Brit Party (6 page)

"That money means nothing if you don't have someone to enjoy it with. That life is more than wearing the right thing and going to the right places, being seen with the right people. But more importantly, I've learned that I don't have to spend my life trying to please a man who will never be happy."

"You'll regret this little outburst Margaret and you'll come crawling back to me begging for my help."

Maggie just smiled and shook her head. “No. I'm doing the one thing that my mother never could. I'm walking away and I'm not looking back.” With that she turned to leave the room barely hearing her father bellowing her name. All she could think of was that just outside that door was the man she loved, the man she'd married after two weeks. As she pushed the door open and saw Alex's face a smile lit her face from the inside out and she ran to him. This was the life she'd always dreamed of. And to think she found it all in the heat of a ménage.

[Back to Table of Contents]

Lacey Thorn spends her days in small town Indiana the proud mother of three. When she is not busy with one of them she can be found typing away on her computer keyboard or burying her nose in a good book. Like every woman she knows just how chaotic life can be and how appealing that great escape can look.

So toss aside the stress and tension of the never ending to do list. For now sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride with Lacey. It's your world ... unlaced.

Email: [email protected]

Lacey loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at www.total-e-bound.com.

[Back to Table of Contents]

[Back to Table of Contents]

[Back to Table of Contents]

Dana Matthews stared out the car window at the passing English countryside and tried to tamp down her resentment over this assignment. Okay, perhaps it wasn't resentment. It was more frustration than anything else.

Since her research scientist position in the United States had been eliminated, she'd been dancing on a taut wire—taking the same job within a different branch of the company, transferring to a new country, leaving behind her husband. Ex-husband now, she reminded herself. He'd been set to join her until she'd discovered a few months abstinence had been too much for him. He'd screwed their next door neighbour, Miss skeezy pants—Miss I'm-twenty-two-and-you're-not skeezy pants—and tried to claim it was a mid-life crisis.

"You okay, Dana?"

Dana glanced over at the brown-haired man beside her and nodded. Jason Kerzi and the other passenger of the car, Christopher Brown, were part of her problem. Also research scientists, but working different projects, the two were headed to London to meet with the Powers-That-Be and explain the findings on their latest work ... something about frog DNA and a cancer gene. She hadn't worked on their experiments so other than witnessing excited whispers from the other side of the lab while they ran computer models, she didn't pretend to know what they'd discovered.

Their work had little bearing on her own experiments. Which made her question her presence on this trip.

There was no doubt in her mind, she'd been sent to chaperone the dynamic duo while they met with the big wigs who were flying over from the Former British Territories AKA the United States. It galled her. Why should she play mother-hen to the boys? Thirty-seven wasn't old, damn it. Certainly not eighty. Surely the twenty-somethings could keep themselves in line for a few days.

This assignment put her last frayed nerve on edge. Not because the meeting would suck up her weekend. Not even because she had to chaperone. She took a deep breath and inhaled the intoxicating scents of her companions’ colognes.

Her tension stemmed from the fact that she found both men unsettlingly attractive. Attractive? That was an understatement. She wanted them both with a lust befitting a nubile co-ed. And she'd done her best to hide it for the last eight months. That didn't stop her from alternately fantasising about one or the other of them in her bed each night.

She sighed, hoping neither of them caught her mooning over them this weekend. How embarrassing would that be? Hopefully, they'd get to their hotel and she could closet herself in her room until morning. After several hours closed in this car with them, she could use a break from their magnetism.

Maybe she was going through some sort of mid-life crisis. She stifled a snort. She'd always told her husband she'd trade him in for two half his age. At twenty-seven each, Christopher and Jason almost qualified.

Christopher turned in his seat to look back at her, the late-afternoon sun catching his golden-blond hair. “Are you sure you're not feeling a bit off? We should be there soon and you can nick a bit of sleep before tonight."

She raised her eyebrows. “Tonight?” she repeated slowly, looking between the two of them.

Jason's blue eyes sparkled with mischief. “Yes, we've been talking—"

"Plotting, you mean,” she interrupted.

He laughed and her pussy immediately clenched. Her fingers fisted on the seat beside her.
Please, God, don't let them be able to smell how aroused I am.
Aroused? Pathetic. What would they think if they knew their co-worker, a woman ten years older, wanted to fuck them? They'd probably be horrified ... especially when they discovered she harboured thoughts of having both of them at once.

Jason patted her hand, sending a tremor to her core. “You've never visited London except for a brief trip from Heathrow. We want to show you the sights."

"I don't think so,” she replied, her voice a bit shaky. “It's been a long day. You two go party—or whatever you've got planned—and I'll hang out in my room."

The men exchanged a glance, then each resumed a face-forward position. She suddenly suspected there had been a plethora of silent communication in their small exchange. Great. Now she was paranoid, too? She took a deep breath and tried to remember she was a respected scientist in her field. This lack of self confidence wasn't necessary.

She smoothed her hand over her skirt, conscious of the few pounds she'd gained since her early twenties. She wouldn't stand a chance with a guy if she stood side by side with Miss Skeezy Pants.

Stop it!
her brain yelled. Her nails dug into the car's armrest. Good lord! She needed to get out of this car. Shutting down her thoughts, she mentally recited the chemical periodic table by rote. A sense of calm came over her, and she temporarily relaxed as the letters and numbers floated through her head like sheep lining up to be counted on the way to sleep.

She almost forgot Jason and Christopher were with her. Almost, but not quite. Their presence was so thoroughly imbedded into her subconscious that they were never completely removed.

Damn. She was too old for a crush. Or would it be crushes? Whatever. She'd apparently lost her mind.

Forty minutes later, the vehicle rolled to a stop before the Blakesbury Hotel. A uniformed doorman rushed towards them while Dana gawked at the five-story building like a gauche bumpkin. Her company, Cranston Enterprises, hadn't scrimped on their accommodations. The Blakesbury was top notch.

To her surprise, Christopher jumped out of the car and opened her door. She glanced at his outstretched hand then tentatively placed hers in it. A strange spark rocketed up her arm. What the hell? Her eyes went wide and she swallowed looking away from his deep brown eyes.

Was that interest in his gaze?

You're crazy, Dana.
She glanced again and whatever she'd seen was gone. She chided herself that it had probably never been there. Desperate ... Was that what she was? Not good. Perhaps she should visit the bar tonight and find a nice older gentleman to spend the evening with. Yeah, someone more suited to her age might fuck away this idiotic craving over her colleagues.

Sudden confidence filled her and she grinned as she straightened and smoothed her clothing. Excitement trilled through her as her heels clicked on the walkway. Getting laid might just do the trick.

Jason watched the sway of Dana's hips and wondered how the hell he would survive this weekend if she refused to spend any time with them. Christopher's arm slung around his shoulder as his friend tilted his head and watched their colleague's progress into the building.

He released a dramatic sigh.

"Buck up, Mate,” Christopher said. “The weekend's young. She'll come around."

Christopher always knew what he was thinking. Not surprising since they'd been research partners since college.

"Young might just be the problem,” he replied. “I don't want to fuck this up. Our research—"

"Don't worry about our funding. We've worked too hard to mess up now ... besides, no one's as close to the leukaemia cure as we are. They need our brains."

They both knew being close was still a million miles away, but Jason nodded anyway. “And Dana's. They need Dana's brain. Maybe we shouldn't go through with this ... If she gets pissed and runs, we'll be on the carpet."

She didn't know it, but her research might just be the key needed to break the code he and Christopher had been deciphering for so long.

He grabbed his suitcase from the boot of the car and turned to find Christopher staring at him.

"What?"

His friend shook his head. “I'm just wondering who the hell you are. What have you done with Jason? Who planned this trip and underhandedly got Dana hooked in? Who practically writes sonnets about her legs? Who growls when another man talks to her?"

"All of those things apply to you too. Look, I'm not wussing out ... I'm just being cautious."

The growl Christopher had mentioned rose in Jason's throat as he glanced towards the electronic doors in the front hotel. Dana stood there, flirting with the doorman—a bloke who appeared ten years her senior. Christopher grabbed the back of his shirt as he started forward.

"Easy, mate. She's not really interested in him. Look at the way she's got her arms crossed in front of her."

Jason took a deep breath.

He knew the plan ... there was a plan. Before tonight ended, Dana would know exactly how they felt. And where they wanted her.

His arms fairly trembled with the need to hold her. Be patient, Christopher had advised—damn his minor in psychology. And he'd been right, but it hadn't been easy. The first moment he'd seen her, he'd wanted her. It had been like a knife to the chest to discover she was married. Bollocks! Then he'd felt like a wretch when he'd wanted to cheer over her divorce. Of course at the same time, he'd wanted to strangle that idiot in America for causing her pain.

Dana seemed to come through it okay, though some of her vibrancy had faded. He wanted to return the glimmer to her eyes. He knew he could. He saw traces of it whenever they spoke ... or touched ... or he caught her looking his way.

It was that spark which had precipitated this plan. The big wigs from Cranston Industries headquarters, the company for which they worked, were flying in tomorrow for a day, which was why the group was meeting in London rather than the small town which housed the subsidiary offices. There wasn't time for the cross-country drive north.

Seeing an opportunity, he'd outlined the reasons why Dana needed to be involved in the trip and why her research should meld with his and Christopher's ... not an untruth which made the plan all the more viable.

The thing was ... the project was dear to him, but truth be told, his need for Dana overrode all but the most deep-seated of his concerns over the project.

He swallowed as she peeked over her shoulder now. “Are you coming?"

Not yet.

Christopher paused as Jason started after Dana into the building. As much as he chided his friend, he too had reservations about this weekend. Jason wanted to find the cure because his mother had died from leukaemia. He on the other hand had something to prove.

It didn't escape his attention that Jason was treated as the brains of their operation, while he was viewed as the tagalong companion. What else should a bad boy expect? Despite his attempts at respectability, he couldn't shake that tag...

Bu Dana didn't view him like that. He loved her easy, teasing grin. His cock twitched at the grin she'd shot over her shoulder. She was up to something. He studied her sexy walk while he wondered what was going on in that head of hers.

If you'd get your eyes off her ass, you might figure it out, ignorant git.

The car pulled from the kerb and Christopher hurried to meet his colleagues in reception. “We have one room listed,” the man at the desk said to Jason and Dana as Christopher joined them. He placed his hand casually on Dana's back, the silk of her shirt smooth beneath his palm. He smothered the urge to trace the ridge from her bra with his fingertips.

"Oh for God's sake,” Dana muttered. “How cliché is that? You're kidding me right."