.
For the life of me I can’t figure out who’s winning.
I only know the endgame. Her. Me. In bed. Or wherever.
Kristin is the first girl to interest me—truly interest me—since Olivia Middleton. The only girl I’ve ever really wanted. And definitely the only one I’ve ever loved.
Not that I have any intention of loving Kristin. I’m not going that route again, ever.
But I do want her. And not just because she has a smoking body. Kristin has a key connection to my very reason for being in Texas.
“Saw Mindy on my way down here,” Kristin says, giving a little twirl of her racket as she moves closer. “Everything go okay with your lesson? She looked kind of irritated.”
I toss my towel aside with an indifferent shrug. “It’s hot. Makes everyone edgy.”
Looks like you didn’t bear it at all, I almost say. But I don’t. I just pretend like I don’t notice the way her current posture shows off the lean curve of her waist.
Kristin looks nothing like Olivia. Olivia was blond with warm green eyes, whereas Kristin is dark-haired with scheming brown eyes. But they have that same combination of sweet and haughty, the same rich-girl fit body, same shy yet confident smile.
Kristin absently runs her fingertips over her bare abdomen and I nearly grin at the obviousness of her gesture.
Even as I want to haul her to me and give her the kiss she’s so blatantly asking for, I want to knock her down a peg. To tell her she’s nothing to me but a chance at redemption from my past, and the key to getting my foot in the door of my future.
Kristin Bellamy is nothing but a reminder of what it felt like to want someone.
“Should we get started?” I ask.
“Absolutely,” she says, flicking the ponytail back over her shoulder. “I’ll need all the practice I can get since I’m team captain next year.”
“You’ll be a senior, right?” I ask, even though I don’t really give a shit.
“Yup,” she says.
A snort comes from behind me, and I’m surprised to realize we’re no longer alone.
“Fifth-year senior,” the newcomer says, settling herself on the bench as though she belongs there.
“Sorry?” I ask, still trying to figure out where the hell this girl came from.
The girl nods in the direction of Kristin. “She’s already done her senior year. Next year she’ll be doing it again.”
I glance toward Kristin and see her giving the other girl a death glare.