Never Kiss A Stranger (A Hot Romantic Comedy) Page 19

  CLICK HERE to sign up for updates on when Never Date A Player releases.

  Sneak Peek of Cold Hearted Baller

  Calliope

  My veins are going to explode. I scan the list of ingredients in the Max Energy drink I consumed this morning, checking to see if drugs are listed. They aren’t.

  With a move I imagine is worthy of Maxwell Hunter, the star pitcher who endorses it, I wind my arm back and rocket the sleek silver can across the conference room of Mayhem Marketing. It thunks against the cream-colored wall and lands with a thump inside the small trash can.

  “Yesss,” I exclaim as the door opens.

  “They’re ready for you, Calliope,” Rita, assistant to the man who’s going to hire me to cater all of his marketing company’s functions, informs me with a furrowed brow.

  He hasn’t actually agreed to hire me yet, but he will, because according to the energy drink ‘It’s winning in a can.’

  “Let’s do this, Rita,” I nearly squeal, ping-ponging around the room where I’ll be serving the King and his court various items I’ve created. “I’m going to win them over with my baking skills.”

  “You ok?” she asks, at half the speed I seem to be talking.

  I give her two very animated thumbs up, feeling like my arms are going to shoot off to the ceiling.

  “Yes.” I smooth my hands down the long length of my hair, from root to bottom. The usually heavy brown locks feel like they’re standing on end. I need to calm down, but I can’t. I feel electrified. Times one hundred.

  She moves to the corner of the room as Tobias Longwood, grey-haired owner of Mayhem Marketing, enters, followed by two men in suits. My heart rate accelerates to an unnatural rhythm. I’m not sure if it’s the energy drink or the fact I’ve been dreaming about this opportunity for such a long time. If I can land this account, I’ll finally have the extra money to expand my cafe. Thanks to Max Energy, that thought makes me extra excited.

  “Miss Thomas, hello,” Tobias greets me. “Thanks for coming.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I respond a little too loud over the pulse in my ears, giving his outstretched hand several vigorous pumps.

  His brow furrows just like Rita’s did, and I try to dial it down a notch, but my dial is broken.

  It can’t be normal that my lips tingle when I smile as Tobias introduces me to the two execs who will help decide my fate about whether or not I’ll be hired.

  While the people I’m here to impress take a seat at the rectangular table, I chatter, uncontrollably, about my creations and with jittery hands remove the rich chocolate cake adorned with the Mayhem logo from its box.

  “Looks delicious,” Tobias compliments me as I move closer at warp speed.

  My feet walk faster than my heels can keep up, and instead of placing my showpiece in the center of the table, the cake somehow teeters amidst a chorus of gasps to end up a ganache mess... right in Tobias’ lap. All three layers.

  “I’m so sorry,” I apologize, staring at the broken lump on his groin.

  “Are you on drugs?” he asks with a pinched face, looking down at the red Mayhem logo smeared on his pristine white shirt.

  “No,” I deny, “I can explain.” My eyes dart at a rapid pace to the shocked expressions on the other faces seated at the table.

  “You get one shot here. That was yours. Thank you for coming in, Miss Thomas.”

  “It was an energy drink—Max Energy—by that famous baseball player,” I tell him, because like he said, this is my one shot. “Listen, whoever marketed that as success in a can should be fired.”

  As he removes a lump of cake from his soiled trousers into the garbage can Rita retrieved, he informs me, “We designed that campaign.”

  The room is silent as I pack my things and go. All of my dreams follow me out the door. I'm too high on Max Energy to be depressed.

  I have no one to blame but myself. And Maxwell Hunter, the man behind the drink.

  When I get home, I drop my purse on the kitchen counter and beeline straight for the fridge. MyOn the top shelf, next to the milk, sit the remaining cans of Max Energy. I tilt one of the tall cylinders and read the tiny black font:

  Max Energy will give you that extra you need to reach your goals. It’s winning in a can.

  Share your success.

  Leave a review.

  The words taunt me before I toss it in the trash. The four cans left in my fridge follow it into the garbage before I move over to my laptop on the island in my kitchen. I type in the web address to the Nile site listed on the can and search for Max Energy, clicking on the tiny thumbnail, and then, scrolling through all the five star reviews.

  Delicious! I finished a project for work that earned me a bonus.

  Homerun. Finally, put together the bookshelf I’d been dreading.

  Review after review raves about this drink.

  7 stars!

  I'd give it 100 if I could! I've never tasted anything like this or had so much energy. You will love it!

  Seven out of five?

  I can barely refrain from commenting to ReviewQueen that her rating is impossible. You can not give more than you have.

  I click on ‘My Review’ and select one star. Annoyance flows through my veins and spills out from my fingertips as I type.

  Let me share my story with you. It doesn’t have a happy ending, just like the book I had stayed up all night reading didn’t. I was tired the next morning, and my coworker had given me these from her PR package, so I thought, ‘Sure, I’ll try it.’ I drank one before the most important meeting of my life. Big mistake.

  This is not success in a can. Don’t drink the kool aid, people. Or actually, do. Maybe you won’t bounce off the walls and lose your dream client. Thanks, Max. Thank you for my failure. I hope you have a losing season.

  And then, I press the submit button. Take that, Maxwell Hunter.

  CLICK HERE to read more! Available in Kindle Unlimited.

  Sneak Peek of Cold Hearted Bastard

  Olivia

  Five Things. That’s the title of tonight’s video I’m watching. More like salivating over. Each day, a social media coordinator picks a fireman from the Hightower Hills Fire Department to interview and she asks him ‘five things’ about himself that the community may not know. There are nine other videos of different men on the playlist, but I keep rewinding back to the man of my desire—Corbin Carmack.

  I’m watching these videos like he might let a secret slip out. Something special that could get me closer to him. Something that would whisper into my ears the key to unlocking his heart. Silly, right?

  If you asked me five things about myself that people may not know, it would go a little something like this:

  1. I love a man with brown eyes.

  2. I’ve never wanted a stranger as much as I do him.

  3. I’m going to extremes that could get me tossed in jail just to steal glimpses of him.

  4. For the last two months I’ve blown off friends, family, and everything in between to stay up late at night and watch this video as I pleasure myself to sleep.

  5. I set my house on fire to meet him.

  Well wait, let me explain…

  I first saw Corbin when he made national news, rescuing my neighbor’s baby boy from their burning house in the Cedar Crest subdivision where I live. Charlotte—said baby boy’s mom— screamed from their front lawn, while her husband, Thomas, clutched her in his arms as she begged for him to let her go, because their son was still trapped inside.

  With the heat threatening to scorch my skin from where I stood behind the safety of the barricades, I watched in awe as Corbin leapt from the blaring fire engine and charged right into the flames of Hell without a second thought. Even with the protective gear he was wearing, I couldn’t imagine being that fearless, that daring. But he was.

  After a few heart-stopping moments, Corbin emerged from the burning house with Benjamin clutched to him. His mask covered the baby’s face to give him oxygen, wh
ile he sucked smoke, and the selfless act hit me right in the heart. And the vagina.

  Everyone stood in their pajamas and robes applauding his rescue, and I’m sure, afterward, like normal people, went back to sleep. Went back to living their lives.

  I must be strange, or deranged, because the first thing I did that night was look up the heroic rescuer to find out his name. All the information was right there online. His name, phone number, address—hell, even his email address. The internet also told me his family member’s names, and while I had a lot of trouble finding anyyyyything about Corbin on Facebook, his mom has a penchant for posting every single thing about herself. Her name is Greta, and she loves cooking, fishing, and Jesus. From her numerous posts, it would appear in that exact order.

  But then, I looked up the Hightower Hills Instagram account and was bombarded with videos, live feeds, and pictures galore. It was like my very own personal oasis of Corbin-candy. I devoured every video, deciding on the ‘five things’ one as my favorite, and saved every picture of Corbin to my phone. The word stalker has nothing on me.

  And this is why I’m beginning to unravel. This is why I’m going to drastic measures to get close to him. I can’t take it anymore. He’s consuming my every single thought.

  I wake with him on my brain. I go to sleep with him still there. On my fingertips that wander down into the hem of my panties when I should be getting a full night’s sleep so I can wake in the morning fully refreshed and ready to teach a classroom full of kindergarteners.

  Ugh. See? Deranged. I’m supposed to set an example for the next generation, and here I am breaking laws and moral codes. I’m hunting this person down and trying to dig into their life because I have a sick need to get closer to a total stranger.

  I know that we’ll never be together—in love—or any kind of real relationship. In reality, when I step back and think about what I’ve done, I know it’s wrong. But when I study him on the screen, all I see is a man that I want to be his everything. I want him to look into my eyes and fuck me raw. I want his sweet nothings in the morning. I want him holding me in bed with his strong tattooed arms, smelling like smoke and fire.

  Ah shit, the smoke alarm is going off. My lungs are starting to fight. Oh god, what have I done?

  I can’t just walk up to the firehouse, introduce myself, and offer me up as some kind of prize. So, I’ve done all my research and I know what he likes. I’ve sat and watched from across the street, parked at the post office, as he picks up an order from Rosario’s Italian Delicatessen every Friday. I know every morning at five-thirty he’s at the gym. He runs treadmill first, then weights, then back to the treadmill. At eight forty-five, he likes to stop at JoJo Juice and order a mix of pomegranate, cherry, kale, and pineapple after his workout.

  Oh, no. Oops. I started a full on fire.

  “911, what is your emergency?”

  “Yes, my name is...” I choke, “...Olivia Poppins. I need help. There’s a fire in my kitchen.” The red flames rise higher, spreading across the white cabinets. I race to the front of the house and lie on the cool tile near the door. My heart races inside my chest. “Please, send help.”

  Like I said, I’ve never done anything like this in my life, and never dreamt that I would, but my obsession is beating my brains, and I won’t rest until I can feel him inside me.

  I try to make it to my front door, but the flames rise higher and higher. Oh no, what have I done?

  They say when you die you’re supposed to see a white light, hear angels singing and be reunited with your loved ones—the good ones who made it into Heaven, anyway.

  Not me. When I died, all I saw was a sea of blue. And I’m not talking about the ocean or skyline. Nope. More like, the navy blue shirts of Hightower Hills paramedic crew pounding my chest until my ribs protested under the pressure of their mighty fists pumping with fervor to resuscitate me.

  This was not the uber romantic rescue of my dreams where a scorching hot fireman—Corbin Carmack—swoops in to lift me up into his strong tattooed arms before carrying me to safety.

  There was no surrounding my mouth with his succulent man lips as he breathed his superhero oxygen into my lungs.

  Not even a standard ‘he kissed me awake’ like a fairytale princess rescue.

  Nada. Squat.

  Instead, a bald man named Edgar put his sour-tasting mouth to mine and blew air into my lungs until I choked and nearly vomited on him. To make matters worse, I’ve been labeled the woman who almost died heating up chocolate sauce. That’s the story I told them. They don’t need to know I was trying to have the sexiest fireman in the world come to my rescue.

  I’ve never tried to set a fire before. Hell, I wasn’t even trying to set a fire tonight. I figured a little dramatic smoke and a helpless damsel in distress would be enough. But apparently, ha, chocolate burns really, really fast.

  I try to sit up, even though my chest is also on fire. Edgar urges me to lie back down, but I shove away from him and attempt to make my way back to my house. I’m doing fine on my feet, until I reach my mailbox and the whole world begins to tilt sideways. I reach for the metal box to steady myself but slip and stumble forward into a hard wall.

  But walls don’t talk.

  “Whoa. Hold on there. Where do you think you’re going, Miss Pyro?”

  Lord Jesus, take me now. It’s him.

  His voice. His arms. His smell.

  Everything I’ve been fantasizing about for months is all around me. But, this is not how I planned for it to go.

  I want to shove away and hide myself, but I can’t escape. I’m wobbly on my feet and he holds me fast with warm hands on my hips. His upper arms brush the sides of my breasts. I finally brave glancing up into his face and he smiles down at me, his teeth super white against the backdrop of tan skin and dark scruff. He’s even more beautiful and heartbreaking in person than he was in those videos.

  “M-my name is Poppins,” I stammer, locked on his caramel eyes.

  “Well, tonight, you’re Little Miss Pyro.” He nods his head toward my house. “Burned down half your kitchen. Is this how you usually spend a Friday night alone?”

  “I was making fondue,” I lie.

  His hands stay on my hips, eyes on mine. His tongue licks over his bottom lip before he says, “Too bad you burned it. Hot date planned tonight?”

  I beam back at him. “Is that a firefighter joke?”

  Instead of answering my poor attempt to flirt, he props his arm under mine as a crutch, and tries to walk with me in his hold, but I sway a bit. “Sorry, I’m a little…”

  Before I can finish my sentence, he swoops me up and carries me easily in his arms back to the ambulance. I pretty much want to die. But also, I’m swooning like a Swoony McSwoonster. Silently, of course.

  “Hey, Edgar,” he says, bouncing me ever so slightly, “I think you lost something.”

  “No. She ran away,” Edgar huffs. “I’m a year away from retirement and not in the damn mood to be running people down who don’t want my help.”

  “Understood,” Corbin says, glancing at me with a glint of wickedness in his eyes and then back to Edgar. “But as long as you’re still on the payroll, you got a fucking job to do.”

  The old man folds his arms. “Not until she apologizes.”

  “I think she needs to save her air for something more useful than stroking your ego.” Corbin turns away from Edgar and heads to the fire engine, placing me on the silver platform on the back. He retrieves two blue blankets from a compartment.

  “They had to split your dress down the middle, because they thought they might need to use paddles on you.”

  He glances down to my chest, and I follow his line of vision and see that I’ve had my white semi-see-through bra on display the entire time. My cheeks flush as he wraps the soft fleece around my shoulders.

  “You should stay warm so you don’t go into shock.”

  He rubs up and down my arms, and if he doesn’t stop doing that, I’m going to
need the hose turned on me to put out the fire igniting deep in my bones.

  “I am,” I say, hypnotized by his soul-stirring eyes.

  “Hmm?” He continues massaging my arms and now a little over my back as he makes circles around my shoulders. Good god. I’m gonna need more than a fire hose spraying me down if he doesn’t quit that.

  “What?” I ask.

  He laughs. “You said ‘I am.’ I’m trying to figure out what ‘you are.’”

  “I…” am your stalker. In love with a stranger. Want to pounce on you. Watch you every night while pleasuring myself. A complete (harmless, except to myself) psycho that’s having an internet romance with you, without you knowing it.

  Best to avoid truths in this answer, so I stall with stuttering over animal noises and incomplete sentences until another man approaches us. His pristine white shirt grabs Corbin’s attention. It’s the Battalion Chief. I know this because I’ve watched his ‘Five Things’ video too, hoping there might be some footage of Corbin in it. Sadly, there wasn’t. He’s a former New York smoke sucker, and he wears it proudly in his thick accent and swagger. The chief has Edgar in tow.

  “Seems there’s a mix up between who’s s‘posta be putting out fires and who is s’posta be takin’ fire-starters to the hospital,” the Chief says.

  “Miss,” Edgar says hard, but looking fearful of the chief, “please come with me.”

  Corbin offers me his hand and I contemplate for a second before I allow myself to feel him. My hand slides into his—slow—so I can brace for whatever spark ignites. They do not burst into flames on contact like I expected, but I’m going to hope he felt a flicker of something.

  He’s rough to the touch, but gentle, as he pulls me to my feet and leads me over to Edgar. “Got her?” he asks, not letting me go yet.

  Edgar nods, but I doubt he could catch me if I stumbled. He’s half Corbin’s size, in every way you slice it.

  I look back at Corbin. “Thank you.”

  He smiles that smile I’ve watched for months, complete with the signature dimple in the pocket of his left cheek. “Unless you want me to come back here, Miss Pyro, stay away from fondue.”