FLIRTING WITH DISASTER
A Noble Pass Affaire Novella
A Noble Pass Affaire Novella Series
Flirting with Fire by Misty Dietz
Flirting with Disaster by Josie Matthews
Flirting with Sin by Naima Simone
Flirting with Fate by Jerrie Alexander
Flirting with the Devil by Kym Roberts
Coming Soon from Josie Matthews
Crazy For Loving You
A Josie Matthews Publication.......
FLIRTING WITH DISASTER
COPYRIGHT © 2015 by Josie Matthews
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Josie Matthews Publishing
September 2015
Print ISBN: 978-0-9965550-0-5
Electronic ISBN: 978-0-9965550-1-2
Cover Illustrator: Misty Dietz,
www.MistyDietz.com
Edited by: A.J. Nuest,
www.AJNuest.com
Interior Design by: Top-ePublishing Services,
www.Top-ePublishingServices.com
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Acknowledgements
So many people to acknowledge and thank for their support, guidance and encouragement. It takes a diehard team to create a few moments of feel-good fantasy for my readers.
To my family: Thanks for staring at the back of my head and realizing I didn’t hear a word you said while I was writing.
To Mom and Dad: For your belief and support over the years.
To my most awesome editor, A.J. Nuest: You have the patience of all the saints combined, and a kick-ass sense of exactly what I need.
To my Chick Swagger sisters, Misty, Kym, Jerrie, A.J., and Naima: Thanks for your unending patience, support, and guidance through this process.
Thanks to my critique partners, Misty, Jo, and Rachel who always steer me in the right direction when I get antsy!
A big hug to my Chick Swagger Sirens Street Team for their awesome support!
To Char and Shelly: Thanks for your humor, support and invaluable input through my imaginings.
For Michael, since he wouldn’t read it until he could buy it.
One
“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.”
Albert Einstein
“How many calories are in a…Screaming Orgasm?” Jude Duffy glanced at the young man behind the bar in hopes of some guidance. “No, wait…what about the Bend Over Shirley? Could I have that with seltzer instead of Sprite? Or the Mickey Slim, maybe?”
She returned the drink list to the bar. “I knew a man named Mickey once. He attended one of my studies regarding the hormonal imbalances of mono-zygotic twins in relationship to the concordance for homosexuality.”
Alas, Jude wouldn’t likely experience the sterile safety of her precious lab ever again.
She sighed and slid the resort brochure from her purse. Castle Alainn in October, A Mystical Adventure. Jude snorted. This whole vacation/contest win, organized by her dear Aunt Agnes before her death a month ago, was nothing but a frivolous excursion to help Jude forget the most humiliating moment of her life. And she hated frivolity. It was a threat to her safety and the safety of those around her. She was not a frivolous type of being if one considered her PhD, her Chevy Spark Hatchback, and the 401K she’d invested in since she was sixteen.
The bartender’s brows lifted. “Honey, how about we start with a nice Long Island Iced Tea?” The room echoed with the delight of other patrons, muffling the bartender’s comments. “You look a little…uptight.”
Jude relaxed a bit on the bar stool. “Yes, an iced tea would be lovely.” A simple iced tea for an unfamiliar experience. Perfect. “Is your water filtered? I’d prefer spring water, if that’s okay?” He smiled and turned away. She reached into her purse for an antibacterial wipe, cleansed her hands and the bar surface before tucking the wipe safely into the sleeve of her cardigan.
The place was beautiful. Exposed beams, luxurious couches, and ornate chandeliers. This castle resort in Noble Pass, Colorado was known for its reclusive opulence—owned by an eclectic Irish couple who organized a ridiculous “Noble Pass Affaire” contest each month. And the prize? A week’s stay to give a failure like her a break from her unpalatable state of affairs.
Too bad October’s win had been wasted on a thirty-eight-year-old, misanthropic virgin like her.
“Here you go, Sweetie.”
Jude glanced at the bartender’s name tag. “Thank you, Steven.”
He nodded then winked and walked away. She sipped from the tall crystal glass, the sweet, pungent flavor tweaking her taste buds while she admired the rustic architecture of the room.
That horrid Harry Strubel Show would air across the country tonight. When Evan, her ex-fiancé, had introduced her to the producers of the famous talk show three months ago, she’d been under the impression she was to appear to discuss her anthropological studies. The ones she’d been conducting with her research team to debunk the antagonistic myths for the causes of homosexuality.
Instead, she’d been used as nothing but a prop for a comedic debacle involving her fiancé…and his newly acquired Latin lover.
She’d been so imbecilic. Evan had been perfect during their three year engagement, but Jude should’ve listened when her lab partner had voiced her concerns over Evan’s uncanny ability to yard sale for hours on end, and the fact he wore eyeliner…sometimes.
Jude had just figured he was inextricably in touch with his feminine side, a metro sexual. But her foresight and intelligence had been sabotaged by her innate yearning to be a mother, have a family.
Harry Strubel had to point out her pedantic impotence, her complete deficiency in the face of her fellow anthropologists—on national television—by having Evan announce he was leaving her for the effeminate Timothy Cammarerra, her wedding planner. She sincerely hoped Timothy dumped Evan one day for an androgynous hooker from Henry Street. After tonight’s airing, she’d forever be known as the “Honey, you’re nice, but I like his package better than yours” girl.
God, the humiliation.
She sipped from her second iced tea—Steven was so obliging and prompt with his refills—and glanced toward the couple two stools down. The male was going to leave his partner. The body language, the incongruity of their appearances, the apathetic physiognomy…love was a game for fools.
Jude had been more in love with the idea of being married so she could start a family—something she’d never had—than she’d ever been in love with Evan.
It was tough to love a man who had better eyebrows than her.
She cringed and stirred her iced tea. Maybe she should’ve gone with the Rocky Mountain Bear Fucker. She needed something strong and alcoholic to numb the shame. Plain old iced tea just wasn’t cutting it.
Nine-fifty. Ten minutes until her national humiliation, the end of her career, the end of any credibility she’d ever had in the world of science. How had she not known? Had she been so out of touch with her own life, she’d not even noticed the signs?
She snorted. More likely, she’d just chose to ignore them in the arbitrary pursuit of some diaphanous dream of love, family…belonging. Maybe she needed a change in her life.
Jude scanned the ba
r. No televisions, thank goodness. No one here would recognize her. Except maybe that dark, mysterious creature skulking in the corner like he was one of the damned.
She sipped her drink and squinted. He looked dangerous. Maybe he was a plant by the castle owners. A brooding, enigmatic monster to add some whimsy to the Halloween season.
She glanced back at the flyer on the bar. Mystical Adventure.
From the looks of it, Mr. Mystical, Dark, and Handsome was contemplating murder over a scotch. He wore all black with a messy length of hair accented by a widow’s peak.
Dracula, yes. He would be Dracula tonight.
He turned and glowered in her direction, and her gaze drifted to the long, ragged scar down his left cheek. He didn’t look amicable. More spine-chilling in an I-want-to-eat-you kind of way.
Typical, provocative specter material.
She shivered. Definitely The Beast of Castle Alainn.
“Steven, I’ll have another, please. These are quite refreshing. Do you use an herbal tea?” The words had some trouble exiting her tongue. Steven just smiled and left to fill her order.
Nine-fifty-nine. Maybe Evan would stab himself in the privates with one of his knitting needles. She snorted and iced tea shot from her nose. She grabbed a napkin and held it to her face, torn between laughing and crying.
He’d used her. Used her on national television to catapult his nonexistent acting career. He’d be famous after this. And she’d be ruined.
She glanced at the grand clock behind the bar. Her heart raced and her breathing became labored. Tears swelled in her eyes.
“You need help, miss?”
Jude stiffened. That deep rasp sent chills down her body like a good head massage at the hairdressers. She wiped at her tears with the sleeve of her cardigan. “Only if you happen to have a shotgun with a real strong scope.”
“I left it in my pickup with some roadkill I picked up for dinner and a carton of unfiltered Camels.”
She turned and encountered…The Scarred Beast. Her breath caught at his sheer masculine beauty, despite the jagged scar running from his temple to his chin and marring his high cheekbone. His eyes were the color of rich whiskey, reflecting the candlelight in the room. And his hair… A decadent, wavy brown that beckoned her fingers.
His angled brows lowered over those ethereal, piercing eyes. “What’s his name?”
Jude gaped, transfixed. He was doing that mind trick thing vampires did. She was sure of it. “I call him Asshole,” she muttered.
The Beast smirked. Not an amiable smirk, by any means, the left side of his mouth slightly crooked from the scar. “I’m sure.”
“Here’s your drink, miss,” Steven interrupted.
Beast continued to stare into her eyes, doing his mind trick thing, keeping her captivated with his savage beauty. “That will be enough, Steven. Ms.…?”
“D…Darling…” She couldn’t dare tell anyone her real name for fear of connecting her with The Harry Strubel Show.
“Ms. Darling has had more than enough.” Her false name poured from his beautiful lips like smooth, heated rum…with a twist of suspicious intuition.
Something in the back of her muddled mind protested. “On the contrary, Steven. Thank you very much.” She grabbed the glass while glaring into those vampire eyes, wiped blindly at the rim with her napkin to be sure it was relatively clean, and chugged.
She slammed the glass down on the bar and folded her hands in her lap. Hopefully, she hadn’t dripped any on her Brunello Cucinelli, organza, waterfall maxi.
“I hope you enjoyed that. Those drinks contain about five shots of liquor.”
“Nonsenssse.” She flicked her wrist at the young bartender. “Steven has made me a special iced tea, knowing I’m from New York. Are the tea leaves grown on Long Island?”
Steven smiled as he washed a glass. “No, but the alcohol may have been distilled there.”
Her mouth dropped as The Beast’s smirk widened into a full-out, condescending grin. His teeth were remarkably white—Hollywood, toothpaste-ad, white. She squinted and looked a little closer at his canines for extrusive points. “Are you a…vampire?” she slurred.
Jude Duffy never slurred her words. She hiccupped, and quickly covered her mouth. Maybe The Beast/Count could use those beautiful, sharp, white teeth on Evan’s cheating penis.
She laughed into her hand. Needing a respite, she stood to leave, but her foot tangled with the leg of the stool. Her body tilted, the floor approached…
A muscular arm wrapped around her waist and righted her descent.
Nailed it.
His alluring scent wrapped her in a cocoon of seduction that was completely unfamiliar. “Maybe I should escort you.”
Escort. Is that what Count Vampire was? A male escort supplied by the Castle to entertain plain, boring spinsters like her? “Is that your game, sir? Are you planning on taking advantage of me, by ravishing me to satisfy your primal urges for sexual satiation?”
His grin mocked her. Her hand rose to touch the offensive brute’s bladed, scarred cheekbone, an insatiable need to assess the contradiction of perfection and destruction. His features froze, a portrait of impassioned torment. She quickly recovered and clenched her fingers.
He stepped back, the movement so fluid she was momentarily drawn toward him. “No ravishing tonight, Ms. Darling,” he stated blandly. “Consider me only your polite escort. Management rules.”
Jude tried to organize his words in her foggy brain, but she kept getting mired in his thick, masculine purr. “So, you’re an escort? A male escort? And you are rejecting me based on management rules?”
Her virgin-self, damned the management. So unlike her. Dr. Jude Duffy was polite, polished, and poised. She tucked a fallen lock of hair back into her tight bun. Her life was perfectly ordered. It was safest that way.
“It’s for the best.” His features gave nothing of his thoughts away. “Trust me.”
“Fine.” Insulted, she slung her Nina Ricci bucket bag over her shoulder. She took one step and found the floor wasn’t as level as she’d expected. It was an old castle.
Count Beast steadied her again with the agility of an athlete. His touch electrified her. The tingling vectors shot through her body like a lightning storm. It was…mystifying. Familiar in a way no stranger’s touch should be, yet utterly compelling. She melted into his arms, wanting to stay there forever, his spicy scent enveloping her in a fog of comfort, need, and…lust.
Just how un-orderly could the resident gigolo, Beast-Count make her life? Because, incontestably, order and management hadn’t done shit for her up to this point.
She righted herself and teetered toward the exit before any other frivolous, foreign feelings invaded.
A burst of laughter shot from a group of three couples, sitting abreast the huge stone fireplace, surveying a cell phone in harmony. “How the hell did she not know? Just look at him. He’s wearing blush and he’s prettier than my first wife!”
She stopped in her tracks and her ass landed on the nearest barstool. “Steven! Another iced tea, please. No, scratch that. I need something stronger. Give me that Screaming Orgasm from a Fucking Rock Bear!”
And Jude Duffy never cursed.
Two
“Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted.”
Albert Einstein
What the hell was she doing here?
Fate was a villainous bitch.
Beckette Slader let the cold water cascade over his body, hoping it would calm the massive erection he’d acquired ever since meeting prim, proper, Jude Darling Duffy.
He’d recognized her immediately, but he had no business approaching her tonight. No right to infect her life, once again, with the specter of his noxiousness. That was his cross to bear.
He’d ruined her future long ago, unbeknownst to her. He wouldn’t do it again.
So why had he approached her? Why was he so drawn to her after
only one, short meeting?
He’d never been attracted to gingers. He hadn’t been attracted to any woman in forever. That flaming red hair, bolted to her head like a sniper’s helmet. How was it she didn’t have a massive headache? The pale skin, the freckles—he hated freckles—and those slanty green eyes? She resembled an evil, orange tabby.
What the fuck had he been thinking?
His erection throbbed. He had to stop obsessing over a woman he didn’t even know. It was diabolical. He’d been celibate for twelve months—as long as he’d been sober—because sex and alcohol had just gone together for him.
The alcohol had helped him forget his cursed past, and the sex had naturally followed. A “Hail Mary” attempt to feel something—anything—again. Now, tonight, the torrid emotions running through his veins were so foreign and ludicrous, he had to wonder about the stories Alana and Liam had told him about the castle. The secret powers it had to grant the residents’ deepest desires. The ghosts.
In this moment, the most urgent desire he had, was to get off.
He grabbed his cock and went at it, thinking about her. That smart mouth, those plump lips wrapped around him, instead of his raspy, callused hand. Those gorgeous eyes staring up at him with trust and love.
He laughed at those two words, then came harder than he had in ages. He couldn’t be trusted. He didn’t trust himself, not to slide back into the clutches of alcoholism, destroying people’s lives again.
Like he’d destroyed Jude’s, all those years ago.
And Elizabeth’s.
He’d started drinking to fill the gaping wounds of an emotionally abusive father. Sadly, the alcohol bored holes in every part of his life, and had failed to fill his sorrow.
But that was the past. He had to move on and stop blaming Dad for all his shit. He’d finally been given a second chance at rekindling his acting career.
Immersing himself in the numbing hours of pretending to be someone else, would keep him from his demons. This lead in an upcoming motion picture would be his big break, after years of landing weak roles in daytime soaps because of his riotous reputation. The producers of the new vampire-themed movie were willing to give him a chance, but they wanted a respectable professional for the romantic lead.
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