Roller derby girl Gretchen “Honey Badger” Badgerton lives in the moment, no apologies. Like every woman in Pleasant Park with a pulse, she finds Dr. Jared Fine irresistible, but she’s taken by surprise when her unattainable new neighbor asks her out.
On paper, Jared is the perfect man: gorgeous, wealthy and charitable. But his golden image is just that, and opening an upstate practice is a welcome chance to start a new life. When Gretchen stops to help him with a flat tire, he’s intrigued by her feisty attitude—and her sexy body art. There’s something refreshing about being with a take-charge woman who doesn’t expect him to be anything but himself,
Though Gretchen is hesitant to shatter Jared’s “bad girl” illusion of her, she has to face facts: she’s fallen for the good doctor. She’s used to putting everyone else’s needs before hers, but as their relationship heats up, can she handle having someone take care of her for a change?
Excerpt:
“You’ve never had skeezy bar bathroom sex before?” Gretchen watched Jared make his selection with way too much consideration for the task at hand. Rainbow or ribbed for her pleasure. It didn’t make a damn difference to her. At this point, she was one nipple tweak away from her pleasure either way.
He glanced over his shoulder as he turned the dial on the machine. “I’ve done tents and jungles and sand dunes and one incredibly cramped time in a tank, but no bathrooms. Why? Have you?”
Only once, but he didn’t have to know that. “You are looking at the bar bathroom expert of Pennsylvania. You want a tip?” She didn’t wait for a response, instead slowly turning and placing her hands on the wall, pat-down-style. Spreading her legs and arching her back, she gave him a clear view of the ruffly bottoms of her roller derby undershorts. “This position is my favorite.”
“Well, shit.”
She whirled. Oh, no. He was not getting away with this two times in one night. “What? If you tell me you’re going to leave again, I swear to you—”
“It gave me mints. What kind of a condom machine gives you mints?”
Gretchen fell into a startled laugh when she saw the pained expression on his face, a tiny box of mints held aloft. “Safe sex and good oral hygiene go hand in hand. Maybe the bar is trying to perform a public service.”
He scowled. “Are you implying something?”
“You taste amazing, Dr. Fine,” she said, reassuring him with a slow, lazy smile. She licked her lips in what had to be the least subtle gesture of her life. “I can’t wait to sample the rest of you.”
“Fuck these mints.” Jared tossed the box into the tiny bathroom wastebasket, feeling oddly proud when they made a loud clang. There would be no wasting another second of Gretchen watching him with that look in her eyes, challenging and angry and forgiving all at once. He had two more quarters, which he pulled out of his pocket with more than a little trouble. He was running out of room inside his pants.
He stood surveying the machine carefully. Condoms were clearly mints, and he wasn’t about to make that error again. Since mints were situated to the right of the merchandise he actually wanted, his best bet was to try for a tampon and see what happened.
As he debated the merits of ripping the damn thing off the wall and smashing it open with his bare hands, Gretchen came up behind him and twined her arms around his waist. “It’s like sexual Russian roulette.” She laughed, her mouth close to his ear. He loved it when a woman paid attention to his ears. Desire shot spiked and hot to his groin, which was already doing a fine job of spiking and heating up all on its own. “You choose the wrong chamber and there will be no guns going off in this room.”
“That’s a hell of a lot of pressure to put on a man.”
Her hands moved lower. Fingers grazed over the top of his jeans, sending jolts of sensation through him. In a more rational frame of mind, he might say that this entire thing was calculated. Gretchen with her righteous fury and ruffled panties. A poorly lit bathroom stall. A condom machine taunting him from afar.
He was two fucking quarters away from reaching salvation.
“If there was one thing for sure I thought I could say about you,” Gretchen murmured, “it’s that you can handle the pressure. Choose wisely, doctor, and choose fast. I can’t wait to feel you inside me.”
Screw it. He tossed the money into the furthest option from the condoms, where the machine indicated he could get a pair of his and hers temporary tattoos. He was either leaving this bathroom a satisfied man, or he was leaving with a unicorn tattoo and one hell of a hard-on.