Mike just rolled his eyes and ignored the alpha-beta crap, because he knew that on the surface he looked like a beta. They weren’t wolves, though, and this wasn’t a pack; they were human beings who were complex and nuanced. He could show Dylan, and himself, that he was capable of going out on his own and finding a woman.
Well, OK, that wasn’t quite accurate. Dylan had found the woman. Fair enough – but he could go out on his own and test the waters. Make sure the woman was attracted to him on her own and not as part of some package with Dylan at the lead.
And he had just done that today. Quite pleased with himself, that sense of pleasure faded, like a light switch being flipped off, the second he walked in the apartment and saw Dylan’s face.
“You slept with her, didn’t you?” Dylan wasn’t just pissed. Betrayal was too mild a word to describe his feelings. Dylan was itching for a fight, his fingers clinching against his hot palms.
Mike walked through the door, a cheerful smile on his face, a loose, languid quality to his joints that made Dylan want to throw him against the wall and beat the ever-loving shit out of him for taking his woman.
Their woman.
Funny, how history seemed to repeat itself. This was exactly what had happened with Jill almost ten years ago when they’d all first met. Mike would deny it, but the reality was that Jill had been Dylan’s girlfriend and Mike had been the interloper then. So, even though Dylan knew that they had this running joke, that he was the alpha and Mike was the beta, Mike was neither – he was really just a snake.
A snake Dylan couldn’t live without.
“You son of a bitch, you went and – you found Laura and you – the morning after my date with her, you contacted her and got her to go out with you!” He couldn’t help but stammer, and the sputtering made him feel small and insignificant, reduced to babbling like a lovesick teen. Fury plumed in him, hot and fast, with a taste like blood.
Mike stopped dead in his tracks and shoved his hands in his pockets, staring dead ahead at Dylan, eyes boring into his.
“Yep.”
That enraged Dylan more than anything, because he knew at this point Mike would only give one-word answers. Like a robot, the man shut down and steeled himself, becoming an impenetrable fortress of quotidian bullshit. “You knew how important this date was, you knew that I was checking her out for us, not just for me, you jerk!” Dylan seethed now, his anger fueled by Mike’s withdrawal. “Why in the hell would you go behind my back and contact her? And a few hours after I slept with her!”
“I didn’t know you slept with her!”
Dylan cocked his head, rolled his eyes, and made an Oh please! gesture. “Right, like any woman I wanna sleep with isn’t going to sleep with me on the first date!”
Mike let out a puff of laughter. “Do you know how much you sound like a total douche? Like any woman I wanna sleep with is gonna to turn me down,” he mocked, his hands gesturing like Dylan’s, chest puffed up and prancing around like a peacock. Animated, mocking Mike was way worse than Robot Mike.
Dylan could feel his heart rate zoom, and, he feared, his skin turn green as he morphed into something so angry he couldn’t control it, a firefighter, billionaire Hulk.
And it was all aimed right at Mike.
Her Two Billionaires will be published in December 2012.
Her First Billionaire – a sample…
Read how it all starts, with Laura, Dylan – and Mike’s entrance at the end – as the two men find their way to bringing Laura into a most unique, and decidedly hot, forever threesome. Here’s a sample from Laura and Dylan’s story:
“Hot, luscious piece of ass who can suck a golf ball through forty feet of garden hose seeks rippling-ab’d firefighter who has a tongue that thrums like a hummingbird and enjoys painting my toenails and eating Ben & Jerry’s out of the carton while watching Mad Men.”
Laura Michaels stared at the online dating site’s registration screen and frowned. That’s what she really wanted to write. Here was the truth:
“Needy, insecure, overweight twenty-six year old Business Analyst with three cats, a corporate job with pension and no debt seeks Mr. Impossible for way more than friendship and lots of ice cream. I’m desperate for some physical affection and oral sex with a guy who doesn’t view it as some sort of favor he’s granting me, and then expects to be praised like he cleaned my toilet. One night stands are better than nothing as long as you brush your teeth. Call me!”
Her best friend, Josie Mendham, punched her in the bicep. “You can’t say either of those!” Josie was Laura’s opposite. Where Laura was 5‘6”, Josie was barely tall enough to ride roller coasters. Remove the 1 from Laura’s size and you still had to go down to 2 to get Josie’s. Where Laura had long, curly blonde hair and bright green eyes, Josie was chocolate all around. “Mutt and Jeff” her mom had called them, and they’d been besties since eighth grade.
Which meant Josie knew Laura too well. “You are going to do this, damn it,” she said, wagging a finger in front of Laura’s face. “No trying to be perfect. Perfect is the enemy of good enough.”
“I haven’t even found Mr. Good Enough!”
“That’s because the hundreds of Mr. Good Enoughs have walked past you, Laura, and you’re blind to them.” Josie nudged Laura aside and started typing, her long nails burning up the keyboard. How did she do that? Typing on the pads of her fingers seemed impossible, but Josie did it, keeping her manicure intact, little replicas of the famous grey necktie from Fifty Shades of Grey on each nail.
The two had been out at a club the night before and Josie spent the night, waking up chipper and springing this online dating thing on Laura before she’d even had her first cup of coffee. As the machine gurgled and burbled, Laura willed it to hurry. Weighing out her entire dating future in a half-zombie state was not good.
Laura knew she had to lie, but how much was acceptable? Could she shave off a few sizes, or would she need to hack off an imaginary arm and leg to make herself seem “fit” and “athletic”? The drop-down box with its built in descriptors seemed like judgmental torment. No choices were there for “zaftig” or “juicy” or “full figure.”
Being a size 18 with size F breasts wasn’t a crime, she knew; in real life she was fashionable and flowing, plump and pleasing, and could arm wrestle most guys into submission, but reducing her accomplishments, personality and, yes, body into a vocabulary designed by some Internet start-up team of nineteen-year-old dropouts from Stanford and Carnegie Mellon made her irrationally angry.
No – rationally angry.
Seeing little choice, she pointed to the boxes on the screen and told Josie, “Pick the word ‘fit.’ I can deadlift 105 pounds. Which is,” she eyed Josie, “more than you weigh.”
Josie pointedly ignored her, biting her lower lip and deep in concentration. “Voila!” she shouted, her hands spread wide in a grandiose gesture. “There’s your ad.”
She announced:
“Luscious, curvy Business Analyst seeks friendship and more. Financially independent and self-assured, I’m a fit woman who wants a man (or, more than one! YOLO!) for stimulating conversation…er, yeah. Conversation. Message me (or massage me!).”
“I can’t write that!” Laura groaned. “It makes me look like I want an orgy!” She squinted at the screen. “And what the hell is ‘YOLO’?”
“Who doesn’t want an orgy?” Josie wiggled her eyebrows lasciviously and stuck out her tongue, waggling it like she was performing a very bad imitation of oral sex. “And YOLO stands for ‘you only live once.’”
“Cut it out. You’re turning me on. It’s been that long since I got some ass, and the last guy used his tongue like he was a Roto Rooter man. Like that.” She pointed at Josie’s tongue and bent over, laughing.
And then Josie, with a flourish, pressed the “Submit” button. “Thank you for joining – your profile is now live!” the screen read.
“Oh, shit, Josie, did you just do that?” Laura sputtered, spilling creamy coffee all over her sleeve as she grabbed the mouse. “Fuck!”
“What?” Josie batted her eyelashes. “Live a little. See who replies!” She grabbed her heavy, over-full Vera Bradley purse that they had discovered at a local thrift shop for $3.99 and fingered her car keys. “Gotta go, Laura. And don’t you dare delete that.”
Laura laughed. “You know me too well.”
“No shit,” Josie muttered. Her face turned serious. “Really, Laura. You need to get out there. Some guy is being deprived of your awesomeness. And besides, your budget needs the break.”
“My budget?”
“Yeah. What are you spending in batteries for Bob?”
Confused, Laura shook her head. It was like Josie spoke a foreign language sometimes. “Huh?”
“Your battery-operated boyfriend. You know – BOB.” And with that she snickered, running for the door as Laura threw a section of a fashion magazine at her. Josie’s evil laughter filled the apartment as she ran down the hallway, the sound fading once she hit the stairwell. “Have a good day at work!” she hollered from the street.
The coffee machine gave its death-rattle gasp that signaled the pot was done, and Laura went to drink it greedily, needing sustenance to kick her brain into gear. Enough caffeine and she could date anyone. Hmm, maybe she should do a search for baristas on that site. Free lattes would be a nice perk.
Dylan Stanwyck couldn’t quite believe what he saw when he logged into the online dating site. Four months of weeding through so many crappy profiles had jaded him. Finding the right woman would be like coming across the proverbial needle in a haystack, but in this case he didn’t want to face any pricks.
And yes, women could be pricks. So far he had been inundated with requests to chat, and he knew exactly why. Being a firefighter who competed in weightlifting competitions for fun, along with the occasional mini triathlon, made his pictures look quite nice. The problem with the women who were responding to him was that they were also the type to be drawn to appearances only. It seemed so shallow of him to think it, but sometimes being built the way he was could be a curse.
Curse of the Jersey Shore chicks. Because that was the type who seemed to seek him out, like moths to a flame. A trashy, Snooki-like flame of ho-dom. When he would meet up with these women he found himself in some alternate universe, where they licked their lips and offered themselves up in the alley behind the nice tapas restaurant where he liked to take women. A few goat cheese stuffed dates and pitchers of sangria later and he was being humped up against a slimy brick wall next to the trash cans.
And when he turned them down…he still had scars from one woman’s long, overdone nails raking his neck as she screeched, “You don’t know me!” over and over, requiring police assistance as passersby gawked, took pictures they probably uploaded to Reddit, and mercifully called 911 on his behalf.