Excerpt Number One

I promised excerpts and tid-bits in the lead up to the release of Anticipation. Here's the very first part of Chapter One. Let me know if you want more. The manuscript is coming along well - not long now, I promise, but I'm still not handing out any dates because there are a couple of things I'm not in control of so I don't want to disappoint again.





Hope you enjoy!





Anticipation 

Chapter One

It would be so much easier if she could hate him. Better yet, feel nothing at all. A lovely, soothing blankness. 

God, that would be good. 

Blue Sullivan knocked back the remainder of her vodka as she watched the man on the dance floor. His dark denim jeans hugged his thighs and a black tank top clung to his chest as his lean, muscular body moved sinuously to the music. No embarrassing foot-to-foot shuffling or fist pumping like the other men who’d been dragged onto the dance floor by their girlfriends. In fact, he was so good that if she didn’t know better, she’d think he was a professional. 

She did know better, though. She knew Eduardo Oliveira better than she knew anyone in the entire world, because she’d been in love with him and worked with him and been his friend for more than ten years now. Most of the time, that was a good thing. Tonight…not so much. 

Tonight, loving Eddie was a curse, a burden, a punishment. 

Tonight, it hurt to watch him flirt with other women. 

The feeling would pass soon enough, she knew - it always did - but that didn’t make it any easier to bear.

Eduardo got up close and personal behind a tall blonde on the dance floor - one of Maggie’s friends, which made sense, since this was Maggie’s birthday party - his hips moving suggestively against hers as he wrapped an arm around the woman’s waist. For a few seconds they did the sexy-grinding-in-unison-thing in time to the pumping bass beat. The woman reached back to splay a hand on Eduardo’s jean-clad thigh, her bright red nails digging into the fabric, and the hot burn of jealousy was a physical pain in Blue’s belly. 

Yeah. Too much fun. 

She turned away. She didn’t need to see more to know what was going to happen. In the very near future - an hour or two, max -  Maggie’s friend would be following in the footsteps of countless other women when she hit the sheets with Eddie. It was as inevitable and predictable as the sun setting and the world turning and other immutable, incontrovertible things. This was what Eddie always did when he broke up with one of his girlfriends: a few weeks of being a complete pants man, sleeping with whichever hot women crossed his path, before once again slipping into a relationship with some poor, deluded idiot who was convinced she could reform a man who freely admitted he was hopeless at relationships and yet kept stumbling into them anyway. 

Blue made her way through the crowd to the bar, signalling for the bartender to hit her with yet another delightfully numbing vodka. Eddie had broken up with his current girlfriend, Denise, during the week, so Blue probably shouldn’t have been surprised that he was diving straight back into his man-whoring ways. She wasn’t privy to the details of the break up, but she could guess what had gone wrong: Denise had wanted more, and Eddie had pushed for maintaining the status quo. Denise had then done one of two things: issued an ultimatum of some description, or tried to manipulate Eddie with tears. Both tactics would have triggered Eddie’s get-the-hell-out-of-Dodge instinct, hence him once again being footloose and fancy free, burning up the dance floor with a tall blonde whose name Blue could never quite hang onto. Chloe? Cleo? Something sexy to match her long, straight hair and legs-up-to-her-armpits.

“Hey. There you are.” Maggie brushed against Blue’s shoulder as she joined her at the bar. “Having a good time?”

“I think I’m supposed to ask you that,” Blue said, taking in her friend’s flushed face and curly blonde hair. “Many happies, birthday girl.”

She raised her glass in a salute. 

“I need to talk to you about this,” Maggie said, thrusting her arm in Blue’s direction. 

A delicate Art Deco era marquisette watch circled Maggie’s wrist, the numerals picked out in curly script. A perfect match for Maggie’s vintage fifties party dress, even if Blue did say so herself.

“If it’s too big, I can get it adjusted,” Blue said.

“I said no presents. I specifically insisted on Rafel adding that to the invitation,” Maggie said.

“I know. I am just a total bitch when it comes to things like acknowledging my friend’s special day. Sorry,” Blue said, utterly unrepentant. 

Maggie was the bee’s knees, and no way was Blue letting her birthday pass unmarked. If life had taught her anything, it was to value the good people around her.

“It’s enough for me that you’re all here,” Maggie said. “I don’t need presents. This is too much, Blue.”

“Okay. I’ll take it back.”

Blue reached for Maggie’s wrist, but Maggie jerked her arm out of reach. 

Blue grinned at her. “Ha. Admit it, you like it.”

“Are you kidding? I freaking love it. It’s so gorgeous, I almost swallowed my own tongue when I opened the box. But you still shouldn’t have.”

Blue looked her friend in the eye solemnly. “It was my pleasure. I saw it, I thought of you, and I knew it had to come home with me. Enjoy.”

Maggie blinked a couple of times, then suddenly she was hugging Blue, her cheek pressed against Blue’s.

“Meeting Rafel is the best thing that ever happened to me, but you and Eddie are the second best. I love you, Blue.”

The unfamiliar sting of tears burned at the back of Blue’s eyes as she returned Maggie’s embrace. The L-word wasn’t something she threw around like confetti at a wedding, never had been, but she didn’t hesitate.

“Love you, too,” she said, her chest tight with emotion. 

She’d only known Maggie for eighteen months, but in that time she’d come to appreciate her friend’s smarts, kindness and generosity. Maggie was a keeper, the sort of friend a woman took to her grave.

“Wait until it’s your birthday. I am going to spoil you rotten in retaliation,” Maggie said. “Once I find out what date it is.”

Blue simply smiled mysteriously. She didn’t do birthdays. Not for a long, long time. Consequently, no one knew her birth date, and she liked it that way. 

“Come on. If you don’t tell me when it is, I’ll just make up a date and make that your birthday.”

“You can try.” 

“Blue.”

“Maggie.”

Their stand-off lasted all of five seconds until Rafel swooped on his woman, wrapping his arms around Maggie from behind and nuzzling her neck by way of greeting. 

Blue glanced down at her leather biker boots. She didn’t begrudge Rafel and Maggie their happiness - just the opposite, in fact - but it was hard to watch two people who were so patently, incandescently in love. A little like staring at the sun - there was definitely the risk you might go blind if you looked too long. 

“Doing your best to blow out the bar tab, I see,” Rafel said when he’d finished mauling Maggie’s neck.  

“You’re the fool who handed over his credit card,” Blue said. 

The truth was she’d been going easy on the vodka until she’d seen Eddie on the dance floor with the blonde. Now, getting drunk seemed like a good plan for the evening. Or maybe getting laid. Or both. 

It had been a month or so since she’d called Reid, her current friend-with-benefits, but she was pretty sure he’d be up for a booty call if she dropped him a line. She thought about his big, highly developed body. The man had muscles on his muscles, and he knew how his way around the bedroom. A few hours of sweaty, mindless sex would surely cure what ailed her. Then she could wake up tomorrow morning and tonight’s ridiculous jealousy and sensitivity would be a thing of the past, and everything would be back to normal.

Amen. 

“Scuse me a sec, just need to make a call,” she said, easing away from the bar and pulling out her phone. 

Reid was a former client who had never made a secret of his admiration for her while she was working on the full back tattoo he’d commissioned. All the same, she’d allowed a respectable six months to pass before she took him up on his offer of a good time, and they’d hooked up half a dozen times since then on a completely random basis. Fortunately for her sanity, he answered on the second ring, and his “come on over” was gratifyingly unhesitating and eager.

And why wouldn’t it be? She was a hot tamale. A pocket rocket. A bona fide hottie. 

“When are you going to get here?” Reid asked, and she glanced over her shoulder at the dance floor where Eddie was still dirty dancing with the blonde. 

“Give me twenty,” she said. 

She’d had enough to drink that she’d have to get a cab, but Reid’s place wasn’t far, and there was no reason to stay here and perpetuate the torture. She wasn’t into self flagellation. She turned back to offer her apologies to Maggie for bailing while the party was still going strong, but she and Rafel had disappeared into the crowd. Deciding she could make her excuses on Monday, Blue grabbed her denim jacket and headed for the front door. 

She smiled at familiar faces as she wove through the crowd, but she didn’t let anyone waylay her. She wanted out of here, wanted her equilibrium back. Wanted it to once more be perfectly fine with her that she would only ever be Eddie’s friend and nothing more. Something Reid was going to fuck back into her if it killed her.

She was mere feet from her goal when she found her path blocked by six-foot one of lean, hard male. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” Eddie asked, one hand reaching out to catch her shoulder.