Spectacular Rascal: A Sexy Flirty Dirty Standalone Romance Read online

  As I drag the canoe onto the grassy bank and swiftly pull on the clothes I stashed behind a tree near the water’s edge, I allow my thoughts to drift back through my own personal sex-ventures, looking for something to banish Penny mid-orgasm from my memory bank. I’ve had an excellent start to the summer season of fun, sexy, nostrings-attached hook-ups, and spent time with some very beautiful, very up-for-anything women, who have provided me with ample erotic inspiration.

  But for some reason my brain skips over all that sizzling, prime spank-bank fodder I’ve collected lately and makes a beeline for a night eleven years ago—college graduation. It was my last run with the Pennsylvania University Dashers, the night I handed over the torch as head dasher and came way too close to taking Polka Dot Panties’s virginity on a pile of leaves.

  I’d never slept with a virgin, not even when I was one myself, and had no intention of getting into deep emotional waters like that with any girl, let alone Panties, one of my best friends and a girl I knew only by her Dasher name.

  We all went by nicknames—the raunchier the better—on the trail.

  Polka Dot Panties started her freshman year as Mary, as in the Virgin Mary, the way all the newbies to the run hard, drink harder Dasher lifestyle do. Later, after a sprint through the rain that rendered her hot pink running shorts transparent, she became Polka Dot Panties. I was Curved for Her Pleasure, for exactly the reason you might imagine.

  She called me Curve. I called her Panties, PDP, or sometimes, just…Red.

  Red for that silky red hair that fell all the way to her ass, for the lipstick she wore to Saturday night bonfires after our grueling afternoon runs. Red for the pen she used to write the notes we exchanged, and the color she made me see every time she gave me shit for laying an easy trail or not including enough switchbacks or whatever fault she found with my work as “fox.”

  The fox (the head dasher) lays the trail, and the hounds (all the other runners) dash after it, following the top-secret markings of our club, fighting to find the true trail and be the first across the finish line. From the day of her first run, Red was a force to be reckoned with. By her sophomore year, she came first in every single race, leaving no question as to who should fill my shoes when I graduated, though the honor of head dasher is usually given to a senior.

  That last night I was supposed to hand over the fox binder, the trail marking tools, and the windbreaker with “Polka Dot Panties, Here to Fuck You Up” monogrammed on the back that I’d had made for her as my way of saying “thanks for busting my ass and being one of my best friends.” I wasn’t supposed to smoke a joint with her, or pull her into my arms to dance in the dark, or kiss her until her sweet, fearless taste was permanently imprinted on my tongue.

  And I certainly wasn’t supposed to slide my hand down the front of her panties and feel how wet she was for me.

  Wet and hot and so ready that she rocks into my hand with this sexy as fuck moan and begs me to be her first. Begs me to take her, right there, on the ground in the leaves or up against a tree, wherever I want so long as I don’t stop until I’ve taken care of her pesky virginity once and for all.

  “I don’t care if this isn’t the way it’s supposed to be,” she says, fingers tangling in my hair. “I want you. And I trust you. And there’s no one else in the world that I want to do this with.” Her breath feathers across my lips, making me ache for another taste of her. “Please, Curve. Be with me. Now. Tonight. Before you go away.”

  “I’m not up for this, Panties. I can’t.” I groan as she finds the ridge of my erection, rubbing me through the thin fabric of my running shorts.

  “You feel up for it.” Her fingers wrap around the swollen head of my cock and squeeze. Her touch is lightning in a bottle, potential energy as dangerous as it is seductive.

  This is so fucking wrong. Red is a friend and only a friend.

  But damn, I want more than my fingers in her hot little pussy. I want her under me, squirming as I show her just how up for fucking her I am. But she wouldn’t lie about being a virgin. Or anything else. Panties is a hardcore truth teller. If she says this is her first time, it is.

  Which means if I fuck her, I’m going to hurt her. I’m on the larger size of above average, and I come by my nickname honestly. When I’m hard, my cock curves back to point at my own navel—perfect for hitting the G-spot in a girl who’s been around the block, but definitely not a Starter Dick.

  Still, it’s not the physical pain I would cause that I’m most worried about.

  Red holds her cards close to her chest and plays it tough, but she has her share of issues. She’s got an insensitive, selfish prick for a father, never knew her mother, and is dealing with a host of other stuff she keeps bottled up and under pressure. She’s hardcore, but she’s also more vulnerable than she lets on, and not the most emotionally steady person.

  Having her first lover be a one-night stand isn’t the kind of thing that’s going to help her get any steadier. And I don’t want to throw her off her game. I like Red.

  Maybe even more than like her, I realize, my heart twisting in my chest as she begins to unravel in my arms, succumbing to the slow steady pressure of my fingers gliding over her clit.

  “Oh, God,” she says, voice catching as she trembles against me. “I’ve never… Oh God, I can’t, I’m going to fall.”

  “No you’re not.” I wrap my free arm around her waist and hold on tight. “I’ve got you. Now come for me. I want to feel you come, Red. I want you all over my fingers, beautiful.”

  Her breath rushes out, and a second later she’s calling my name as she goes, but it’s not my real name. She doesn’t know my name is Aidan, and I have no idea what her real-life friends call her.

  We’re so close, and share a hundred inside jokes, but we’re not close enough for this. Not as close as I would want to be if I was going to be the man making love to her for the first time.

  And she deserves someone to make love to her, not just fuck her virginity away. She deserves someone she can trust with her heart and her body and her tightly guarded secrets, but I’m on my way out of the country tomorrow. Even if I wanted to, even if I was ready for something as intense as what I suspect I could have with Red, I can’t be her someone.

  With a pang of regret felt keenly in my heart, my gut, and my furiously aching balls, I realize that I can’t let this go any further. No matter how hot Red is tonight, or how desperately I want to give her everything she’s asking for.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I emerge from the memory with a shudder…and a hard-on that won’t quit.

  It seriously won’t. Twenty minutes later, after walking the opposite way around the lake to avoid any officers of the law lingering in the area, I’m still fighting a stiffy. As I pay the grouchy kid for the canoe rental and a little extra for fetching it from the cove, I conceal the situation with my T-shirt and then head toward the subway, feeling strangely shitty, considering I’ve done my good deed for the day.

  Bash and Penny are back together, my best friend is out of his despair hole, and no one has been charged with a crime.

  At least I don’t think they have.

  To be sure, I tug my phone free and shoot Bash a text—

  All good with you two? No arrests made?

  After a moment Bash texts back. No, we’re in the clear and already back at Penny’s place. How about you?

  All clear. Though it was touch and go for a while there. I glance over my shoulder to make sure I haven’t acquired a tail. But the most menacing thing on the sidewalk behind me is a girl with a Long Island accent talking too loudly on her cell. Hopefully, if any cops show up, they’ll arrest her for refusing to text like a decent human being, and leave me the hell alone.

  I bet. Bash texts back. Penny wants me to tell you thank you, by the way. She’s says you’ve got balls.

  Ha. Ha. Very funny.

  Not really. Don’t ever get naked in front of my girlfriend again.

  I smirk. Why? Worried she m
ight see something she likes? I watch the bubbles dotting my screen, anticipating a smartass response, but Bash surprises me.

  Not even a little bit. Penny is mine. I’m hers. And I’m probably the happiest bastard in New York right now, so…thanks. Seriously. I owe you one. A big one.

  Hmm, a big one, huh? I wonder how big… Does this mean you’ll take over with Beth tomorrow? I know she wanted me to handle her intervention, but I don’t date lawyers, man. We’ll look ridiculous together. She’d be better off with a Magnificent Bastard.

  No way. You can’t back out of this, Aidan, Bash shoots back immediately. Even if I didn’t plan on shacking up with Penny and keeping her in bed for the next four days, I can’t swing this one. Beth needs someone to scare the shit out of her ex. That’s not in my wheelhouse, and you know it. I’m excellent at what I do, but I don’t inspire fear at first sight.

  I sigh. It’s true. Bash can be a cold, hard, son of a bitch when he needs to be, but at first glance he looks like the kind of guy who’s going to shake your hand and ask the location of the nearest whiskey bar, not hunt you down and cut your heart out for fucking with his girl.

  Though he would. I know if anyone threatened Penny, Bash would do whatever it took to keep her safe. He proved that when he stole a horse and rode after her like he was channeling John Wayne. But his badass doesn’t show on the surface, which means I’m stuck with Beth for the next month, or however long it takes to convince her ex to back off.

  I pause near the entrance to the subway and type out a quick—Got it, I’ll take care of Beth. Enjoy your time with Penny—as another wave of malaise washes through my chest to settle heavily in my stomach.

  A part of me wants to blame the lady lawyer and her special intervention needs for the crappy sensation. I don’t enjoy taking a week off from my real work for new client orientation. Tattooing is my passion; this gig for Bash is just a way to fast track the funds I need to open a second location of Ink Addicts. But this woman I’ve never met isn’t the problem.

  The problem is the look on Bash’s face when he saw Penny today. I’ve never seen that exact expression before, not in almost twenty years of friendship. All the Bash swagger and smartass joking fell away, and there was nothing in his eyes but pure happiness. In that moment, there was no one else in the world but Penny, the woman who is his everything, the friend who knows all of his secrets, the person he needs more than the air he breathes.

  Bash has been in love before, and I did my share of hanging out with him and his last steady date, but I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at Penny. It’s like the answer to every question is right there, in that curvy little body. In those big brown eyes. In the arms of the person who has proven to him that who he truly is, deep down beneath all the bullshit, is enough.

  More than enough.

  It’s been a long time since I’ve been with anyone who made me want to show my deep-down side. It’s been even longer since I let myself start collecting those moments, those memories, those pieces of a person that, little by little, make you wonder if this is it. If this is your shot at something more than a casual connection. If this is the person who is going to prove that love isn’t a lie or a fairy tale or something that starts to die the moment it’s born. That love is real and that it can last, even though every couple you know is faltering, fading, or broken beyond repair.

  Not anymore. There’s nothing broken or fading about Bash and Penny.

  I grunt as I shove my phone into my back pocket, reminding myself that it’s too early in the game to make a call on Bash and Penny. They may have had a perfect working relationship for two years, but love is a completely different animal.

  Whenever I hear about a lion tamer torn apart by the cats she trained since birth, or a man savagely murdered by the chimpanzee he saved from poachers, I think about love. Love is a wild, untamed creature. And no matter how beautiful or seductive it is, it can’t be trusted not to wake up with a fur ball up its ass and decide to rip your face off.

  On the subway ride home, I hold tight to that truth, and by the time I reach my apartment in the West Village the shitty, melancholy, “what if you’re missing all the good stuff” feeling has faded, and I’m my old self again.

  I stay that way until ten a.m. the next morning, when I walk into Buvette for my first meeting with Beth Jones and see a woman sitting in a corner table, sipping a cappuccino, watching me with cool green eyes that are way too fucking familiar.

  CHAPTER THREE

  From the collected notes of Curved for her Pleasure

  and Polka Dot Panties

  Dear Curved,

  I’m not sure you’ll ever read this note—as a lowly freshman, I have no way of knowing if the hole in the butt crack of the union soldier statue is really where the Dashers place top secret messages or if you’re just messing with me—but I figured I would give this a try.

  If you’re hiding in the bushes filming me while I climb the statue and take its butt virginity with this piece of paper, I can only hope that you won’t show the footage to anyone outside the club. I’ve accepted embarrassment as part of my new lot in life, along with my polka-dot-pantied nickname, but there are people in my world who would NOT be amused by anything involving me and a man’s butt.

  Even if the man in question is a statue.

  Anyway, just thought you might want to know the reason it was so easy for me to find the real trail today. Your dasher trail markers are solid, but every time you lay a false trail, your footprints get deeper and closer together. Anyone who knows the first thing about tracking can take one look at the first few feet of the branch and tell if it’s a real trail or a trick that leads to a dead end.

  So basically, you’re going to have to step up your fox game if you want to fool this hound. ;)

  Thanks again for letting me join the group. I can’t remember the last time I had this much fun.

  Best,

  Polka Dot Panties

  Dear Panties,

  So what you’re saying is that you’re an Apache scout trapped in a skinny white girl’s body. This is good to know, and I’ll do my best to stop making things easy for your polka-dotted ass.

  Thanks for the heads-up and don’t worry about anything Dasher-related being shared outside the club. As you can probably tell already, we’re merciless when it comes to dishing out shit, but we’ve always got each other’s backs.

  Your reputation is safe with us.

  Welcome to the motley crew,

  Curve (C to my friends)

  P.S. The soldier lost his butt virginity a long time ago, but it was sweet of you to worry.

  Too sweet.

  You need to cut that shit out or the rest of the hounds are going to have you for breakfast.

  Dear Curve,

  Gotcha.

  Thanks for the note, the reassurance, and the warning. But don’t worry about anyone having me for breakfast. My polka-dotted ass and I are tougher than we look.

  See you on the trail.

  Try to make me work for it this time?

  Sincerely,

  Panties

  Dear Panties,

  I will remind you of your smartass note when you’re begging me for mercy on Saturday. I’m devising something with seven levels of pain just for you.

  Get ready to cry like a freshman,

  Curve

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Beth Jones is Panties.

  Panties is Beth Jones.

  My mind makes the connection quickly, realizing that any other explanation for Red sitting at the corner table where I’d arranged to meet my client, wearing the green shift dress my client said she would be wearing, is farfetched.

  For years, I’ve wondered about Panties’s real identity. But I resisted the urge to Google my way to a name to go with the memory of the girl who pushed me into becoming the craftiest fox the Penn U Dashers ever had. The girl who was one of my best college friends, and who haunted my dreams for months after that night in the woo
ds when I almost made her mine.

  I hadn’t wanted a name or any more intimate details. I’d wanted to put her in the past and forget that I almost called off my plans to study with a master tattoo artist to spend the summer buried balls-deep in Red. Forget that it took so long to get her out of my head, or that there are still nights when I find myself alone and nothing the Internet has to offer in the way of erotic stimulation will do.

  Nights when I jerk off to the memory of her smell and her taste and the hitch in her voice when she whispered that I was the only one she wanted. Nights when I wonder if it was the fact that we were young and stupid and went out of our way to be fools together that makes me remember her with a tight feeling in my chest, or if it’s something more, something I missed out on, something I might never find again if I don’t switch up my game.

  And now here she is, meeting my gaze across the busy-for-a-Monday-morning French café with a cool, guarded expression that is nothing like the confident, secretly vulnerable Panties I remember, and all I want to do is turn and walk away.

  It hurts to see her like this, with her pretty mouth tight around the edges, her eyes shuttered, and a tense curve in her shoulders that is becoming all too familiar. My first two clients had that same curve at the top of their spine, like they were perpetually ready to curl into a ball and hide. That curve assures me that Red hasn’t booked a Spectacular Rascal intervention as an excuse to connect with an old college friend. She’s here because she is Beth Jones, an attorney well versed in the law, who is still unable to protect herself from an ex-lover who refuses to take no for an answer.

  Thanks to Bash’s slacking the past couple of weeks, I don’t know much about Beth’s situation, only that she’s being stalked by an ex who wants her back, and that she needs someone “dangerous” on her arm to convince the guy to back off.