Read Online Fool Me Once (Codie Snow #1): A Romantic Suspense Series by Jade C. Jamison - Free Book Online Page A

laced in front of him, indicating that he wasn’t even going to touch his food until she began telling him her story.  Why he always needed the dirty details was beyond her.  She’d heard more tales over the past several years about gay sex than she’d have ever dreamed possible, but Matthew made everything fun, from work to friendships to his crazy sex life.  His normally blonde hair was dyed jet black at the moment, but next week it might be apple red or full of blue streaks.  She blamed his boss, who—in spite of expecting professionalism—had no issues with Matthew’s eccentricity in regard to fashion and appearance.  Codie stuck a fork in her potato salad but had no intentions of taking a bite yet.  Matthew enjoyed the buildup just as much as he loved the actual storytelling, so she was prolonging it a bit.  She looked up in his sparkling blue eyes, his movie star chin set firmly as if he wasn’t planning to budge.
    And she knew he wouldn’t.  Not till the tale was told.
    Playing the game, she added a nonchalant lilt to her voice.  “There’s not much to tell, Matthew.  We, uh…we did the deed.”
    “Wonder what my boss is gonna think about that.”
    Well, that statement alone took the air out of her balloon.  What would Slade think indeed?  And should she care?
    She rolled her eyes but quelled her tongue, trying to decide exactly how she wanted to respond to Matthew’s statement.  After all, he’d been wanting all the dirty details, but bringing up her ex-boyfriend wasn’t the way to do it.  Matthew was the only reason why she and Slade had ever met in the first place.  Slade Sheppard—attorney at law, one of Dalton’s best—had hired Matthew as a receptionist/paralegal when her friend had been a freshman attending the local community college.  One night a few months later, Slade had been celebrating a big win with his staff of two, and Matthew had invited Codie along for the tiny party.  It had been calculated, Codie had learned later.  Misguided, yes, but Matthew had been certain Slade and Codie were soulmates.
    She wasn’t convinced…although, when they were together, it often seemed like magic.
    But Slade could be a bit of a dick and aloof at times, and Codie was tired of putting up with it.  They were currently not dating—so she could play the field with a clear conscience.  “I don’t give a shit what your boss thinks.”
    “Ooh.  Feeling bitchy, girlfriend?  You sure you had a good time?”
    “It was weird, Matthew.  It felt like the most natural thing.”
    Matthew finally picked up his sandwich.  “Sex is a very natural thing.  If we could get that through these Puritans’ heads, though…”  Having grown up in the smaller Colorado town of Dalton, Matthew had felt more eyes on him than he likely would have if he’d grown up along the Front Range where all the state’s big cities huddled.  The fact that he was gay might not have bothered him or even most of his classmates, but there were a few people in town who still thought he was an abomination .  Yeah…they’d used that very word.  The two of them had both planned to leave town after they’d graduated with their associate’s degrees—but Matthew was already working for Slade by then and Codie…well, Codie had been caring for her sick grandmother and dropped out of school, not sure what she wanted to do.
    It turned out that Slade was the perfect boss for Matthew.  He was well-dressed, well-groomed, and well-spoken, three things highly valued by the man who soon became the lawyer’s paralegal.  Now, a few years later, Matthew had become Slade’s right-hand man.  So, even if the “Puritans” didn’t appreciate her friend, his boss most certainly did.  “Yeah, well, good luck with that,” Codie said, taking a bite of her sandwich.
    “I’m still waiting,” Matthew said in a singsong voice, a pinched grin on his face, eyes alight with mischief.  Codie was almost surprised he wasn’t