Bad Boys Over Easy

Bowling Friends- Completed Series

First Published 2005-04-01 in Trade Paperback

Publisher: Kensington Brava

Fuzzy Logic

Ashley Andrews has taken “shop till you drop” a little too much to heart, and finds herself facing a massive credit card bill. It seems like the perfect solution to get a part-time job as a Pleasure Party consultant, showing romance-enhancing toys and products to women. Lucas Manning is Ashley’s next-door neighbour and her younger brother’s best friend. When he accidentally opens a box outside his door addressed to Ashley, he’s a little startled to find an entire selection of neon coloured vibrators. By the end of the night, Ashley and Lucas have taken quality assurance to new levels, and Ashley sees the benefit in a man who is full of smart and sexy ideas.

Lucas Manning was absolutely certain he hadn’t ordered a box of neon pink dildos.

Yet there they were, packed four across, three deep in plastic bags, a faint rubbery smell rising from them. They were very bright. With sparkles.

“Holy crap.”

Lucas closed the box back up to find the packing label. He hadn’t actually looked to see who it was addressed to. The package had been sitting on the front porch outside his door and he’d brought it in the house with the rest of his mail.

He sure in the hell wished he’d looked first.

Or hadn’t looked at all.

The box was addressed to Ashley Andrews, who lived in the upstairs apartment of his house. Ashley, his best friend Jason’s older sister, who Lucas had secretly been lusting after for, oh, about the last decade.

And she had bought a case of dildos.

Lucas opened the box again and was sorry he had. They were so goddamn pink. And there were so many of them. What did one woman need all these for?

Since Lucas was a chemist and schooled in logic, he was convinced there must be a logical explanation for this. He just had to figure out what it was. Leaving the box on his kitchen table, he went to the refrigerator for a beer.

He needed it to think.

So maybe Ashley had got up an order together with her friends so they could receive a group discount. That was kind of uninhibited, but plausible.

Maybe they were all for her, so one was always in easy reach. Lucas took a sip of his beer, swished it around his mouth. One for her bedroom, one for the living room, one for her purse… He stuck the cold bottle to his head. He was sweating.

One for the shower- damn, there was an image. Ashley, her wet blond hair clinging to her breasts, water sluicing down her fair skin, rocking on to a neon pink… He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other.

One for the kitchen? No, he just couldn’t picture a sex toy alongside the spatulas. So that was only four. Which left eight unaccounted for. He tried to imagine other uses for them, but drew a blank. These were no cat toys.

Maybe she had ordered them online and had changed her order from one to two. Only when she had added the 2, the 1 hadn’t been removed and it had shown up as twelve. He could live with her buying two. Twelve was alarming.

Of course, Ashley’s really good friend, Kindra, was getting married soon. Maybe these were gag gifts for the bachelorette party. That sounded reasonable. And Ashley liked to throw really fun parties.

Not that he’d ever been invited to any of them.

Ashley still thought of him as her little brother’s geeky friend, Lucas.

Which, he supposed, was true.

But that didn’t stop him from having a killer crush on her. She was so vibrant, so energetic, so enthusiastic that he got pleasure just from being near her.

But not twelve dildos worth of pleasure.

Lucas set his beer bottle down with a hard slap. He picked up the box, grimacing.

Heading out onto the porch he took the two steps to Ashley’s front door.

As he rang the bell he wondered if he should tape the box back up and plead ignorance.

Nah.

He’d never sleep again if he didn’t hear the explanation for the package of pleasure addressed to her.