Operation Foreplay (36 page)

“Yeah, I guess.” He sat up and squinted toward the ocean. “Want to go swimming?”

“I could get wet.”

He sucked in a breath. “Tease.”

I rolled over and removed my sunglasses. “Let’s go then,” I said as I took off toward the water. He chased after and tackled me into a wave.

“No fair.” I laughed and wiped water from my face.

He treaded water a few feet from me and said, “All’s fair. Remember?”

“Better watch your step, Myers. We may just have to revisit our little challenge.”

“You wouldn’t.” He swam over and his hands showed me exactly why I wouldn’t.

“You’re right.” I wrapped my arms around him. “How did I ever go about my days without you in them, Jared Myers?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t really want to find out.” His kiss warmed me to my toes.

“Want to go in a bit and get something to eat? I’m starving.”

“We didn’t eat breakfast, did we?”

“Well, we were busy.”

“Yes, we were. Come on. Let’s go get some breakfast then.” He swam toward the shore.

“It’s after noon.”

“Is there really a cut off for banana pancakes?” He turned to me.

“I guess not.”

We held hands as we walked back to the small bed-and-breakfast he had found online. It was cute and right on the beach. And, as promised, it was a surprise. I knew we’d discussed a getaway, but I hadn’t heard a peep until I came home from work the day before and my bags were packed.

We dropped off our stuff in the room before heading toward the small diner on the corner. After the waitress delivered two tall glasses of milk and two big stacks of pancakes, I took a second to appreciate where I was and what it had taken for me to get there.

I leaned across the table and he met me halfway. We kissed softly. “I love you.”

I smiled. “I love you, too.”

I smiled because I’d never thought I’d say the words. I’d never thought I’d find someone worth it. But sitting across from me, eating banana pancakes with a sexy smirk on his face, was someone worth waiting for. Worth finding. Worth keeping. It had taken me only thirty years and a wicked round of foreplay, but I was in love. And it was the best feeling I’d ever experienced.

Cocktail Recipes

Adios Motherfucker

• ½ oz. vodka
  
• ½ oz. rum
  
• ½ oz. tequila
  
• ½ oz. gin
  
• ½ oz. blue curaçao
  
• 2 oz. sweet and sour mix
  
• 2 oz. lemon-lime soda
  

Instructions:

Pour all the ingredients except the lemon-lime soda into a glass with ice. Top with the lemon-lime soda.

One Night Stand

• 1 oz. Kahlúa
  
• 1 oz, Cape Velvet cream liqueur
  
• ½ oz. Cointreau
  
• 2 oz. cream
  

Instructions:

Pour all the ingredients into a shaker with ice. Shake well. Pour into a martini glass or shot glasses.

Cock-Sucking Cowboy

• 2 parts butterscotch liqueur
  
• 1 part coffee cream liqueur
  

Instructions:

Layer the ingredients in a shot glass.

Mimosa

• Equal parts dry Prosecco or Champagne and orange juice
  
• Splash of orange liqueur
  

Instructions:

Pour the Prosecco or Champagne into a glass; fill to the top with orange juice. Add a splash of orange liqueur.

Bend Over Shirley

• 1½ oz. raspberry vodka
  
• 5 oz. lemon-lime soda
  
• ¾ oz. grenadine
  
• Cherry
  

Instructions:

Pour vodka into a highball glass filled with ice. Add the lemon-lime soda. Top with the grenadine. Drop a cherry into the glass.

Sex on My Face

• ½ oz. whiskey or bourbon
  
• ½ oz. coconut rum
  
• ½ oz. peach liqueur
  
• ½ oz. banana liqueur
  
• Splash of cranberry juice
  
• Splash of apple juice
  
• Splash of orange juice
  

Instructions:

Pour all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake well. Pour into tall glass with ice or serve as individual shots.

Blue Balls

• ½ oz. blue curaçao
  
• ½ oz. coconut rum
  
• ½ oz. peach liqueur
  
• ¼ oz. sweet and sour mix
  
• Dash of lemon-lime soda
  

Instructions:

Pour all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well. Strain into a shot glass.

Suck Bang Blow

• 1 oz. orange-flavored gin
  
• 1 oz. peppermint liqueur
  
• 2 oz. lager
  
• 1 oz. herbal liqueur
  
• 3 oz. tequila
  
• 1 oz. Hpnotiq liqueur
  
• 1 oz. vodka
  
• 1 oz. lemon vodka
  
• 1 oz. orange liqueur
  
• 1 lime, peeled
  
• 5 oz. strawberry daiquiri mix
  
• 2 cups cranberry juice
  
• 1 cup sugar
  

Instructions:

Pour all the ingredients into a blender with ice. Blend until smooth. Pour into a hurricane glass and serve.

Leg Spreader

• 1 oz. coconut rum
  
• 1 oz. citrus vodka
  
• 1 oz. Midori
  
• 1 oz. peach liqueur
  
• Splash of sour mix
  
• Splash of pineapple juice
  

Instructions:

Pour all the ingredients into a cocktail shaker filled with ice. Shake well. Strain into a shot glass.

Too Fruity

• 2 oz. coconut rum
  
• 1 oz. lime rum
  
• 2 oz. cranberry juice
  
• 2 oz. pineapple juice
  
• Lime wedge
  

Instructions:

Pour all liquid ingredients into a pint glass filled with ice. Top with squeezed lime wedge.

Snake Bite

• ½ pint lager
  
• ½ pint hard cider
  

Instructions:

Mix the ingredients and serve in a pint glass.

Bacon Bloody Mary

• 15 oz. tomato juice
  
• Hot sauce (to taste)
  
• 3 shots bacon-infused vodka (recipe follows) or bacon-flavored vodka
  
• Sea salt
  
• Black pepper
  
• Lemon juice
  
• 1 strip cooked bacon
  
• Lemon wedge
  

Instructions:

Fill a cocktail shaker halfway with ice. Add the tomato juice, hot sauce, vodka, a pinch each of salt and pepper, and a generous squeeze of lemon juice. Shake well. Pour into a pint glass filled with ice. Sprinkle more pepper on top and add the slice of cooked bacon and lemon wedge for garnish.

Bacon-Infused Vodka

• 7 strips bacon
  
• Vodka (enough to fill the size jar you choose)
  
• 2 glass jars with lids (any size)
  

Instructions:

Cook the bacon until crispy and drain. When cooled, crumble bacon into one of the empty glass jars. Pour the vodka over the bacon and tighten the lid. Shake the jar once daily for seven days. Strain the vodka into the other clean glass jar. Store in a cool, dark place for up to one month.

About the Author

Christine Hughes is a former middle school English teacher from New Jersey. Her first novel,
Torn
, a YA paranormal, was named a 2012 Hollywood Book Festival finalist and a 2012 RONE Awards finalist and has been released by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing, as has its sequel,
Darkness Betrayed
. Her stand-alone NA romance,
Three Days of Rain
, was a finalist at the 2013 Paris Book Festival and also has a home with CHBB.

Learn more at:

Christine-Hughes.com

Twitter, @HughesWriter

Facebook.com/ChristineHughesAuthor

Please turn the page for an excerpt from Christine Hughes’s previous sexy romantic comedy,
Operation One Night Stand
!

Chapter One

I
had commandeered the sofa. The beautiful, butter-yellow sofa Sarah had purchased when she first moved to her amazingly spacious two-bedroom apartment almost three years ago now probably had a permanent imprint of my ass. The cushions had become a wasteland overflowing with wads of snotty tissues, and creamy brown stains from my new, aptly named addiction—Pint of Tears—smeared the arm. My trusty sidekick, Mr. Bibbles, a childhood stuffed thing—I wasn’t sure anymore if he ever really was a bear—lay oddly contorted at my side.

For five years, Steven and I dated. Lived together. Worked together. Dreamed together. That was before it all went to shit. That was before I found him in
my
bed with Betsy the Intern. That was before he figured it was okay to forget about the fact that he was my fiancé. That was before I found myself homeless, refusing to ask my parents for help. I showed up with nothing but a suitcase full of crap—and Mr. Bibbles—at Sarah’s door. I didn’t even have to ask. Within twenty-four hours, my room was decorated, my bed was made, and I was moved in.

For the past six weeks, I’d lived with Sarah. My best friend, my trusty confidant, and, probably, the only person on earth who’d have put up with my shit for as long as she has. Besides the other third of our trio, Mel. My nightly crying fits, my refusal to leave the house for anything other than work, and my newly minted status as Ice Cream Dreams’s most valuable customer wore on my friends.

Every day on the way home from work, before I planted my growing ass on the once beautiful sofa and cried, I stopped at a tiny little ice cream shop called Ice Cream Dreams. They pride themselves on making any ice cream concoction to fit any mood. The first day I walked in, the girl behind the counter took one look at me and Pint of Tears was born. Chocolate on chocolate mixed with chocolate, gummy bears, marshmallow, and peanut butter. It became their best-selling ice cream flavor of the fall. Probably because of me.

Me and my ever-growing, ice-cream-eating, tear-shedding, sofa-arm-smearing ass.

I would silently curse Sarah as she invited me out every Friday. Every Saturday. I would inwardly cringe at the ten pounds I’d gained—while simultaneously thanking my speedy metabolism that it wasn’t more—as I watched from my perch on her butter-yellow sofa while she left for the gym with yoga mat in hand.

All I needed was a spoon, a pint, and a remote control.

My new life.

Sucked.

I’d taken to sitting on the couch and watching every single depressing break-up movie ever filmed. Multiple times. From black-and-whites, animated, Ryan Gosling, Jack and Rose to addictions, affairs, Ryan Gosling, Jack and Rose. Oh, and by the way, Rose, I call bullshit. Jack would have pulled your ass from the frozen waters of the Atlantic and shared some space on that door or whatever the hell you were floating on. Then again, maybe you knew something we didn’t. Maybe he deserved an icy, watery grave. Maybe you were on to something. Men.

Fuck ’em.

Sideways.

One particular Friday night, I was in the middle of another round of “Which Movie Is More Depressing?” (
When a Man Loves a Woman
was winning, by the way) when I heard Sarah’s key in the lock. At the time, I wasn’t fazed. We’d gotten into a routine. She’d come home from her date or the gym or dinner out with friends, ask me how I was, ask me if I needed anything, and, when I said no, she’d say good night and go to bed. Once in a while she’d sit on the couch with me, eat out of her own pint of Support System (yeah, another flavor), and watch me as I worked on my ugly crying face. I was pretty sure it was the ugliest crying face ever. I was giving that actress from
Homeland
a run for her ugly crying face money. Which is weird, because without the ugly crying face, she’s beautiful. She never would have let Jack sink to the icy depths.