Not that she and Leo argued a lot. Their relationship was pretty darn amicable. And comfortable. Maybe too comfortable. What if Leo never thought it was the right time for a family? Jami was thirty-five. It was time. She wanted a child so badly it sometimes felt like shrink-wrap squeezing her insides. They’d been living together for seven years. When would he make up his mind? There was always that next big promotion around the corner or one more financial goal he needed to achieve. Not to mention that their lovemaking had become increasingly perfunctory, and, to be honest, not so much about her pleasure.
Jami shivered. How was she supposed to break the job news to Leo? They lived in his condo, but she shared expenses. She had savings to live on for...well, over a year at least, but it would still be a blow to them both.
Okay, she wouldn’t think about all that now.
Jami hunkered down in front of the stapled paper bags on the bottom shelf. Grab bags. They took her back to her childhood when her favorite uncle visited, with grab bags for her and each of her sisters. Filled with junk that her sisters threw out along with the paper sack, in Jami’s mind, there was always a treasure in there, big or little. Growing up, she’d been the youngest and never learned how to scream the loudest or the longest, and her mother was often too busy dealing with someone else’s drama to notice Jami’s relatively minor problems. The fact that her uncle always knew the perfect treasure to put in that sack, one especially for her, made up for the lack of attention.
Continuing grab-bagging into adulthood was, at the very least, a little OCD, but Jami didn’t care if she had an obsessive-compulsive disorder. She loved the grab bags.
Closing her eyes, she put out a hand for a stapled bag. Best not to think or look too hard. That was the key to grabbing. If you didn’t over-think, the universe stepped in and gave you exactly what you needed.
Then someone snatched the magic bag right out of her fingers. Jami snapped her eyes open and rose to her full five foot seven plus three-inch heels. “Hey, that’s mine.”
“I saw it first.” Easily a head shorter than Jami, the elderly woman clutched the bag to her chest, her bosom heaving.
“I had it first.” Jami narrowed her eyes and secured her stance on her high heels, like a gunfighter ready to quick-draw. She’d touched it first, so she had dibs. She might not have stood up to Dick Head when he’d ordered her to sign that PO, but she’d go to the mat for that bag.
A tear trickled down onto a cheek that resembled an apple wizened in the sun. “But I need it. You don’t need it.”
Jami took in the woman’s blouse, which was literally falling apart at the seams. The torn hem of her skirt dragged on the orange shag carpet. Jami glanced at the bag. Its label read women’s clothing.
Jeez. Did it matter who’d touched it first? The grab-bag thing was about feeling better, and really, if she yanked it out of this poor lady’s hand, she’d feel lower than dirt. “You’re right. I don’t really need it.” She reached in her purse for a dollar bill and handed it to the woman. “But since I touched it first, I still have to be the one to pay for it.”
The woman beamed. She was missing a tooth. Then she snatched the dollar from Jami, pushed between two men arguing about a broken cuckoo clock that cucked but didn’t koo, and slapped the bill on the counter before Jami could change her mind. If the old lady had scammed her, she’d done it well, and Jami didn’t mind.
Instead, she bent down, reached into the maze of bags on the shelf without looking, pulled one from the last row, then made her way to the front.
The two men were still arguing about the cuckoo.
When she reached the counter, Olga patted her hand. “What’d ya get this time, Baby Doll?”
Smiling, Jami plunked down her dollar. “I have no idea. It’s a surprise.”
Olga looked at the sack’s writing through the bottom of her glasses. “It says—”
Jami stuck her fingers in her ears. “Don’t tell me. I don’t want to know before I open it.”
There was a whole ritual to follow; okay, she did have OCD. She couldn’t read the writing on the outside of the bag, just stick her hand in, eyes closed. It could be clothing, jewelry or books, CDs or video tapes. She’d been known to pick men’s clothing or shoes, but there was always something worth calling treasure, even if all an item did was garner a memory of her father’s Florsheim shoes and the quarters he used to pay her as a child to keep the leather polished. Pops had passed from lung cancer ten years ago. He hadn’t smoked a day in his life.
Olga shook the bag. “It sounds like—” she singsonged in that raspy voice.
“Stop it,” Jami squealed, playing along. “I don’t want to know.”
Olga loved to tease, and they went through the same rigmarole every time. Maybe that was part of the pleasure of grab-bagging. Olga, her teasing, her smiles. Even before Jami left the shop, she always felt sunnier. A little more hopeful.
“Well, I want to hear what you find inside. If it’s really good, I think we’re going to have to consider raising prices.”
“It’s because they’re only a dollar that you even sell them and you know it.” Jami herself was probably the only one who got a big kick out of what was in the bags anyway. “Raising the price doesn’t do you a darn bit of good if volume goes down.”
“Being a high finance mucky-muck, you oughta know.”
Right. She’d been more like Dick Head’s bum girl even if she did have a title. C’est la vie. The bright side was not having to see Dick Head day in and day out. Maybe getting fired was a blessing in disguise.
Olga slammed the cash drawer. “Now get outta here, and see if you got anything fun.”
Jami waved. The bag rattled in her hand as she headed out to her SUV. It didn’t sound like jewelry. CDs, maybe videos; she rarely got DVDs, since everybody was chucking their old tapes.
The sun shone through the windshield of her white 4Runner, and once inside she was toasty despite the taste of fall chill.
“What have we got?” she whispered. Tearing out the staples, she closed her eyes and stuck her hand in.
Could be video games. She didn’t know if they came in jewel cases. She opened her eyes to find Lawrence Welk staring at her, offering his all-time favorite polkas. Oh my God, her aunt would love it! She sifted through the bag, counting nine more CDs. Maybe it was Lawrence Welk’s complete collection. One Christmas present was in the bag, no pun intended. The next one she pulled out, however, was Slim Whitman. Jami laughed out loud. Grandma in the movie Mars Attacks had played a Slim Whitman record on her phonograph and made all the Martian heads explode, thus saving the world. Jami had thought they made up Slim just for the movie, but he was an honest-to-God crooner.
Les Paul and Mary Ford were next. A married couple from the fifties timeframe, and the CD featured their Rheingold beer commercials. Hmm, okay. She found four more Lawrence Welk, big band, ballads, and standards, then the soundtrack for The Blair Witch Project—did it even have a soundtrack?—and two CDs from a guy she’d never heard of. Colton Amory. The first was called Dream Sweet and the second Dreaming of You.
She flipped over one to read the song titles on the back, and her heart simply jumped into her throat. Even in a studio portrait, Colton Amory had the most penetrating pair of blue eyes she’d ever seen, as if he were looking right into her soul. Jami held her breath for several seconds. His hair was dark brown, and though his mustache had one or two streaks of gray in it, she could swear he wasn’t more than mid-thirties. He had a cock-eyed smile that made her want to smile right back at him as if he could see her, and laugh lines around his gorgeous blue eyes.
The dollar she’d paid was worth it for Colton Amory’s photo alone. She turned over the other CD, Dream Sweet, and this time his smile was only a hint. As if he had a sexy secret. His mustache was minus the gray streaks. But damn, he was hot in both photos.
The copyright dates on the inside covers showed Dream Sweet was the earliest, nine years ago, and the second album, Dream
ing of You, a couple of years later.
By now, Colton Amory probably had a paunch and a big bald spot, but she could still fantasize about what he’d looked like seven years ago. Since he’d found his way into a Used But Not Abused grab bag, however, his music was probably crap.
She started the engine, yanked his more recent CD out of its jewel case and shoved it into her player, then pulled into traffic to the opening strains of Colton Amory’s guitar. It had an odd sound. No, not odd. Not out-of-tune either. It was unique, in a different key that pulled a person’s soul right into the music. Some songs didn’t penetrate the consciousness. Usually, she’d be thinking about the million things she had to get done in the first five minutes at work and never even heard the songs on the radio. Colton Amory’s music didn’t allow her to think of anything else. It sucked her in and wouldn’t let her go.
Then he started to sing, his voice like the smooth taste of a glass of Kahlua-n-cream going down. Sweet and velvety like cream, yet rich and smoky like Kahlua. In “Baby, I’ll Find You”, he sang about dreams and soul mates and finding the perfect woman. More than a partner, the person who fulfilled you, completed you, the one who gave you synergy. Separate, you were just going through the motions, but together you were so much more than simply the sum of your separate parts. His words spoke to her inner heart; his voice mesmerized her. She ran through the tail-end of a yellow light, cutting it way too close to red.
Oh. My. God. Colton Amory was a grab-bag treasure among treasures. His lyrics made her want to reach for her dreams.
At the next light, she closed her eyes and shivered with an ache so bad, it made her insides quake. God, she wanted. Everything. A baby growing inside her, then finally, finally, that cherished little human being in her arms. Leo’s ring on her finger. His breath in her ear saying how much he loved her, wanted her, needed her. A four-bedroom house she and Leo owned together, something in the suburbs with a white picket fence and rows of hydrangea bushes. She wanted the blue ones. She wanted all the passion in that song, to rediscover it with Leo. Now. Not tomorrow or next month or next year.
The emotion Colton Amory seared into his music was more than mere words. It was a message. In that grab bag, the universe had given her exactly what she needed. Maybe the universe had been sending her a message when Dick Head fired her, too. It was time to take a stand, go for the gusto, take charge of her life, and ask for what she wanted. She’d waited seven years for Leo to make up his mind. She wasn’t getting any younger. She’d spent far too much time waiting for things to happen. It was time to let go of her fears and force them to happen.
Finding Colton Amory’s music was serendipity. Or fate. Maybe even destiny. Jami knew what she had to do.
Tonight, she’d make up Leo’s mind for him.
* * * * *
“I hate to say it, sweetie, but no man buys the cow when he can get the milk for free.”
Jami’s shoulders tensed, then her neck, until finally a mammoth tension headache sprouted like an alien probe inside her head. With her outdated clichés, her mother was an anachronism. You’d think Mom had been raised on fifties TV shows like Father Knows Best and Leave it Beaver. She’d actually caught her mother watching old reruns on TV Land.
But Mom was right, things with Leo hadn’t gone the way Jami planned.
If you enjoyed this excerpt, look for Baby, I’ll Find You from Jennifer Skully!
Jasmine Haynes also writes steamy erotic romance single titles. But be warned, this one is pretty darn naughty!
Kinky Neighbors
Cover design by Rosemary Gunn
Two couples, two very hot wives, two husbands who don’t mind a little swapping...
The Mitchells and the Harts have been next door neighbors and friends for the past year. They have loads in common; double incomes, professional careers, no kids,...and a kinky streak.
Now they’re about to become very good friends...with kinky benefits.
The sex between them all is hot, naughty, and unbearably exciting. It isn’t merely swapping partners and moving to another room; it’s true foursome sex, same room, same bed, all four involved. For Drew and Cat Mitchell and Logan and Alexis Hart, it’s about barreling through boundaries none of them have ever crossed before, doing kinky things they’ve only fantasized about. But when they begin to exchange not just sex but emotional connection, the problems start; a little jealousy, feeling left out, wanting more from the wrong partner. Can two couples really share everything without losing it all?
Excerpt from Kinky Neighbors
Copyright 2011 Jasmine Haynes
Chapter One
Her body was lithe, strong, and she worked him from the inside, milked him, turned him mindless. Cat had taken belly dancing lessons a few years ago, and though she’d stopped the dancing, she’d never lost the ability to use those muscles on his cock when he was deep inside her.
“I want to be fucking you just like this,” she whispered, “straddling your hips, riding you”—she laughed softly, a naughty, sexy sound that tightened every muscle in his groin—“while you’re licking her.”
Drew squeezed her breast, pinching her nipple hard. She moaned, liking sex with a nibble of pain, loving it when she was spinning him a fantasy at the same time.
“I want to look down and watch you devouring her pussy.” This time she groaned. Fantasies about other people always made her engine purr louder. But fantasies about their next-door neighbors made his wife come harder than even in the first blush of love when they couldn’t get enough of each other.
She threw her head back, her gorgeous brown-sugar hair falling over her shoulders. “Oh, Drew, she loves it, moaning, pinching her own nipples.” Cat took him with a faster rhythm, a harder pump, working herself up with her fantasy of their pretty neighbor. “She wants your big hard cock in her, Drew.”
When she was like this, Cat simply dragged him along. His body quaked and trembled, rising almost on its own to drive hard into her. He grabbed her hips, pistoned deep as she leaned back to give him the best angle for her G-spot. With sharp little stings, her fingernails broke his skin as she braced herself on his thighs.
“Fuck her,” she cried out, “fuck her hard.”
Christ, he loved her hot and out of control like this. Then her inner muscles clamped down on him as her orgasm began to ripple through her. She panted, moaned, tightened her thighs along his hips and bucked on him.
Her climax wrenched his from him, and he shot high inside her, shouting out her name.
Moments later, his limbs still jerking, he pulled her down, wrapping her in his arms. “Jesus,” he muttered against her fragrant hair.
“That was so hot, baby. I want us to do her just like that, me on your cock and you with your face buried in her pussy.
Drew laughed. “God, you’re filthy.”
She tipped her head back, grinned at him. “And you love it.”
Yes, he did. “You amaze me.” Cat was special, gorgeous, with a slim, athletic body that made him crazy and a kinky, naughty attitude toward sex that was more male than female. They’d once hired a Las Vegas call girl to watch them have sex. Cat was an exhibitionist. They’d been married for ten years, Cat was thirty-eight, he was seven years older, and their sex life was still fantastic.
She nuzzled his neck. “I know how much you love licking a woman, and that’s what I want to give you.”
“You’re too good to me, sweetheart.” He kissed her forehead as if she’d just made him a great meal instead of offered up another woman to him. She honestly did not have a jealous bone in her body. They did a lot of fantasizing, imagining sex with other couples they’d met, threesomes, foursomes. He knew she’d done a threesome before he met her, two men and her, but neither man was her boyfriend. She claimed that doing it with him, her husband, would be entirely different, taking things to a whole new level.
She stroked his cock to life again. “I just want to make sure you don’t get tired of having sex with me. Men need spice.
” She needed spice, and her imagination was fertile with ways of getting it.
She loved role playing. She’d had him try to pick her up in a bar, pretending they didn’t know each other. He’d practically had to go to blows with another guy that was hitting on her. She’d loved the attention; then she’d fucked him in their car with the bartender having a smoke not ten feet away. She liked it risky, the fear of getting caught, public sex, in the back of a car, a dark bar, once on the hood in a parking garage. She thrived on anything edgy, always coming up with ways to keep their sex fresh. Cat needed to push her sexual limits; she needed fire.
Six months ago, they’d moved from fantasy into reality. At least they’d tried, meeting a couple off a personal ad Cat saw online. Unfortunately, nothing came of it. The couple was nice enough, married for twenty years, both in their early fifties rather than the mid-forties they’d claimed, and their definition of height-weight proportionate was not quite the same as Cat’s. Ultimately the attraction wasn’t there. Either you felt it, or you didn’t.
Lying in his arms, Cat plucked at the hair on his chest. “I told Alexis that we always hot-tub in the nude.”
Drew chuckled. “What did she say to that?”
He felt Cat’s shrug. “She just gave me a look.”
Tomorrow they were heading out for Tahoe where they’d rented a house close to the lake for a week. And they’d invited their neighbors. Logan and Alexis Hart had moved into their Saratoga neighborhood a little over a year ago. Alexis was a controller for a Silicon Valley microwave radio manufacturer, and Logan was CEO for a San Francisco-based Fortune 500 company. Like Drew and Cat, they had professional careers, double incomes, and no kids to tie them down. They’d gone from backyard barbecues to dinner and card games that lasted long past midnight. Now this, a week-long Tahoe vacation for some hiking, lake fishing, relaxing. And, if Cat had her way, some very kinky games.
Fool's Gold (A sexy funny mystery/romance, Cottonmouth Book 2) Page 32