By the time she finished her cup of tea all that remained was the barest hint of memory, of being touched. Of being loved.
Of being cherished.
The actual experience disappeared, though, as the sun made its slow ascent. As if sunlight chased her dream away.
All that remained was her frustration.
Miss Daisy meowed until Laura poured her a shallow dish of milk. Dawn made the sky outside turn a sickly shade of grey. Laura sighed and slumped on her couch, turning on the television to catch whatever was on at 5:11 a.m.
The early morning talk show featured a young woman she’d never seen before and a guy she vaguely remembered from some reality television show where he ate food out of dumpsters for a week as some kind of challenge. They chatted on a boring, beige couch in a studio that looked like something a hotel designer created.
“Bachelor auction!” the woman chirped, turning toward a screen behind them. A shirtless man in a construction outfit appeared, stripper music in the background.
“Can you imagine paying $5,000 for a date with one of those hunks?” the male co-host joked.
“Yes,” said the woman, licking her lips. “I can. He’s a catch,” she added, pointing to a man dressed like a doctor, walking down a fashion runway wearing a white lab coat, jeans – and nothing else.
“Catch? Once you catch him, what do you do with him?” the man asked.
The studio audience laughed.
Click.
Laura wasn’t watching that. First off, who had $5,000 for a date? And second, even if Laura had that kind of money for a charity auction, how awkward would that date be?
Hi, nice to meet you. I paid $5,000 after watching you gyrate shirtless on a stage. I’m Laura Michaels and don’t feel obligated to have sex with me.
She barked aloud at the thought, scaring Snuggles and making the cat hiss, then attack the spider plant that grew for what seemed like miles in a spiral around the living room.
“Sorry, Snuggles.” Even her tone carried a thick blanket of guilt. Laura rolled her eyes. Hot bachelors. Buying a date. If she could catch a guy like that, what would she do with him?
Probably shake with terror and worry he’d point at her and make fun of her.
She was so far out of the league of guys like that. It was like she played a different game in a different language on the wrong planet in a galaxy far, far away.
What would it be like to be with a man... like that? The kind with chiseled features, his chest a relief map of hot flesh? How would it feel to run her hands through his hair, to smooth her palm across a cobra back covered with muscle, to possess him and have full access to touch and tease and enjoy him whenever she wanted?
Even better—to be wanted by a man like that?
One who would burn for her, whose touch would be more sensual than sexual, more primal than functional, a man who couldn’t wait to be with her, to watch her, to touch her.
To own her.
Not just her body, not just her sex, but her heart—mind—soul.
Another smile played at her lips, but this one was wistful. Sad. Yeah, right. Like that would ever happen.
A girl could dream, though.
And, apparently, she had.
Big time.
Hefting herself up off the couch, she let herself indulge in a self-pity sigh, the kind that comes out in a long, slow, tortured outbreath with a little whine at the end.
The kind no one ever admits they do.
The closest she’d ever get to a man like the ones in the bachelor auction would be in her imagination. A shower was what she needed before she headed to work. A shower where her own hands could be those one man's hands, the shower head could be the second set, and the hot water would help to wash away her tears.
And then she’d start the day fresh, clean, and mostly emptied of the memory of two men she didn’t even have the right to imagine would want her.
Yet she did.
Chapter 2
“How about this tie?” he called out to Mike, who was stirring something on the stove. The guy was so tall the steam from the pot wafted up, passing the oven hood, making the ends of Mike’s blonde hair curl slightly. He always looked like a gentle giant tending to a dollhouse stove top when he cooked.
Shirtless, wearing his firefighter uniform pants and suspenders, Dylan had found a red tuxedo bow tie that matched the stretched-out suspenders. He took a quick look at his own body, taut and muscular compared to Mike’s tall, lean look. They were opposites, but the laws of physics were right.
Opposites attract.
Mike turned around and let out a choked sound of surprise. “Nice. Love it. You planning to oil up that chest?” His roommate turned back around and shook his head slowly. If Dylan weren’t as deeply amused by his own plight, he’d have thrown something at Mike, but he let out a strangled snort instead.
“Good idea. Baby oil or olive oil?”
“Shouldn’t the ‘Italian Stallion’ use real olive oil to keep it all authentic? Mediterranean and all that?” Mike said, his back turned to Dylan, head hunched over a pot of something on the stove that smelled like heaven, a mix of roasted garlic, oregano, and something close to love in food form.
Dylan was really regretting the fact that he agreed to be in this bachelor date night auction event. All the money would go to charity, but...
He didn’t look forward to feeling like an entree in a room full of hungry, rich women.
“What kind?”
“EVOO? Except the virgin part might be false advertising,” Mike joked. It made Dylan smile, because Mike rarely used humor these days.
“What are you cooking?” Dylan asked, the scent distracting him, making his stomach growl.
“Beef bourguignon. I got this great cooking wine from this wine dealer in Winchendon who sells Spanish and Portuguese wine—”
“It’s red. That’s all I need to know about wine.” Those words made Mike turn and give Dylan a look of mock hurt, his hand dropping the spoon and going to his heart, as if he’d been shot.
“Philistine.” A lover of good wines, Mike had dragged Dylan to more vineyards than Dylan could count.
Seriously. He couldn’t count them because all that good wine had made him drunk, and once he was sloshed he couldn’t remember much.
“Hipster.”
“Them’s fighting words,” Mike growled, making Dylan laugh with a sound that came out of him before he even thought about it. A sound that made Mike pause.
A genuine laugh.
Hadn’t heard much of that since their partner, Jill, had died more than a year ago.
His eyes caught Mike’s and in the space between them, in that second of connection he knew Mike was thinking the same thing, too. The soft smiles on their faces wore off like sand on a windy day, swept off by a sudden gust of wind, leaving a barren spot.
“Huh,” Dylan grunted, breaking the gaze. He lifted the red bow tie and walked next to Mike, opening the cupboard above the stove. Mike reached first—the guy was more than half a foot taller, after all—and his big hand wrapped around the olive oil bottle.
“Here,” Mike said, back to one word utterances, eyes troubled and dark. Dylan took the bottle with a curt nod and ambled back to his bedroom, wondering how his life had devolved into this.
Half naked, a bottle of oil in his hand, and no woman.