by Serena Bell
He wrapped his arms tighter around her and kissed her hair. She wiggled against the hard length of him. She could go again. She was totally amenable to that. She could make love to him for another few days before she needed to come up for air. Although a pint of Ben & Jerry’s and a game of Scrabble would be nice right about now, too.
“So what are you thinking? About which to choose?”
“I’m thinking ‘celebrities.’ I’m thinking Rendezvous caters to the celeb set.” And then when his expression turned horrified, she said, “Kidding!”
“Phew. Don’t do that to me. Although—I guess if it means free trips to the Caribbean with you, I’m in.” He drew a line of kisses from her temple to the corner of her mouth, then opened his mouth softly over hers and took her breath away.
It took her a moment to be able to talk again. “Celebrities are clearly not my strong suit. I’m thinking, actually, that I want to go back to the old way. Just making really good matches for ordinary women who want lifelong marriages. It’s not glamorous, but it’s what I’m good at, and it’s what I love. And I have some fun news. Haven hired me to be her dating coach.”
He squinted at her. “Seriously? Haven needs a dating coach?”
“She says the overlap between the public relations skill set and the finding-a-mate-for-life skill set is approximately zero.”
“I can see that.” He turned Elisa in his arms so he could plant little kisses all over her face. “I guess if you can find a match for me, you can find one for anyone, huh?”
She tsked at him. “Hey. What did I tell you about that self-bashing?”
“Oops. Slipped. You’ll have to keep my mouth occupied ’til I learn.” He kissed her long and lingeringly on the mouth, his tongue teasing at the seam of her lips. “Mmm,” he said. Then he pulled back. “You know what would be good right now? Fresh baked chocolate chip cookies and a game of Scrabble.”
“That does sound good.” The Ben & Jerry’s fantasy transformed into a scoop of vanilla melting over the top of a warm cookie.
“First things first,” he said. “First I make you scream my name. Then I’ll order hot cookies and skunk you at Scrabble.”
She laughed. “You really have forgotten a lot about our past.”
“I always won.”
She bit his ear lightly. “You keep on believing that.”
He groaned. “Maybe I let you win sometimes.”
“Why don’t you stick with what you’re good at?”
“What’s that?”
“Making me scream your name.”
“I can do that.”
So he did. And then she whupped his ass at Scrabble.
* * * * *
Keep reading for an excerpt from MY SECRET FANTASIES by Joanne Rock.
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Prologue
“Is anyone there?” Shaelynn called, knocking on the door of the only house she’d seen after hours of walking through the cold, snowy dark. Her snowmobile had died miles from her hotel, crashing nose-first into a frozen stream. She’d lost her cell phone.
This Colorado getaway had stopped being fun and started being scary when she could no longer feel her toes. She had to get inside and get warm...fast.
“Hello?” She banged on the door again....
MY FINGERS HOVERED over the computer keys as I paused to reread what I’d just written. While my fictional heroine shivered in the mountains, I sat in my vacant L.A. apartment. All my worldly possessions were already packed in the SUV, and I was leaving town tomorrow. For tonight, I deserved a fun distraction. Ever since I’d taken it into my head to write a naughty novel, I’d been having a great time with my characters.
The world of steamy fiction was a vast improvement over my job as a struggling actress—a job I’d finally realized didn’t suit me one bit. And writing was far, far better than my awful experience on a popular reality series that had made me one of the most gossiped-about women in Los Angeles. Most of all, I had the sense that penning this book would finally heal some demons I’d been running from ever since I’d left home at eighteen. Closure on that dark chapter of my life was long overdue—especially since running from it had only made the past implode.
Drumming my fingers lightly along the keys, I forced those thoughts aside to concentrate on what happened next in the story, while on another screen, I waited for a reply on my instant message regarding a piece of property I wanted to see tomorrow. This business deal could give me the time and freedom to finally write my book. I’d scrimped and saved, living like a pauper, to finance the next phase of my life. Now that I’d won that reality game show series, I finally had enough starter money to get to work on my dreams. And not a minute too soon, given how much grief I’d taken because of the show ever since filming ended three weeks ago. Given how much grief a long-lost boyfriend was trying to create for me.
Shuddering, I turned back to the story.
“Is anyone home?” Shaelynn called one last time before she trudged through the knee-deep snow, her legs shaking from exhaustion and cold. Maybe she’d have better luck at the back door.
Shoving through the negligible barrier of an overgrown boxwood hedge, she peered around the back corner of the cabin. Another exterior light burned, just like in front. But inside, the place looked completely dark. Hopelessness threatened to swamp her as she banged on that door, too.
“Help!” she called, her voice echoing in the sharp cold. “Help!” She backed up a step so she could yell at the whole house.
And rammed right into a low wall.
“Oof,” she muttered, slipping. She grabbed on to the structure to keep herself from falling. Only to realize it wasn’t a wall at all. It was a hot tub.
Built into the cabin’s raised deck, the tub had a thick, insulated leather covering. A thin trail of steam wafted from the seam where the cover met the cedar siding.
Heat. Warmth. A guarantee of survival.
All those things awaited her there beneath that tarp. Who would call it trespassing when she was at risk of freezing to death out here?
Mind made up, Shaelynn tugged off her coat and unbuttoned her blouse with stiff, shaking fingers....
I imagined myself there in the crisp, clear air of the Rockies, sliding down among the hot jets of an outdoor spa. It was possible half the fun of this book was the access it gave me to the kind of life I’d always dreamed about. A sensuous life full of great sex was something I’d never quite managed in the real world. Far from it. I’d dropped a few dress sizes since high school, thinking I’d get over some of my insecurities by changing the external stuff. No dice. Now I would tackle those hang-ups through my book, where I could live out a vicarious existence of someone who was hot and sexy.
First fiction. Then real life.
Speaking of which...
Steam wafted up Shaelynn’s cheek
like the touch of a phantom lover. After half an hour in the hot tub, she’d finally started to feel warm again. Her toes had quit throbbing. She’d quit jumping at every sound in the woods and had turned the jets on full blast. Now, the heat relaxed her. The pure decadence of being naked beneath the water made her whole body feel deliciously languid.
Tilting her neck back on the headrest, she stared up at the stars and breathed deep.
Until the sound of a dog barking made her sit up.
She listened hard, switching off the pump for the hot tub jets so she could hear better. Had she imagined it?
The bark came again. Closer. Followed by the definite crack of twigs and movement of something—something human sized—in the woods nearby.
Panic sliced through her as she detected the shadow of a man approaching. Should she sit still and pray he passed? Shout for help even though she was miles from anywhere and her phone was lost in the snow?
Before she could decide, the tall, masculine shadow emerged from the trees, scattering soft clouds of fresh powder with each step of his snowshoes. Dear God, what if he lived here?
She shook her head. Of course he lived here. Why else would man and dog be making a beeline straight toward her? There were no other houses for miles around. If she hadn’t been naked, she might have darted out of the tub to hide. But she was most definitely naked and her clothes were on the other side of the small deck.
The dog spotted her first, barking like mad and big as a bear.
“Rex, heel,” the man’s deep voice called, quieting the animal before he asked, “Who’s there?”
Broad, square shoulders took shape in the moonlight, along with a gray canvas coat unbuttoned despite the cold.
“Um.” Shaelynn cleared her throat, nerves making her sound shaky. “I broke down a couple of miles away. Your light was the only one I saw and when you weren’t home...”
She trailed off, distracted by the sight of the man as he slowly walked closer, and the glow of the back porch lantern illuminated his features.
Hazel eyes. Thick, dark eyebrows. A chiseled, aristocratic face that could be Mediterranean. An arresting face. Strong. Handsome. He huffed out a breath of warm air, the light cloud swirling for a moment until it vanished into the cold.
“You needed to warm up,” he finished for her, his eyes roaming over the deck where her clothes sat in a pile, then returning to her. Lingering.
Her heart beat faster. She swallowed past her dry throat.
“I’m sorry. I can go. But I lost my cell phone in the snow and I’m—”
“You can use my phone.” The man ventured closer. The deck was a few feet off the ground, but the snowfall put him on even footing with the base of the tub. His eyes locked on hers, stirring something deep inside her. “And my towels.”
A slow, half smile lifted the corner of his mouth. Maybe she should be afraid. But fear was the last thing she felt as he sauntered up to the side of the spa.
Did he know she was nude? She glanced down, grateful she hadn’t put the underwater light on. Pulse thrumming wildly, she withdrew her hand from the water, because touching this tall, sexy stranger was definitely not optional. She suddenly craved the feel of him....
Bing!
The chime of an instant message rang, startling me from Shaelynn’s hot tub adventures just when things were about to get interesting. I had to stop to fan myself, visions of the sexy stranger enticing me as much as they affected my heroine.
How come I never met gorgeous strangers who made me melt with a glance? Forcing my thoughts from the hot tub, I looked down at the incoming note.
I can meet. The message was from “Damien Fraser, Fraser Farm.” 6:00 p.m.
Okay. Guess that meant I had a plan for tomorrow. I’d worked hard to make it as an actress in L.A., but after five years, I was more than ready to move on. I’d never been cut out for Hollywood, but it had seemed like the thing to do when I’d been eighteen and desperate to escape the crap-storm of my life back on a small farm in Nebraska. I’d ended up enjoying my waitress job at a tearoom far more than acting, and became fast friends with the owner, Joelle. I’d learned how to cook, and to indulge my love of food in a way that didn’t involve scarfing down pastries. At least not too often.
I definitely would have kept on at the tearoom for a few more years if it hadn’t been for the complications and notoriety that Gutsy Girl brought with it. Reporters dug into my past and found out details that I was uncomfortable with. My sister’s ex-husband—who’d always liked me a little too much—had made a few calls that had me itching to disappear again. I could not afford to have Rick show up on my doorstep and start messing with my head. Now that my sister had given him the boot, he seemed even more unstable. Scarier. Besides, I’d fought too hard to pull myself together after the ways he’d torn apart my self-confidence. And my family.
Now I just really needed to get out of L.A. and write my book. If I could pen the kind of relationship I wanted to have in real life, maybe I could finally excise the past. The hero in my story was going to be a turning point for me. If I could dream a new, healthy relationship, I could eventually make it happen, right?
So I saved my manuscript and shut down my computer, wishing I’d come up with a name for the guy on snowshoes in my story. He felt so alive, so familiar. Like a safe haven from all my real-world craziness.
As I set my laptop on the floor next to my sleeping bag in the echoing apartment, I tried not to think how lonely I must be to have fallen for a character in my own book.
1
THEY SAY LIFE imitates art.
Which wouldn’t have been so bad if I’d met a hot guy like Shaelynn did in my story. But no. My life imitated art because on my way to Sonoma the next day, my car broke down.
Worse, the lock on my SUV was busted because I hadn’t taken the car in to the dealership to get it fixed after some creeps had vandalized it last week. So all that I owned sat on the shoulder of Highway 1, just south of Bodega, California. Any thief who came by would have the easiest job ever—if he happened to be interested in my prized collection of bonsai plants or size-eight flip-flops in every color known to man.
Yet as I walked up the road, the winter sun shining on my shoulders to tinge my fish-belly skin a lively pink, I knew the potential loss back at my used vehicle was not the worst of this day. My cell phone battery had died, so I couldn’t call for help. Or make sure Damien Fraser had gotten the text I sent just before my phone died, saying I’d be late for our appointment. Now, I would miss the meeting with the owner of a property I’d been dying to purchase. It was a little plot of land with a perfect-sized building, on which I’d pinned all my hopes for the future.
I’d driven six and a half hours with my entire life packed into the back of that SUV in the hope I’d relocate up here. That I’d be able to move right into the charming little structure that had once served as a farm stand, close to a main road. I would rent it from the owner before the closing, and start fixing it up to be the tearoom of my dreams. Unrealistic? Maybe. But in his Craigslist ad, Damien Fraser had sounded very interested in unloading it ASAP.
Plus, I had a respectable down payment. I carried a cashier’s check for 10K in my backpack, thanks to my Gutsy Girl winnings. Thieves would have done better to rob me as opposed to my SUV. I’d been careful not to touch a cent of the money after winning, knowing it was my ticket out of Los Angel
es and out of the spotlight.
But now, thanks to my phone crapping out, the owner of my future tearoom might never know I was running late for our appointment. What if he ended up giving control of the sale to some hardball Realtor when I didn’t show up, and I’d end up paying more and waiting longer for the deal to go through?
Damn it. Damn it.
I might have slid my backpack off and sat on the side of the road to sob at my misfortune if I hadn’t held out a smidge of hope that maybe the building I was searching for was just around the next corner amid the olive groves crowding the northbound lane. I’d been telling myself that for two hours as I trudged up the road, because I was just enough of a glass-half-full girl that I maintained a shred of optimism. I had to be close.
When a truck pulled off the highway on the opposite side, I didn’t think anything of it at first. I assumed the driver probably needed to make a phone call or send a text or something. Still, thinking about that cashier’s check in my bag, I monitored the situation. I hadn’t survived in Hollywood that first year I moved to the West Coast from Nebraska by being oblivious.
So when the door of the oversize pickup opened with a squeak, I looked.
And saw the hottest guy ever.
Now, maybe it was the heat that seemed to spotlight this hunky slab of muscle and manhood as he stood beside the open door of the truck. He glistened with sweat despite a temperature that probably reached only the mid-sixties. He took the tail of a well-worn T-shirt and used it to mop his forehead.
In that moment, his abs were exposed to my dazed, spellbound eyes. He was pinup sexy. Lean and taut, he looked like he’d pulled about two million inverted push-ups to achieve so much delicious definition in that six-pack. Better yet, he was tanned bronze and I felt like I’d been given a VIP pass to the hottest show on earth.