Physical Distraction (The Physical Series Book 3) Read online

  Dylan tried to hide his disappointment, plastering on a professional smile while pulling out a business card from his wallet. Along with his card, he placed a ten-dollar bill on the bar to cover his tab.

  Accepting the proffered card, she ignored the money, instead glancing down to scan the card in her hand before she stretched out her right hand toward him.

  “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Dylan Hemmons. My name is Sloane Fitzgerald.”

  He liked the strong, confident grip of her handshake, and the sweet, sultry sound of her voice. The way she rolled her R as she pronounced her name had him panting, wondering what else that tongue of hers could do.

  Shaking her hand firmly, Dylan ignored the electric zap that branched up his arm from the soft texture of her hands. Silky and smooth, with short manicured nails painted a deep metallic color. He envisioned them wrapped tightly around his…

  Shit, there he went again.

  And then a lightbulb went on in his head, as her last name had him cocking his head inquisitively.

  “Wait, Fitzgerald? That’s the name on the bar. Do you own this place?”

  She let go of his hand, snickering at his powerful deductive reasoning abilities. Real bright, D.

  “Yes, courtesy of my Uncle Patsy, who just passed away a few weeks ago and left this to me. Apparently I’m the only heir to his South Boston kingdom.”

  Sloane let out an exaggerated sigh and leaned down on her elbows, her hands propping up her chin. The move caused her breasts to squish together in a very tantalizing picture, thrusting forward right in his field of vision. He gave them a quick glance, because really, how could he not?

  “I got the call from his lawyer a little over a week ago so I fly out from San Diego to check the place out. I honestly have no clue how to run a bar, much less redeem one that’s in shambles. I’m not even sure if I’m going to stick around,” she said, her gaze flicking over to the door, as if something was waiting for her on the other side. “But what else can I do? Worst-case scenario, I fix it up and try to sell it. You interested in buying a fixer-upper bar?”

  Dylan shook his head, laughing at her attempt at humor. She was cute. And funny. And abso-fucking-lutely beautiful. A knock-out combo punch. Everything she’d just laid out for him had given him a lot to digest, like a smorgasbord of personal data he wanted to bite into.

  The things he now knew about Sloane Fitzgerald with absolute certainty were: she was from California – so the tan was natural; she was an unwilling owner of this piece-of-shit bar which she had no experience in running; she was looking to fix it up which he could probably help with; and she was hot as fuck and he wouldn’t mind getting her in his bed while she was in town.

  That’s what he’d learned about her during their brief interaction so far. And now he needed to know some other very important details, such as: did she have a boyfriend (God, he hoped not); how did she plan on staying warm while in New England (Boston winters were harsh and he’d be on board by keeping her hot and naked); what was her favorite position in bed (he’d help her expand her list); and how long did she plan on staying in Boston (because he’d be at her beck and call for as long as she wanted him to be).

  Dylan shook his head free of all the devious thoughts twisting around in his brain. Yes, he was horny. He hadn’t been laid in weeks, and by all accounts, Sloane Fitzgerald was his fantasy woman come to life. If he could find a way to spend time with her under the guise of doing work to restore her newly-acquired business, then he was going to make damn sure she knew he was her man.

  “Well, Sloane Fitzgerald, you’ve got my number. Give me a call when you’re ready to take the next step and we can set up a time for a walk-through. I’m sure this building could at the very least use some rewiring to get it up to code.”

  Dylan took stock of the exposed wiring around the walls and ceiling. It was definitely a rat’s nest full of potential fire hazards, and an accident waiting to happen.

  “I’ll do that. Thanks so much, Dylan,” she said, her tone moving from excited to skeptical. “You’re not going to rip me off, are you? Because now you have the inside scoop about my sheer and utter incompetence at running this place, you could easily take advantage of me.”

  He’d love to take advantage of her, but not in the way she meant.

  Dylan smacked the battered-oak bar top with his hand.

  “Not likely. After seeing the way you carried in that keg by yourself, I’d be a damn fool to try and pull anything over on you. I think you’d kick my ass into next week.”

  Dylan watched her eyes dance with mirth, the beautiful chorus of her laugh filling his ears.

  She pointed at him shrewdly, with mocking contempt.

  “You damn well better believe it, Mr. Hemmons. We Californians may seem soft, but all that sunshine enables us to see right through the bullshit being thrown our way.”

  He tipped back his glass and drained the rest of his beer, hoisting it up in a “bully for you” acknowledgment.

  Just as he was about to continue their banter, Dylan felt the weight of two overly large hands digging into his shoulders, nearly strangling him from the pressure.

  “Tell me why I’m not surprised to find Dylan hitting on a pretty girl?”

  Dylan turned to find his friend Charlie towering behind him, a Red Sox baseball cap pulled low over closely shaved white hair, a sly grin on his face. He turned back to find Sloane already pouring two glasses of beer.

  She returned to place the beers in front of them before flooring him with her flirty response.

  “Well, that’s funny,” she said, that bright smile once again lighting her face. “Because I thought I was the one making the play on him. I guess I’m not as obvious as I thought.”

  And with that, Sloane waved the business card she held in her hand and walked off toward the other end of the bar, where another patron worked to get her attention.

  Dylan hoped he’d hear from Sloane soon. Like, say, at the end of her shift tonight.

  A guy could dream.

  Chapter Two

  The desk was piled high with bills and invoices, old marketing collateral, beer distributor contracts, and pending liquor licenses. You name it, if it was printed on paper in the last forty years, it was on her Uncle Patsy’s desk.

  Sloane’s head hit the pile with a soft thunk. How she’d gotten into this mess was beyond her. This was an absolute cluster. A month ago, she’d never envisioned herself in a situation as crazy as this – running a bar by herself in a town on the other side of the country. Her entire life had done a one-eighty – and not necessarily for the positive. She was so far away from her perfectly planned life as San Diego was from Boston. She might as well have been on a different planet, living a completely different life for how foreign this was to her.

  If life was a baseball analogy, Sloane had just been hit with a hundred-mile-an hour curve ball. And she hadn’t had time to duck and get out of the way when it hit her smack in the side of the head. And that MOFO hurt like hell.

  Up until a month ago, Sloane lived a peaceful blissed out existence, enjoying her job as a high school history teacher, and engaged to her college sweetheart, Blaine, also a high school teacher. Without warning, her entire world dropped out from underneath her.

  If she were a dude, it would have been the equivalent of being nut punched – repeatedly. And the hits just kept on coming until she was doubled over in pain, lying in a fetal position on the floor, sobbing in anguish and grief. Waiting for death to come quickly.

  Looking back on it now, it was obvious that no one could live that perfect of a life. She didn’t shoot sunshine and rainbows out of her ass. She wasn’t a fairytale princess.

  At the time, Sloane had been excited for the upcoming holidays, looking forward to spending time with her parents and Blaine. They’d already put up their tree and lights the weekend after Thanksgiving, decorating their new home in a wintery wonderland of Christmas magic.

  The night her life changed, s
he’d been up late grading papers, the last of her class’s assignments prior to Christmas break. Blaine had already gone to bed when his laptop chimed in notification of an incoming message. Pausing mid-grade, Sloane opened his email, because he’d told her he was waiting for an invite to a party that they’d be attending, and was hit squarely between the eyes with the worst image she’d ever seen in all of her twenty-four years.

  An extremely explicit picture, one you’d probably find on one of those naughty Tumblr pages, which had her covering her mouth in fear of vomiting the bile that was climbing up from the pit of her stomach. It was clearly a photo of Blaine, leaning back on his classroom desk, pants down at his ankles, an unidentifiable teenage girl kneeling in front of him with his cock inside her mouth.

  It hadn’t registered at first. In fact, she was so confused by the contents of the photo, she thought it was just a cruel joke. Sloane looked up from the computer screen and scanned the room, head moving from left to right, waiting for some TV crew to jump out and yell, “Gotcha! You’ve just been Punk’d!” Because it had to have been some kind of prank. A cruel, disgustingly pornographic joke – but a prank nonetheless. There was no possible way she’d believe that her boyfriend, er, fiancé - her future life partner - would be that stupid.

  Rule Numero Uno when you’re a young, high school teacher? Do. Not. Fuck. Your. Students!

  The shock of the photo was just the first slap in the face, as an icy cold snowball would soon develop and become a life-changing, and potentially career-killing, avalanche. Over the course of the following week, Sloane found herself sneaking into Blaine’s email when he wasn’t around, hoping to find that it was only a one-time occurrence, and that it wasn’t real. Instead, she was bombarded with one after another similarly-styled photos, until the bomb finally exploded.

  The final picture, along with the email, was the one that broke the proverbial camel’s back. It was a selfie of Blaine, his head thrown back in ecstasy, fucking a girl on their newly purchased dining room table. Sloane’s brand new Pottery Barn table!

  The very same table she and Blaine had purchased the weekend before. The table Sloane had been ecstatic over, tittering over all the grandiose plans she’d had for all the entertaining they’d do together that holiday and years to come. All the future Christmas dinners, and birthday celebrations, and romantic anniversary dinners they’d share together. The table was their first wedding present they’d purchased for themselves.

  In total, Sloane found ten emails from the email address of [email protected] in Blaine’s inbox during that week. Blaine in varying levels of dress, and compromising positions with the same girl. Sloane had never seen the girl before and had no idea of her age or any other distinguishable feature other than her naked body. But the slender build of her body, along with the hair that hung down to her mid-back, clearly indicated it was the same girl in each picture. And that it appeared it was not just a one-time fling.

  Blaine was obviously having an affair with this young woman.

  In the beginning, she tried to expunge the images from her brain, ignoring the obvious threat they posed to her life. And because she was doing such a fine job of hiding the dirty little secret, she didn’t bring it up to Blaine. At first. Why stir the pot and get upset over something that was obviously so preposterously inconceivable? Blaine would never cheat on her.

  Looking back, it was self-preservation. Sloane kept trying to convince herself that it was all just a horrible nightmare. The pre-wedding jitters that made her see things that weren’t really there. That was a thing, right? Some psychological by-product of the stress that occurs inside a bride’s mind before her big day. It was just all in her mind.

  But now that she’d seen the numerous photos, as well as the unbelievably sexual responses sent back from Blaine’s email account? Not only did it indict Blaine in his incomprehensible act of cheating, but it also made Sloane his accomplice. Because she now had to face facts. Not only was he having an affair, but it was obviously a student. And for that, she had to speak up and do something.

  The damning evidence made her sick to her stomach. Upon seeing the most recent photo, Sloane ran to the bathroom, barely making it to the toilet before losing her half-eaten lunch.

  The knowledge of this affair was now resting heavily on her shoulders. Now that she was aware of it, she was responsible for putting a stop to it. Not only for her sake, but for the girl’s. And it would ruin Blaine’s career. It could even tarnish Sloane’s squeaky clean image and reputation. In fact, she’d just been nominated for Rookie Teacher of the Year in her school – an honor bestowed upon her by nominations from her students and other faculty members at her school.

  Sloane was in the midst of trying to figure out how to broach the subject with Blaine, when she’d received the call from her Uncle Patsy’s lawyer stating that he had passed away. Although her father’s brother, and he should have been his next-of-kin, she was his only niece, and for reasons unknown to her, he chose to will his business and estate to Sloane.

  Distraught, angry, and nearing a nervous breakdown, Sloane confronted Blaine with his infidelities and indiscretions. Although she initially wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, his affair was plainly laid out in graphic visual aids, offering up a plethora of proof to his cheating lies. There was nothing for him to deny. He tried to lie, to find a way out of the terrible predicament he’d put himself in, but finally broke down in a sniveling mass of tears, admitting to his adultery and begging Sloane for forgiveness.

  At a loss of what to think or feel, Sloane packed her bags, booked a ticket to Boston, broke it off with Blaine, and left the week before Christmas. Her parents were oblivious to her pain, or the real reason behind her decision to head to Boston so quickly. They offered to come with her, so she wouldn’t have to spend the holiday alone, but remembered they had guests coming in to stay over Christmas.

  It had been just under a week, and here she now was, trying desperately to make heads or tails of the bookkeeping mess that her uncle had created before he died. Her knowledge of basic accounting couldn’t possibly help her in deciphering his records and chaotic balance sheet, much less his odd inventory system. The only saving grace was that all of the work of learning the business end of the bar kept Sloane’s mind off the wreckage she left behind in San Diego.

  A light tap on the door had Sloane’s head snapping back up and turning to identify the source of the distraction. In the doorframe stood Jerry, the bar’s day shift manager. Most likely in his early sixties, Jerry walked with a bit of a stoop and wore his thinning hair slicked back with a pomade oil, and granted a snaggletooth smile only on occasion. Which since she’d met him, occurred only after he put away two shots of Tennessee whiskey. Jerry was quiet, but efficient, and seemed to have been a loyal employee of her uncle’s, and had earned the respect of their regular customers.

  He cleared his throat uncomfortably, his smoke-tinged voice as yellow as his teeth. “Uh, Miss Sloane. There’s someone here to see you. Says he, uh, has an appointment.”

  Sloane looked over at the wall clock, blinking incredulously at the time. “Oh shoot. That’s right. I didn’t realize how late it had gotten. Thanks, Jerry. Can you offer him something to drink? I’ll be right out.”

  Jerry nodded his head and with a short grunt, stalked back down the hallway toward the bar area.

  Sloane had been so lost in the bookwork and other administrative tasks that morning that she’d completely spaced on the time. She’d nearly forgotten about calling Dylan Hemmons the day before and scheduling an appointment with him, requesting that he meet with her about the much-needed renovations.

  She pulled out her compact mirror to check out the state of her appearance. Her hair was up in a loose bun on top of her head, wisps of hair falling out haphazardly around her face. Shrugging her shoulders at no one but herself, she knew there was no time to do anything about how she looked, aside from slather on a bit of lip gloss, and pop an Altoids. She wasn’t
going to win any beauty pageants today, that’s for sure.

  Sliding the compact case back in her purse, Sloane stood, the nerves that suddenly appeared producing a light sheen of sweat on her palms. Wiping her hands down the front of her jeans, she gave herself a self-deprecating laugh. She was being ridiculous. This was just a business meeting, not a date.

  What was she even thinking? Dylan was a professional and here to do a job. And even if he was looking for something else, her head and heart were still in rough shape – mangled from the crushing blow she was still reeling from. But she still had eyes. And she’d be blind not to notice what a freaking fine specimen of a man Dylan Hemmons was. It may not be the way she envisioned things, but if she had to gain perspective away from the real-life drama unfolding in her life right now, there could be worse things than having a man as good-looking as Dylan working around her every day. The man was walking, talking, sex-on-a-stick. Her heart may have been left stomped on, crushed, and buried back in California, but her body wasn’t dead. And it had practically short-circuited the other night when she’d met Dylan for the first time.

  Dylan was a man’s-man, from the deep timber of his voice, to the gait of his walk, which was a bit bowed, as if to make extra room for certain body parts when he moved. He confidently carried his wide-muscular shoulders and broad chest in a manner that said to other men, “Don’t fuck with me” and to the ladies, “You know you wanna fuck me.”

  His life story seemed to be etched across his face, with hard lines and chiseled features, giving way for a smidge of pretty-boy. Dylan wore his dark brown hair cut short – not enough to be military regulation, and just long enough so a woman could still grab hold when he kissed her senseless. And the perpetual five-o-clock shadow around his jaw only further fueled her imagination with possibilities.

  Every night since meeting him, Sloane had been unable to keep her thoughts anywhere else as she lay awake on her bed, exhausted from the grueling night on her feet. Fantasies about Dylan popped up unbidden on a continuous loop, inciting delicious dreams. Perhaps an unintended result of all the stress she’d been dealing with, and the compounded frustrations of learning to manage and own a bar, but she was lonely, horny and had an immediate and unrelenting attraction to Dylan.