Rhonda Nelson - Getting It!

Then he leaned back in his chair, deftly dealing the cards. He seemed to have no doubt that she’d accept his challenge. God, he knew her so well already.

Zora gazed at him shrewdly. “And what do I get if I win?”

The corners of his mouth tucked into a sexy smile. “You can have a kiss and a touch, too.”

Zora chuckled. “That’s not what I had in mind.”

Tate’s gaze slid to her breasts, making her nipples tingle and sending a sluggish heat through her limbs. He reached over the table, rubbing his thumb over her bottom lip. “What do you want, then?”

Her brain ceasing to function normally, Zora fought for words, realizing dimly that he was trying to sidetrack her. “Information.”

“Anything you want.” Tate shrugged, and smirked confidently. “Besides, I’m not the least bit worried. Ready to lay down?”

She fanned her cards out in front of her. “Three of a kind.”

Tate’s gaze dropped to her mouth and he licked his lips. In that instant, her body tingling, Zora knew that she’d lost.

The question was, was it just the game she’d given away, or her heart, too?

Dear Reader,

Getting It! is the debut book in my debut series entitled CHICKS IN CHARGE. I’m having a ball writing these feisty, headstrong heroines and pairing them up with worthy guys who are able to handle them. (Or so they think.) The idea of a support group created by women for women—where the chicks were literally in charge—appealed to me, and thus the fictional organization Chicks In Charge was born. (Think Romance Writers of America meets The Sweet Potato Queens. ) This series will cover the founding board members’ stories, and begins with Zora Anderson, the founding president.

Founder of the phenomenally successful organization Chicks in Charge, Zora Anderson has a secret that would ruin her hard-as-nails reputation—her boyfriend flatly refuses to sleep with her. She’s hot and bothered and desperately in need of an orgasmic fix. Author Tate Hatcher doesn’t know what to think when a woman he doesn’t know enters his hotel room—while he’s in the shower, no less—then continues to berate him for not seeing to her sexual needs. But one look at her and he’s ready to admit fault and rectify his supposed negligent behavior.

Be sure to check out Getting It Good!—the next story in the series coming to Harlequin Blaze in February! And be sure to drop by my Web site at www.booksbyRhondaNelson.com. I love to hear from my readers!

Happy reading,

Rhonda Nelson

HARLEQUIN TEMPTATION

973—UNFORGETTABLE

HARLEQUIN BLAZE

75—JUST TOYING AROUND…

81—SHOW & TELL

115—PICTURE ME SEXY

140—THE SEX DIET

158—1-900-LOVER

Getting It!

Rhonda Nelson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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This book is dedicated to the original Chick-in-Charge, my best friend and critique partner, Debra Webb. Thanks for being the best friend I could ever hope to have, for being a cheerleader, for having enough faith for both of us, for being a drill sergeant, a confidante, counselor, partner in crime, sounding board and all-around bud. I’m proud to be your “Ethel.”

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Epilogue

AH, THERE’S CARRIE, Zora Anderson thought as she watched her friend weave her way to the back of the pub. She kept her face schooled in a calm mask, but on the inside she literally wilted with relief. The Bitchfest could begin, and she’d never needed to vent more.

She’d had the day from hell, one of the absolute worst in past and recent memory.

“Sorry I’m late.” Looking tired but gorgeous as usual, Carrie Robbins slid onto a bar stool and released a beleaguered breath. “Let the Bitchfest begin.” She signaled a waitress for a drink, then cast a glance around the small, scarred table. “So, who’s going first?”

“It looks like you need to,” Frankie Salvaterra said pointedly, and Zora had to agree. Carrie looked particularly harried this evening, as though she needed to share her weekly woes as much as the rest of them did. “What was the holdup tonight?” Frankie asked. She snorted indelicately, pulled a drink from her beer. “Was your hollandaise too runny again?”

April Wilson’s eyes twinkled and she aimed the mouth of her longneck bottle at Carrie. “My money’s on your noodles. Limp again, right?”

“Not as limp as his dick,” Frankie interjected with a grim smirk.

“Ah, but that begs the assumption that he has a dick,” Carrie replied archly. “Which he doesn’t, remember? We decided after the noodle incident that he was a ball-less, dick-less worm.”

Frankie inclined her dark head. “And a pompous bastard to boot.”

Zora laughed at the apt description. Carrie was a fabulous chef, one of the best in the area. But being one of the best didn’t keep her boss from constantly criticizing her.

Zora cast a glance at each of her friends in turn. As a matter of fact, “pompous bastard” pretty much described almost all of their respective bosses. Except for hers. She no longer had a boss. Or a boyfriend, for that matter, she thought with a bitter smile—she’d lost both when she’d gotten fired today. Zora hid a shuddering breath behind her beer, checked the burgeoning impulse to alternately scream and cry. But she wouldn’t do either because conceding so much as a frustrated tear over that faithless, scheming bottom-feeder punctuate his victory and she simply wouldn’t allow it. So long as she didn’t cry, he hadn’t won and she hadn’t been a fool.

From the sounds of things, though, she wasn’t the only one who’d had a bad day. Zora had polled the others before Carrie had arrived, and both Frankie and April had given their days a D for dreadful.

Quite frankly, their weekly Bitchfest at the Bald Monkey Pub in New Orleans’s French Quarter was typically the high point of her week. Being able to vent her irritation to the tune of low jazz, cold beer, commiserating nods and righteous indignation on her behalf was, in her opinion, better than paying a shrink a couple hundred bucks an hour. The four had met in college, forged instant friendships, and had provided group therapy through every victory and pitfall ever since. Zora had a great family—a couple of older brothers, a mother and father who’d long since retired to sunnier climes—but this group of women had become the sisters she’d longed for, but never had.

Regrettably, there’d been more pitfalls in recent weeks and Zora knew that something simply had to give. Frankie’s cynicism had taken a possibly chronic turn, Carrie’s effervescent laughter had lost its usual fizz and April’s sometimes annoying but always endearing Pollyanna attitude had dimmed considerably. They were on the Bitter Bitch Express traveling at near-sonic speed and, unless something drastically good happened to derail them, Zora feared they were nearing the Point of No Return. They’d become man-hating cat-lovers with too many microwave dinners in the freezer and a handy vibrator in the bedside drawer.