Isabel Sharpe - A Taste Of Fantasy

Jack’s voice was low, intimate even in the large studio, soothing against the click of his camera’s shutter.

Samantha closed her eyes, trying to forget she was naked under the sheet. Click. “I met this guy at a bar, in college. And he took me to bed. It was the boldest thing I’ve ever done.” Click.

She heard Jack’s footsteps coming closer. “I’m going to move the sheet.”

He pulled the sheet down off her left shoulder, exposing her breast. The fabric bunched and teased between her legs, a cool, smooth bare weight like a feathery lover’s kiss, leaving a fierce ache. She had to remind herself to hold still. Click.

Jack was still standing close; she could feel the warmth of him against her skin. “Did he make you come?”

“Ohhh, yes.” She heard him curse softly. Jack slid the sheet off her other breast, this time allowing his hand to follow so his fingers trailed over her, brushing her nipple. She shivered and arched toward him.

“So it was perfect, emotionless sex.” Jack’s words came out husky. “And that’s what you want from me? All I can say is, you can’t protect yourself from the unexpected.”

Samantha opened her eyes to his smoldering gaze. “I’ll take that risk.”

Dear Reader,

One day I was talking to a friend who said, “Wouldn’t it be weird if you kept getting ‘wrong number’ messages on your answering machine and it turned out someone was leaving them for you on purpose?”

My writer’s brain snapped instantly to attention. Why any one comment taken out of thousands of statements can be such a trigger I haven’t a clue, but immediately I knew there was a book in there. So here it is! The third in the MEN TO DO series. Alison Kent, Jo Leigh and I have had so much fun coordinating our heroines, Erin, Tess and Samantha, and their stories. And if you want more, check out www.mentodo.com!

I love to hear from readers, so if you’d like to write me, please do at www.IsabelSharpe.com.

Cheers,

Isabel Sharpe

To Johnny Orion

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

From: Samantha Tyler

Sent: Thursday

To: Erin Thatcher; Tess Norton

Subject: Love

What I can’t seem to get my brain to stop obsessing over is: How do you know when love is real? I was so sure it was real with Brendan. Zero doubts. Zero cold feet. I stood at the altar and did the Death Do Us Part thing with my heart so full I’m surprised it didn’t pop out of my grandma’s dress.

If something that good and that right and that perfect, that I believed in it with every ounce of my naive-assed twenty-something passion, could turn out to be nothing more than neurotic unfounded fantasy, how do you know when it’s real?

That’s why I’m thinking this Men To Do thing might be the way to go right now. I’m not ready for love. Not until I can get my head around this question and get some kind of answer that makes sense.

But I sure as hell could use some sex.

Samantha

SAMANTHA TYLER INCHED THE Chevy Trailblazer into her Lincoln Park bungalow’s garage. Roughly one millimeter to spare on either side or risk scratching the paint. Obviously the garage hadn’t been built to accommodate ludicrously oversized vehicles. But Brendan had insisted they buy the monster, insisted they’d need it when the kids they never had were born. Brendan knew it would be so convenient for all those lovely romantic excursions they never took.

Brendan had tripped over himself leaving it to her in the divorce settlement and had immediately gone out to buy a black Audi TT Roadster to salve his feelings of rejection and failure, not to mention to attract babes. As soon as she had time she’d sell this monster and buy herself a sunshiny yellow Volkswagen Beetle. A chick car, not a Sensible Family Vehicle. As soon as she had time.

She hit the brakes and yanked the gear into park, jerked out the keys and grabbed her briefcase. Opened the door carefully so as not to hit the garage wall, and eased and squeezed her body out the half opening and into the humid August-in-Illinois air. Definitely a Volkswagen.

The garage door let out the usual series of protesting groans on its way down, followed by a final resting thud, to accompany her walk through the overgrown garden bordering the postage-stamp-sized lawn. Weeding. Trimming. Fertilizing. Mowing. Everything she saw represented something to do. As if her supposedly safe home environment was nothing but a series of tasks she was failing at.

Life had always been a joyous battle to be fought and won, or at least wrestled into temporary submission. Today life was overwhelming. She had to stuff her emotions into a bank vault or risk collapse. And she was just plain sick of crying.

Samantha jammed her key into the house lock, twisted, turned the handle, twisted again and was in. Blanche and Fudge, her black and white cats immediately came to greet her, mouths open in accusing meows. Feed us now.

Not cats. Tasks. How had life gotten so mundane? So colorless? So lacking in spark and love? How had she become this cold robotic nightmare of a person? So afraid to feel. But then of course she’d been that way married, too. At least now she had hope of change ahead. She could focus on that.

“My day was fine, thanks, guys.”

Briefcase on the table, shoes kicked off into the corner, rummage for the can opener, dump the food in their bowls, fresh water, a frozen entrée for herself.

The microwave started its impersonal, indifferent hum. Not like the oven, which warmed the food, coddled and cared for it, released gentle smells that permeated the house like love. The microwave heated. Heated ingredients someone wearing a hair net had slopped into nonbiodegradable plastic.

She crossed to her briefcase to check her cell phone, frowning at the grimy traces on the kitchen floor. They should invent linoleum with brown spots and dried-on pieces of lettuce in the pattern. A cleaning lady would probably be worth the money, but Samantha hated the idea of strangers in her house, among her things.

The cell display announced that she had two messages. She stuck the phone to her ear, crossed back to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of Chicago-brewed Honker’s Ale out of her refrigerator.

“Hi, it’s Mom. Call us, we want to know how you are.”

Samantha rolled her eyes. Mom wanted to make sure Samantha was miserable so she could point out once again what a mistake Samantha had made. She’d stayed with Samantha’s father through some pretty rough times and what made Samantha think marriage was all roses and poetry and passion anyway?

A sip from the bottle, then a longer one. She didn’t think marriage was all roses and poetry and passion. But it should be some roses and some poetry and some passion at least some of the time. No roses and no poetry and no passion day after day, week after week, year after year, and you might as well be living with your brother.

Next message. “Hello.”

Samantha wrinkled her forehead at the throaty, unfamiliar female voice and touched the gold necklace Brendan had given her for their one-year anniversary.

“You were unbelievable last night, Johnny Orion.”

Samantha’s forehead unwrinkled; she rolled her eyes again. Not another one.