Missed Connections: Stepping Out Read online

  She ground against his erection, seeming to wait for something. Then she swore and kissed him hard, her lips punishing against his mouth.

  Despite his intentions, Conlan reacted. In a big way. He kissed her back, grinding up against her, the sexual chemistry between them impossible to ignore. He had to remind himself that this wasn’t the place or time for a quick fuck. And especially not with this woman, who had the morals of an alley cat.

  But his hands didn’t seem to care. They crept up her waist to cup her breasts. He squeezed her hard nipples and drew back from the kiss so that he could breathe in her scent when he rubbed his face between her huge tits. Her moans made everything worse, because he was a heartbeat from unzipping his pants and shoving inside her. He didn’t need to touch her to know she’d be wet, as caught up in their hellish chemistry as he was.

  Not totally his fault, considering he’d spent the last six months celibate, too busy working and dealing with the ex from hell to engage with a woman. Now horny, pissed off, and with the potential for meaningless sex looming right before him, he had half a mind to fuck her and be done with the whole mess. Some lesson, but then, she seemed to want it as much as he did.

  Someone knocked on the door. “Anyone in there?”

  They froze. She pulled back, oddly enough staring at him in both disgust and horror.

  “Be right out,” she called.

  He felt the way she looked.

  She scrambled off his lap and put her dress to rights. “You’re a scumbag, and I wouldn’t do you if you were the last man on earth,” she spat in a low voice.

  Quite the change of heart from a woman whose tongue had moments ago been down his throat.

  Ignoring his erection, he stood and glared down at her, embarrassed he’d nearly come at her hands. “Same back at ya. What’s wrong? Did you suddenly remember my pregnant fiancée and realize what an unfeeling bitch you really are? Better close those legs before you catch something, sweetie.”

  She narrowed her eyes, twin beams of blue death aimed his way. “Why don’t you crawl back to your baby’s mama? Even better, do her a favor and leave her alone. You’re a poor excuse for a man.”

  She had the nerve to flounce away. She unlocked the door and shoved past a gaggle of startled women.

  He followed, furious that he’d nearly lost his head with Aaron’s leavings. They skirted a huddled mass of people talking and circling around the brawlers now in cuffs on the floor.

  “I’m not done talking to you,” he warned.

  She continued toward the front door. “Well, I’m done with you.” To a nearby waiter, she said, “This guy’s trying to skip out on the check. I’d grab him before he skates.”

  The waiter looked alarmed and yelled for an officer’s help.

  Conlan swore as he stopped to deal with the check. Gwen kept going.

  Before he knew it, she was out the door and gone, and he was stuck with a two-hundred-plus-dollar dinner bill, a headache, and the memory of Gwen’s supple body over his cock.

  Some lesson this had turned out to be. What a hell of a night.

  Chapter Two

  Gwen glared at her cousin the next morning and considered burying herself under her blankets. At times like these, she wished Mia worked away from home. But since they were both self-employed and busy as heck running a successful blog and social media campaign, there was nowhere for Mia to go.

  “So tell me exactly what happened. You know you want to,” Mia cajoled. “You were pretty vague and annoyed last night. I figured it was best to let you sleep before interrogating you.”

  “Coffee. Must have coffee.”

  Mia snickered and left, returning moments later with a steaming cup of java. “Here. Now talk. So there was a fight, Conlan—your date—got his head bashed in, then you ditched him in the restaurant?”

  After swallowing a healthy dose of morning wake-up, Gwen gave Mia a detailed blow-by-blow, sparing herself no expense when she also detailed how she’d made out with the creep in the restroom.

  “I can’t believe you did that.”

  “Neither can I.” Gwen groaned, set her coffee on the nightstand, and tried to hide under her comforter.

  Mia wouldn’t let her. She sat down on the bed and pulled the comforter off her. “He’s engaged, Gwen. To a pregnant woman.”

  “I know.” She wanted to curl into a ball and die. “But I can see why he’s such a player. The man had skills. Not that I was buying into him at all, but Jesus, he was sexy. Gross, creepy, scummy, and really, really hot. Even worse, he was a good kisser.”

  The universe was seriously screwed up to allow a dirtbag like Conlan to have such an amazing mouth. “All I know is that I finally told him off and stiffed him with a huge bill. So I did my part for womankind.”

  “After you played tonsil-hockey, you mean.”

  Gwen smacked Mia with her pillow. “Look. He caught me off guard. I haven’t had sex in forever. At least I did the right thing at the end.”

  “True.” They sat staring at each other. “So now what?”

  “Now we get to work. I’m going to set up the rest of this week’s posts, and I’ll start with what happened last night, then ask for opinions. Make a poll to go with it, would you?”

  “Good idea. We also got a stack of advice questions. You’re up to bat.”

  “Deal. And you handle the ad space for next month. We’re getting behind on scheduling guest spots too. You need to catch us up.”

  Mia groaned. “Fine. Go shower and meet me in the office.”

  Hours later, Gwen finished the majority of work she’d planned to accomplish for the day. She’d scheduled a meeting with her editor at the Bend Voice at four, so she hustled to grab both herself and Karen some coffee before walking into the downtown office.

  She waved at a few of her friends, pleased to see they’d saved her a spot at the guest desk, which usually overflowed with paper and yellow sticky notes. She normally did her piece at home, but every now and then she put in an appearance at the office to make Karen happy. The Bend Voice ran independently of the local paper, and the weekly format went out to over a hundred thousand people. A decent platform from which she gathered blog followers as well.

  “About time you got here,” Karen barked in her husky voice, worn down from years of smoking. “We’ve got a great idea for the advice section, something to broaden appeal for us and the Insider.” The Insider—the daily paper.

  “Oh?” Gwen put one cup near Karen, then perched on the seat opposite Karen’s desk and downed some of her own dark roast.

  “Yeah. I was talking with Ted over at the Insider. He’s got a guy who gives advice, and we have you. So we thought about growing our readership and throwing you two together. Advice from a man’s and woman’s point of view.”

  “Hasn’t that been done before?”

  “Yep, but not by either of us in years. We also got you a spot on the local news to push this. Sound good?”

  Gwen was pretty happy with her work at present. But extra publicity never hurt. She could almost hear Mia yelling at her to accept. “Um, sure?” TV? She didn’t have a thing to wear. Not to mention the camera added a good thirty pounds to what she thought she looked like.

  “You can plug your blog. Never hurts for an extra push, am I right?” Karen dangled the extra bait.

  Like the hapless guppy Gwen was turning out to be, she jumped on it. “Fine. I’m in.”

  Karen rubbed her hands together, her gray eyes twinkling behind her glasses. “Outstanding. Your new partner is waiting in the conference room. Go meet and greet and figure out how you two want to handle the TV spot. Just a warning, this one’s a looker. Check for drool before you leave him.”

  “Funny.” At least Karen gave decent notice. Not one of Mia’s vague descriptions.

  When Gwen wandered into the conference room a few minutes later, she saw a dark-haired man leaning over the table looking at something. From the back, he appeared tall, muscular, and, yeah, sexy, filling
out a dark blue sweater and jeans. Talk about a nice ass and a set of shoulders to go with it.

  Then he turned around, and her day went straight to hell.

  CONLAN THOUGHT THE idea to merge advice pieces pure genius and wondered why they hadn’t tried it before. Guidance from a man and woman on any given subject always invited interest as well as discussion.

  Seeing Gwen again hadn’t been on his radar.

  “Well, well,” he said with a smile he didn’t feel. She looked shell-shocked. Good. “If it isn’t my slutty date from last night.” Yeah, slutty. He went there, though truth be told, this woman looked worlds apart from the one he’d dined with at Donton’s.

  Gone was the rat-teased hair. Gwen wore her blue-black hair neat and back in a ponytail. She had a fringe of bangs that softened her gorgeous features, making her approachable and not just mesmerizing. Without all the garish makeup from last night, she looked vulnerable, innocent even.

  Her clothing was a one-eighty as well. Jeans that fit her without being too tight molded to her fine ass and long legs. Her U of O sweatshirt supported the team while hinting at the curves he’d been unable to look away from last night.

  And the woman wore glasses. Red frames with purple handles that she’d pushed up on top of her head while she pinched the bridge of her nose. Glasses had always been his kryptonite with women. Nothing hotter than an intelligent sex kitten. Not that Gwen fit that bill, on the inside at least.

  “God couldn’t be this cruel on a Friday,” she groaned.

  He snorted. “Apparently, he can. I mean, what are the odds I’m stuck with a two-timing little witch who’s not only a cock-tease, but who also stuck me with an astronomically high bill last night?”

  Her bright grin should have pissed him off, but instead she intrigued him. This Gwen he wanted to get to know. To get more ammunition for his sister, he hastily reminded himself.

  The wattage on her mean smile increased. “I hope it hurt—bad. Three, four hundred dollars?”

  “Two-fifty,” he muttered.

  “Good. You cheating louse.”

  “Ha. I’m not a cheater. You are.”

  “Oh?” She planted her hands on her hips. “My fiancée isn’t pregnant. In fact, I’m not engaged, dating, or married. But you are.”

  “Actually, I’m not.” He dropped that bomb with pleasure. “My sister is pregnant and engaged to the horse’s ass you were supposed to meet last night. Maybe if you weren’t so loose with your time—and other parts of you”—he added with a leer down her front—“you’d know that.”

  She blinked. “Wait. What?”

  “Yeah, that’s right, princess. Aaron Scott, my unfortunate sister’s fiancé, is the loser who was supposed to meet you for dinner and tricks afterward. I went in his place to save my sister the heartache.” He sneered at her, wishing she was uglier the day after and not more attractive.

  “No way. That’s why I—”

  Karen, the Bend Voice’s editor in chief, interrupted. “Hey, you two good to go?”

  “Yes,” he said at the same time Gwen answered, “No.”

  Karen apparently heard what she wanted. “Great. I’ll e-mail you a test question. Have your responses to me by Monday. Then we’ll talk about how you want to play this for the camera.” She turned and addressed Conlan. “I’m overseeing this. I talked it over with Ted, and he agreed.”

  Ted was Conlan’s boss. If Ted had okayed Karen, Conlan had no problem accepting her input.

  He nodded. “Fine by me. I’ll do my part. See if you can get your society princess to do hers.” Then he left before he said or did anything else he shouldn’t. Like spank the cheating little liar until she moaned in pleasure.

  GWEN WATCHED HIM go in confusion. Conlan wasn’t the pregnant chick’s fiancé, but her brother? Mia should have been meeting Aaron Scott? She turned to Karen. “Exactly who the hell is he?”

  Karen sighed. “Got off to a great start, eh? That, my dear, was Conlan Dawson, a brilliant writer at the Insider and an author in his own right as well. His last book sold for a high six figures in a bidding war, or so a little bird told me.”

  Gwen frowned. “And his girlfriend? Lisa?”

  Karen wiggled her brows. “Interested?”

  “No. Yes. I mean, kind of, but not to date him. I heard he was cheating on her and thought I’d do a spread on infidelity and how to cope.” Something she knew like the back of her hand.

  “Hmm. Nope. From what I know, he’s happily single. A real catch on the social scene, or so the Insider likes to tease. But, hell, look him up. I think we did an article on him last year for the Bend Bachelor Auction. Betty covered it.”

  Karen left, and Gwen found Betty stressing about a deadline at her desk. Just a few years younger than Gwen, Betty never seemed to sit still and looked like she’d barely graduated college.

  “Yo, Bets, tell me about Conlan Dawson,” she demanded, getting right to the point. Betty was all work and no play. Something Gwen could appreciate.

  “Hey, Gwen. Right. Conlan Dawson.” She typed madly at her computer. “I just sent you a link I did to last year’s piece. His bio is pretty tight. Mine, of course.”

  “Thanks, Bets.”

  “Now I’m on deadline, so if you could—”

  “Leave. Gotcha. Thanks again.”

  Gwen jumped on an abandoned computer and read up on the man of the hour. Conlan Dawson. He was thirty-one, just three years her senior. He had to-die-for dark brown eyes, a healthy build—did he—no woman on the horizon, and hoped to be an uncle soon, since his sister had recently gotten herself engaged.

  Shit.

  The sick feeling brewing in her belly deepened as she continued to read. His mother had passed away five years ago, leaving him with Lisa—said sister—and his father, Bruce. They’d been in Bend for the past thirty-five years, and his father owned a popular ski shop in town. As Karen had stated, Conlan was a best-selling author and wrote a popular advice column for the daily paper. Hell, she used to read it just to see what “Con” had to say. Despite being a man, he’d had some valid points.

  “The jerk was telling the truth.” She didn’t know how to feel about that.

  An alarm on her phone reminded her to get home to join Mia and her boyfriend, Trent, for dinner.

  On the way home, she tried to stop thinking about Conlan—an impossible feat. Because now that she knew he wasn’t the bad guy in her watered-down drama, she kept remembering how good he’d smelled. How he’d felt beneath her when she’d kissed him in the bathroom.

  How big he’d been between his legs… Oh boy. Not a great time for her libido to wake up. For five long months, she’d been in denial that she’d ever date again. Now she wanted to sex up a man who couldn’t stand her. For good reason, but still. Just because he wasn’t an obvious cheater didn’t mean he didn’t have bad qualities.

  “He can’t forgive.” She tallied up other less than stellar attributes about the man, trying to turn him into someone she shouldn’t want. “He’s too superficial, more into a woman’s breast size than who she is inside.” He had been fascinated with her chest over dinner. “He’s sneaky. Instead of confronting me about possibly having an affair with his sister’s fiancé, he tricked me into dinner.” She ignored the fact she’d done the exact same thing.

  Yet the more she thought about him, the more miserable she felt. She had to work with the guy, and she couldn’t stand the thought he assumed she would have slept with Aaron Scott—the father of his sister’s unborn child. Just thinking about it made her feel skeevy.

  She parked her car. Upon exiting she found Mia waiting for her by the door.

  “Oh my God. You aren’t going to believe this.” Mia chattered excitedly as she pulled Gwen inside. “So I was telling Trent about your revenge date.”

  “I don’t know that I’d call it revenge. And why the heck are you telling Trent?”

  “I heard that,” Mia’s boyfriend said from the kitchen.

  “Come on. I tell Tre
nt everything.” At the frown Gwen shot her, Mia amended, “Almost everything. It’s not as if you told me not to tell him.”

  “Fine. So what’s this big news?”

  “Come on. I’ll let Trent tell you.”

  Mia’s wide grin warned Gwen she wasn’t going to like it—whatever it was. After today’s big surprise, she could do without more bad news.

  Trent brought a steaming pot of something mouthwateringly appetizing to the table.

  “Oh man. Is that your clam chowder?” Gwen asked as she quickly washed her hands, then sat down at the kitchen table.

  “It is.” Trent grinned. He owned a successful soup and sandwich shop on the west side, and Gwen lived for the days he brought dinner. For that alone, she’d forgive Mia’s blabbing.

  “My favorite.”

  “I know.”

  Trent ladled them all soup, then sat with them and stared at Gwen, his shit-eating grin annoying her to no end. “Ack. Just tell me already. What do you know that I don’t?”

  “Sorry for staring,” Trent apologized while Mia tried to hide her smile. “I’m just trying to put Conlan’s description of his hooker date over your face.”

  “Hooker?”

  Mia broke into gales of laughter.

  “Will kiss for food?” Trent teased. “Couldn’t resist. Get this, Gwen. We live in a very small world. Conlan Dawson happens to be a good friend of mine. He stopped in for lunch today and went off, telling me all about this woman who tried to sleep with his sister’s fiancé. Then I get home, and Mia starts telling me about your date and some creep you met at Donton’s. Not that I’m a math major, but I put two and two together.”

  His scrutiny started to bother her, even as she wolfed down his amazing soup. “What?”

  “I just don’t see ‘hooker’ all over you. Or home wrecker. Or cheap-ass bitch.”

  “I hate guys who use the b word,” she muttered, flushing.

  “Or trollop,” he continued in good humor. “Loser. Skank. Cheating who—”

  “I get it. Enough already.”