They drove in separate cars to a small rehabbed wooden, yellow shotgun house just around the corner from the theatre. It was a cute as a button with its blue shutters, complete with a blue door and a small garden with red mulch.  There was a white rocking chair on the porch and an American flag hoisted out on the side.  It didn’t look like a bachelor pad at all, more like a family house.

Parking his Jeep out front on the street, Kennedy ran quickly up the sidewalk to the house, unlocked the door and vanished inside, while Jade waited out in her Audi.

With the music playing and the windows half down to enjoy the breeze, she listened to the radio and waited, feeling very much like a teenager inside.  She had not been on one date since she arrived in Memphis, but this was a great way to start.

A few minutes later, he emerged.  “Told you I wouldn’t be long,” he said, moving quickly.

They drove around the corner to the movie theatre and parked in the packed parking lot.  Jade got out and looked at the sun.  It would only be a couple of hours before the day was given away to night and this perfect day would be over.

Kennedy jumped out of his jeep and walked over to her.  Grabbing her hand, he escorted her inside.

It was the close proximity to him that was driving her insane, and how comfortable he seemed with public displays of affection.  However, all day, he had behaved like a total gentleman, not like the crazed sex animal who had humped her friend or kissed her without knowing her name at Selma’s party.  He was a bit of an enigma to her.  She was expecting all day for him to bring up sex, but he did not mention it one time.

However, the intensity in his green eyes made her think of nothing else.  She kept having to push back thoughts of feeling his body against hers and the way his tongue tasted.  She kept wondering if he’d kiss her again, or if he was a completely different man when he wasn’t Santa.

As she sat by him in the movie theatre, his long arm draped over her to keep her warm, she grappled with her feelings and wondered if he was doing the same.  Every once in a while in between laughing and eating popcorn as they watched some stupid romantic comedy, Jade wondered if the joke was on her.  He didn’t seem the least bit frantic about the situation, where she was two seconds from ripping his pants off.

“Are you enjoying yourself?” he bent to her ear and asked.  His grin was absolutely adorable.

“Very much,” she said, moving closer into his embrace.

“Good.” Bending to her, he kissed her forehead.  “Me too.”

Argh!!!!  Jade was about to go crazy.  He was literally driving her insane.  Don’t kiss me on the forehead, kiss me on my lips, she screamed inside.

Maybe out of habit, he rubbed her arm as he watched the movie.  His fingers lingered on her right shoulder, making her clitoris pound so hard against her yoga pants, she thought she would orgasm right there.

“I’ll be back,” she said, finally unable to handle one more second of his slow teasing.

“Okay.  You alright?” he asked sincerely.

“Great,” she said, moving down the aisle toward the exit.  “I’ll be right back.”

She doused herself with water as she stood over the sink in the ladies room.  Staring at her reflection, she quietly demanded of herself that she get her shit together.  Maybe all of this pent up frustration was coming as a result of seeing him nearly naked already, or maybe it was the fact that in 20 minutes of meeting him, she had already seen his monstrous erection, but whatever it was that had the sex chemical coursing through her veins, she had to get control.

Another thought, one far more sinister, crept through her mind as she reapplied her makeup.  Maybe after talking to her for two hours, any sexual attraction that he had toward her was completely lost.  It might have been the same thing that pushed he who would not be named away.

To Jade that was far more reasonable than any other possibility and suddenly she felt sad.  Pulling herself together and spraying on a dash of perfume, she slowed her breathing and walked back out.

Well, maybe even if he doesn’t like me that way, I may have made a friend, she thought to herself as she made her way back inside the movie theatre.

As soon as Jade approached, Kennedy adjusted to make her more comfortable and as she settled down beside him in her seat completely deflated from her own thoughts and grabbed the popcorn to shovel the entire box into her face, he grabbed her gently and landed a sweet warm kiss on her mouth.  He lingered there a moment with as much passion as the night that he met her.  Stroking the side of her face with his thumb, he stopped when the people behind them started to clear their throats.

Even in the dark as her eyes flashed open in disbelief, she could see that glimmer in his eyes. He was still very much attracted to her.  And she was still very much in play.  Sitting back once he released her from his powerful embrace, he threw his arm possessively over her shoulder and began watching the movie again and laughing.

 

 

Chapter One

Everyone is Getting Some But Me

Week of Thanksgiving

Tuesday Morning

 

The alarm blasted into Jade’s ear at 6:00 a.m.  She rolled over and glanced at her phone before she turned it off.  She wanted to hit snooze, but she knew that ten more minutes in the bed wouldn’t help what ailed her.

Grunting, she rolled over and kicked her legs from under the comforter.  Everything was hazy and cold.  But that was intentional.  She always turned the air down to 65 degrees before she went to bed.  She liked snuggling under her covers in the dark in a perfectly clean room.  Something about it was comforting.  But in the morning when she woke, it was always the same.

Cold. Dark.  Lonely.

Standing up beside her bed, she grabbed her glasses and slipped them onto her face, instantly going from nearly blind to 20/20 vision.  Turning on her lamp, she looked around her large master bedroom.  She always looked around every morning, scanning for anything that might be out of place.  Besides work, she had nothing else in her life.  So, keeping her house clean as a whistle had become an obsession. Healthy or not, it was all that she had.

Meandering through the long hallway, she made her way to the kitchen.  Turning on the television in the corner atop her countertop, she poured herself a cup of coffee from the Keurig she had bought herself the previous year for her birthday and stared at CNN reporting on another violent eruption in the Middle East.

Then it hit her.

Today was her birthday. How could she forget that?  Or maybe, she hadn’t forgotten at all, maybe she had pushed that date to the back of her mind until she had no choice but to deal with it.

Well, here it was.

There was something that went instantly sour in her stomach.

She was thirty-five today, and still she was single.  Absolutely, positively single.  How could a woman with a 775 credit score, thousands of dollars in the bank, no children, no STDs and no behavioral disorders be single at 35 when Honey BooBoo was juggling two men?

She didn’t even have a male friend in this city. Hell, at this point, she’d take an affair on Tinder to have someone to talk to.  She was…pathetic.  She had moved to Memphis from Manhattan one year ago to work for Koch PR firm, a move that she thought would help her find peace in her life.

Two years ago, she really had been in love.  And she thought he was in love too.  That was until he accepted a job with a bigger PR firm in Toronto and broke up with her to further his career.  He called it an opportunity of a lifetime…like she was just something to do.  Six months later, he was engaged to someone else, someone new. It only took six damn months. She saw it on Facebook.  How tacky?  And the woman had been far less pretty, in her biased opinion.  The least the jerk could have done was block her as a friend before dropping the news on everyone and making her look like a complete ass.

Or maybe she should have looked at all the signs.

He said that he loved her…her knight in shining armor.

He said that he wanted to be with her. But he never moved in.

He said that they would spend their lives together, but he had never popped the question.  She had been waiting, but it never came.  She couldn’t even name how many times that he had taken her to dinner at a five-star restaurant and she thought, this is it, only to be disappointed by it turning out to be a celebration of some other special moment in his life. A promotion.  Closing a deal.  Paying off his student loan.

But he couldn’t seem to promote their relationship or close the deal with her.

FUCK HIM.

He became him who would not be named.

And according to him who would not be named, she had one fatal flaw that he could not get around.  She was a classic workaholic.  Unfortunately, he lived in the world of man, where a woman could make as much money as her man just as long as it didn’t affect their personal time together.  However, if she worked one hour longer or went in one hour earlier, then she was accused of cheating – her job was the other man in her life.  The punishment…breakup.

Never mind his own business trips.  Never mind his own untimely emails and phone calls.  Never mind his emergency weekend meetings at the office.  Those were looked over and chalked up to being reasonable while her job was treated like the elephant in the room.

So after the breakup and the new woman, she moved.

As accused, she had settled into her new job as the Director of Social Media and began slaving away and climbing the proverbial latter.  Only, in the process of trying to prove herself, she had lost any semblance of a personal life. With no one on the weekend to occupy her time, she had nearly forgotten what it was like to have weekend plans or birthday plans or holiday plans or any plans at all.  She had none.

No friends – except work acquaintances.

No boyfriend.

Not even a damn dog.

In six months, the only thing that she had managed to build was her portfolio.  But who really gave a shit, when there was no one to enjoy retirement with?

“I need to stop feeling sorry for myself,” she said aloud, cutting out thoughts of sorrow.

Reaching to the back of the cupboard, she grabbed the slightly dust covered whiskey bottle and poured a little something special into her morning coffee.  “Happy fucking Birthday,” she said, headed to the bathroom to get ready for her perfectly boring day.

 

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This is the month. July 7th we drop the box set that we’ve all been waiting to read. For me, it’s exciting because I get to read my sister authors’ work. No, I haven’t had the opportunity beforehand, so I’ll be digging into the pages with you.
This has been a great project led by my friend, Yvette Hines. She has worked tirelessly on this project and keeping me in line, which is a very hard thing to do. Plus, the price is just unreal for only $0.99, you get 12 great reads. Now, here is the ask. Not only do we want you to buy the box set, we want you to pre-order it. Please, if you have time, go to your kindle now and make your purchase.

Here is the link to purchase now: http://www.amazon.com/12-Alphas-Months-Contemporary-Calendar-ebook/dp/B00VS8UJT0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1435760711&sr=8-1&keywords=12+Alphas

Okay, so what is the box set about? Good question.

LIMITED TIME ONLY! .99
USA Today, Amazon, National and Multi-published Bestselling Authors bring you sensual contemporary romance stories of…
ALPHAS: Military/Vets, Shifters, Blue Collar, Business Men, Athletes, Smoke Jumpers, Doctors and more… This is the YEAR of your dreams. 12 Alphas 12 Months come and get your calendar men!

ALL NEW STORIES…with a connection. That’s right. These stories all have a main theme that unites them. Tamela Harvin is a nationally syndicated radio host who left the glitz and glamour of Hollywood to use her fame helping out those less fortunate. She loves a cause. When she’s contacted by a listener about a grave concern close to her heart; widower fathers struggling to find emotional support and care for their children after a loss of a wife, Tamela gets to work. Calling in all her community activist across the continent and one sharp photographer, Braden Niles, she creates a calendar of hot sexy men to raise money and support.
From one story to another, men are stepping up, and taking it off to help fathers and children in need.

Don’t you want to do your part? One click and you’re in. .99 cents for a limited time. (878 pages)
Meet your men:
Mr. January
Beg for It by Angie Daniels
Three wild erotic nights will have her begging for more…
~
Mr. February
Got your Six by Erosa Knowles
In the end, the only words he needed were hers in Reclamation: Got your Six by Erosa Knowles.
~
Mr. March
Succulent by TJ Michaels
Twilight Teahouse ~ Choosing something decadent from our menu…
~
Mr. April
Stalking Nayla by Yvette Hines
Nayla is being hunted. Shimar has to keep her safe, but convincing her she’s his mate is the real challenge.
~
Mr. May
Prescription for Love by Seressia Glass
She’s just what the doctor ordered in Prescription for Love
~
Mr. June
Solomon’s Quest by Serenity King
He’s determined to protect her, but the secrets she keeps may destroy her.
~
Mr. July
One Hot Dare by Michelle Monkou
When to serve and protect escalates into a sexy dangerous game.
~
Mr. August
All The Small Things by Stephanie Burke
The more unbearable the pain, the richer the rewards
~
Mr. September
Inferno by Aliyah Burke
Sometimes the flames aren’t meant to be put out.
~
Mr. October
Wicked Games by Maureen Smith
Some games are too dangerous to play.
~
Mr. November
The Ultimate Goal by Di Topaz
Will Justice and Angelique put their difference aside and go for the Ultimate Goal?
~
Mr. December
Seeking Santa by Latrivia S. Nelson
Alone during the Christmas holidays in a new city, Jade sets out on a mission to find happiness.