Sorry I don’t have to do a longer post today, but one’s in the works for the weekend. In the meantime, enjoy this smoking-hot excerpt from my forthcoming novella, “Even Groomsmen Get The Blues!”
An awkward wedding. A beautiful woman. A gun-shy groomsman. Does love stand a chance?
Ben Grimm hates weddings just on general principles, and the fact he would have been one of the intendeds if his fiancée hadn’t been sleeping with half of Grove Park isn’t improving his outlook. Ben does his duty as Mike’s groomsman, but once the ceremony’s over Ben’s had enough. Just as he’s trying to decide how soon he can politely leave, Melanie Carson, one of the bridesmaids, comes over and makes Ben an offer he can’t resist.
One-night stands aren’t really Ben’s style, and the sultry redhead who took him to new heights of erotic pleasure quickly assures him she’s not interested in being an angel of the morning. Somewhere along the line, without ever having met him, Melanie decided to offer Ben her heart. Now it’s up to Ben to decide whether the exquisite sex is worth giving another woman a chance to break his heart… or if he’s ready to try to let Melanie heal it.
Chapter One
Being single and lonely sucked even worse when he had to dress up in a monkey suit and dance around acting all happy for his best friend, Ben Grimm reflected. He loved Mike like a brother, but right now he wanted nothing more than to “adjust” Mike’s teal bow tie until he choked the idiotic, I’m-so-in-love grin off the groom’s face.
“Jack and Coke,” he yelled to the bartender over the thudding beat of the music. The bartender nodded and bustled off to take the order of a rowdy crew at the other end. Ben sighed, running a hand through his ash blond hair, and peeked at the clock surreptitiously, wondering how much longer good manners demanded he stay. Being a single guy at a wedding sucked syphilitic goat peckers, Ben ruminated. The few decent-looking women on display were either taken, too young, or eyeballing another potential conquest, which left him out in the cold.
He didn’t begrudge Mike and Lacey their happiness, and he certainly didn’t want to be a cloud on their day. If Veronica hadn’t done what she had, this would have been a double wedding.
Always a bridesmaid, never a bride, he thought sardonically, checking the clock again. His feet ached from standing for most of the day, his lower back was starting to spasm from an overly enthusiastic turn on the dance floor with a cute nine-year-old girl who had a charming lisp and who’d developed the kind of prepubescent crush he just didn’t have the heart to turn down, and he felt the beginnings of a low-grade migraine settling in at the back of his head. He’d have one drink, make his excuses, and get the hell away from all this lovey-dovey bullshit.
“Got a date?” a husky feminine voice murmured in his ear, downy soft lips brushing his sensitive lobe.
He whipped his head to the right ruthlessly enough to wrench his neck and provoke a strangled curse. When he saw the speaker, whiplash tumbled to the bottom of his priorities list. She can’t be… His jaw dropped, and a gibbering voice in his head screamed, Say something, stupid!
“Were you talking to me?” Ben’s mouth felt even drier.
The redhead laughed, exposing the creamy sweep of her throat and rolling her shoulders so the tips of her breasts pressed against the teal satin of her gown. “I thought if I didn’t come talk to you, you were either going to slip out the door or jump out the window.” Her large eyes, the exact shade of her dress, played over him appraisingly. “I’m Melanie.”
He stuck his hand out awkwardly. “Ben.”
She took the offered hand. His cock pressed uncomfortably against his zipper, responding to her heat. Six months of enforced monkitude had done nothing to make his errant manhood behave itself, and Melanie was sexy enough to push every hot button he had just by engaging in basic social contact. For a moment he entertained a fantasy of her spread-eagled on a bed while he took her, and he locked the erotic thought down fast. If he’d been a little quicker, he might have avoided the painful erection the woman before him had triggered.
Melanie pulled away, sliding her gaze south of his cummerbund as if mentally subtracting his tuxedo from the equation.
“You planning to drill through the wall? Or can I suggest a better use for that?”
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Until next time,
Best,
J.S. Wayne
