Read Online LuckoftheDraw by Jayne Kingston - Free Book Online Page B

she shivered.
    “Will you stay tonight?” frivolous Petra asked.
    There was mischief in his eyes and on the curve of his lips
when he looked up.
    “Pete, a hundred-man SWAT team couldn’t keep me away.”

Chapter Seven
     
    “If the nursing thing falls through you should consider
party planning.”
    Alex leaned in the same doorway where Petra was standing,
quietly observing the crowd celebrating Ben and Rachel’s engagement in the
sunlit greatroom of Ben’s parents’ house. He loved the contented look she got
in her eye when one of the parties she threw was going well, whether it was one
of her sex parties or something more refined, like the classy afternoon shindig
she’d organized with Ben and Rachel’s moms.
    “Maybe when I retire.” She looked at him and his heart
tripped on a couple of beats over the way she smiled. “I love those kids too
much to give it up any time soon.”
    He did too. He and Ben had started talking about becoming
doctors way back when they were kids, but Alex’s parents hadn’t been able to
help him pay for college the way Ben’s had. Alex had gotten a nursing degree as
both a way to get his foot in the door to working in medicine and a way to pay
for medical school on his own. By the time he landed a permanent spot on the
pediatric floor of the teaching hospital, he’d decided he was more than happy
doing what he was already doing.
    “Besides,” she added, turning her attention back to the
crowd. “I’m not sure how many more parties I have in me.”
    “Oh? Why is that?”
    She lifted one shoulder in half a shrug and he had to remind
himself that biting it would not be appropriate. The more time they spent
together in bed, the harder it was becoming for him to keep his hands off her
out of bed.
    He was finding it especially hard to not touch her
throughout the party. She was mouth-wateringly sexy in a dark-blue
body-skimming dress and high heels, long silver earrings dangling against her
bare neck, hair pulled back into a low, stylish ponytail.
    The look was conservative and classy, with only the long
line of her neck and her pretty calves and ankles showing. The fact that he
knew the woman inside the dress was anything but conservative when she was
naked was driving him out of his mind.
    Alex took a large swallow of his drink and had to look away
before the stirring in his cock became something more serious.
    “Maybe Bree will let me throw her an engagement party if she
and Cooper decide to get married someday, but I’m finished with the key
parties.”
    “No more matchmaking?”
    “My girls are happy,” she said, clearly meaning Rachel and
Bree. “Mission accomplished.” But there was something incredibly sad about the
way she said it.
    In fact, there had been a little sadness lingering in her
expression all day, even though Ben and Rachel’s engagement was a happy
occasion.
    “I want to show you something,” he said, linking his fingers
with hers.
    She looked at the party, then back at him. “But what if—”
    “The moms have it.” He gave her hand a gentle tug. “There is
also an army of caterers making sure everything goes smoothly. Come with me.
Please.”
    They slipped into the formal living room that had been at
their backs.
    “Where are we going?”
    He gave her a conspiratorial smile. “You’ll see.”
    Actually, he had no real destination in mind except for one
of the upstairs bedrooms so he could have her all to himself for a minute.
    “Let me guess. They’ve kept Ben’s room the way it was when
he left home as some kind of shrine,” she suggested playfully.
    He laughed. “That would be creepy, wouldn’t it?”
    Actually, he hadn’t seen Ben’s old room since he helped him
move out to go to college fifteen years ago. It could still be just as he’d
left it for all Alex knew.
    “ Ooh , I know. They have a kinky playroom in the
attic.”
    “Sadly, I believe there’s just old furniture and holiday
decorations up there.”
    “Well that’s