Welcome back to the Mid Week Tease hosted by the lovely Sandra Bunino!
For the past several weeks, my hero Miles Copeland has slowly gotten to know the pretty, prickly and passionate bartender, Jamie Charles. They’ve grown closer and he can sense her attraction to him, but she has flatly rejected his request to get to know her outside of her work. An unexpected turn of events in the early morning hours just might give Miles the opening he’s been awaiting.
<===EXCERPT FROM LOVE ME NOT (BAD BOYS GONE GOOD BOOK #2)===>
Jamie uncapped the safety on her mace and locked up the bar. She climbed into the truck and turned the key. Nothing. She turned it again. Still nothing.
“Damn you, Byron! Not tonight. C’mon!” She tried a few more times but still got nothing. The last thing she wanted to do was wake Ellie in the middle of the night and admit that she’d let her stupid auto club membership lapse two months earlier. She’d rather call a cab now and deal with telling Ellie she’d screwed up again later.
Jamie pulled out her phone, a basic call-and-text device. She’d insisted she didn’t need a smartphone. Sitting in a dark parking lot in the middle of the night, needing to pull up a list of cab companies, her decision suddenly seemed pretty dumb.
“Everything okay?” A shadowy figure crossed the dark parking lot.
Jamie reached into her pocket and pulled out her key chain, ready to discharge the mace the second she knew something wasn’t right. The figure stepped into the light.
“Miles? What the hell are you doing out here at this time of night?” Jamie realized her heart was beating double-time. She drew in a deep breath then let it out in a huff. “You scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry.” He held up both his hands, halting a few feet away from her. “My window faces the parking lot. I couldn’t sleep, thinking about this proposal I’ve been working on. I looked out the window and saw you get out of the truck and raise your hood. Is everything okay?”
“No. This fucking piece of shit picks tonight to not start. Not cool, Byron.” She directed her angry words at the temperamental truck.
“Do you mind?” He gestured toward it.
“You’re not going to find anything. I didn’t. I’m not a helpless little girl, you know.” She was surprised by how angry she sounded. After all, she was glad not to be alone in a dark parking lot.
“I know you aren’t. But you never know. Let me try?” He wriggled his fingers, and she reluctantly placed the keys in his palm. He climbed inside the truck and tried to start it without success. Finally he hopped down. “Okay, so we’ve definitely got to get it to a mechanic. But there’s no reason it has to be this very moment. Why don’t you let me take you home? My car’s in the garage across the street.”
Jamie bit her lip, not making eye contact. She didn’t want Miles taking her home, but what were the alternatives? “I was gonna call a cab, but I don’t have the number,” she said finally. “If you could look the number up in that fancy phone of yours, that’s really all I need. It’s late, and I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
“It’s not an inconvenience—”
“You just said you were doing work stuff. Which, by the way, you shouldn’t be at this time of night.” She pointed an accusatory finger in his direction. “I don’t want you driving halfway across town for me.”
“Jamie…” He placed a hand on her shoulder. Even through the fabric of her shirt, her skin felt tingly underneath his touch. “Let me do this for you. You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?”
She surveyed his face for a moment. Spending the next half an hour together alone—without the security of the bar between them—was a tempting, yet potentially disastrous prospect. Still, it was the only one she had. “Okay, thanks. I’d appreciate a ride home.”
Miles waited as Jamie locked her truck and followed him across the street. He swiped his hotel key card and they entered the garage.
“This isn’t some lame attempt to get me to your room, is it?” She followed him up a flight of stairs.
He laughed. “Is it working?”
“No!” Her answer was emphatic.
“Then no.” He shrugged, smirking at her over one shoulder. When she narrowed those lovely green eyes at him and crossed her arms, his eyes drifted to her breasts. He quickly focused on her face and those pouty, bloodred lips again. “Just kidding. You know that, right?”
Jamie nodded then followed him again. Finally they arrived at Miles’s black BMW. A self-satisfied smirk lifted the corners of her mouth as she raised her eyes to his.
“Enough with the gloating,” he said. “You were right about the car. Let’s just leave it at that.”
Jamie slipped inside the passenger seat and looked around. The car still had that new-leather smell and it was as clean as it had been the day he rode it off the lot. “Didn’t say a word. I’m thankful for the ride.”
“So, where’re we going?”
“Coventry, near Cleveland Heights. I can direct you there.”
He smiled at her. “Why don’t you drive us there?”
“Drive this? You’ve gotta be kidding me,” she said.
“I trust you.” He stretched his hand out toward her, the key in his palm.
“I don’t think that’s such a great idea. My driving is more suitable for a racetrack than the city streets.”
“So you’re an aggressive driver. Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Jamie narrowed her eyes at him, but let his smart-ass comment ride. “I’d love to take this machine for a ride and show her what a real driver can do, but I don’t think it’d be a good idea.”
“Let’s see what you’ve got.” He pressed the key into her palm and got out of the car. He went around to the passenger side and opened her door. “You’re not going chickenshit on me now, are you, Charles?” He grinned.
Her eyes sparked, like an ignited torch. He’d struck a nerve. It shouldn’t have surprised him. He doubted this girl had ever backed down from a challenge.
Jamie eased the BMW 535i out of its parking space and down the parking garage ramp, carefully taking the curves and getting a feel for the handle of the car. The engine purred like a mighty panther, ready to pounce. He could swear there was something in her eyes that lit up like a kid waking up on Christmas. This was going to be fun, if they survived.
<===END OF EXCERPT===>
Miles has got his hands full with Jamie, hasn’t he? I guess neither of them can walk away from a challenge. Now, get your engines revved up and get off to the race. Take a tour through some of the fun, sexy teases that await at the links below.
Miles Copeland climbed to the top of his advertising agency because he isn’t afraid of taking risks and because he has something to prove to the father who betrayed his family. But when he falls for a moody, Gothic beauty with zero interest in anything but a purely physical relationship, he finds himself in dangerous territory.
