LuckoftheDraw Read online

  Luck of the Draw

  Jayne Kingston

  Book 3 of the Mischievous Matchmaker series.

  Turnabout is fair play. Or maybe karma is a bitch is more fitting.

  Petra’s friends throw her a key party to help her move on from a months-old heartbreak. While she is not interested in falling in love again, getting her stunted sex life back on track doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

  Except someone sabotages the key drawing before she gets her turn. Instead of spending the night with the ultra-hot doc her friends intended to “accidentally” set her up with, she winds up drawing Alex’s keys instead.

  A night with Alex is coveted among players. Petra quickly finds out the reality of Alex far exceeds his legendary reputation. The moment they kiss they discover a chemistry so combustible it’s positively nuclear. They’re so engulfed in a red-hot haze of passion, neither of them sees it coming when Petra’s ex returns, repentant and threatening to ruin their newfound happiness.

  Inside Scoop: These sexy key parties lead to some pretty wild times, including group sex and male/male interactions, which are mentioned as past adventures.

  A Romantica® contemporary erotic romance from Ellora’s Cave

  Luck of the Draw

  Jayne Kingston

  Chapter One

  “Turnabout is fair play you know,” Rachel said with a smile.

  “I was thinking ‘karma is a bitch’ would be the more appropriate phrase in this situation.” Petra Romanov sipped her glass of wine and scanned the group of people gathered in her living room, laughing and flirting and having a great time.

  Rachel brushed Petra’s hair off her shoulder. “We never would have set this up if we hadn’t thought you were ready.” She tugged gently on Petra’s long silver earring. “But if you don’t think you’re ready just say the word.”

  Petra had known Rachel and Bree were going to throw this party for her long before they came to her and announced it. Maybe on some primal, physical level she’d even been hoping they would do it, but that didn’t mean she was ready to take an actual step toward moving forward with her life.

  Of course, when she’d done the same for Rachel and Bree that past spring and summer, she hadn’t given them any warning at all, had she?

  Petra had hung up her Cupid’s bow and arrow a couple of months earlier when her longtime live-in boyfriend Jude left her. Before that she’d had a good run playing matchmaker by throwing Seventies-style key parties for her friends, rigging the drawing so people she thought would make good couples ended up together instead of just letting fate run its course.

  She’d started throwing those parties as a way to bypass the usual “Hey, I really think you would like so-and-so, can I set you up?” that she’d found was more off-putting than effective. After a handful of successful matches between her more casual acquaintances, she’d set her sights on her two best friends.

  Rachel’s match had worked beautifully. She’d just moved back to Chicago after living in England for several years and wasn’t aware that Petra knew Ben, Rachel’s old college crush. Petra had it on good authority—from Ben—that after a few hot and heavy months of dating, Ben had been secretly engagement ring shopping.

  Bree’s match had been trickier to pull off, considering Bree’s former distaste for Cooper over a work-related misunderstanding, but things had turned out the way they were supposed to in the end. After three months they were already living together for the most part, dividing their time between his downtown Chicago apartment and her adorable little house in the suburbs.

  “You know I’m not ready to fall in love again, right?” Petra asked Rachel. Her heart was barely healed from Jude leaving the way he had.

  Rachel smiled. “I know, my darling. That’s not what tonight is about.”

  “Good.” She went back to observing the crowd.

  “But you are starting to get the urge to do a little fooling around again, aren’t you?”

  Yes she was. She’d had it with spending her nights off work, lying on the couch watching every godforsaken reality show on cable television. Her body had started to remind her that she was young and healthy and had strong sexual needs that were not being fulfilled.

  “So, who is my match going to be?”

  The group was a good-size mix of couples and singles. Some of the couples were there to swing, but others—like Rachel and Ben, and Bree and Cooper—had opted to leave their keys out of the bowl by the door and were just there to have a good time.

  Rachel blinked once, slowly. “The least you could do is play along.”

  “All right fine. I’ll play.” She wrapped her arm around Rachel’s waist. “Have I told you lately that this is a truly amazing party?”

  Because it was so close to Halloween, guests had been instructed to dress from the swinging Seventies. Everyone was decked out in costumes that ranged from bell-bottom wearing hippies to disco kings and divas.

  Petra’s house was almost unrecognizable. Her stark, modern furniture had been draped with psychedelically patterned throws and brightly colored zigzag afghans. Lava lamps and black lights had replaced some of her lamps. Framed rock concert posters from the time-period—courtesy of her friend Alex’s dad and his basement bar slash game room—had replaced most of the paintings on the walls.

  The girls had even hung a disco ball from the small chandelier in her dining room. It cast spinning points of light all over the partially darkened makeshift dance floor.

  “You have, but thank you again,” Rachel said with a pleased smile. She gave Petra a careful look. “Are you having fun?”

  For as much as hadn’t been looking forward to the party, she couldn’t deny having her circle of fun, sexed-up friends together again was just what she’d needed.

  “I really am,” she answered honestly.

  Rachel kissed her cheek. “Good.”

  “Your dress is killer, Rach.” She gave her a squeeze, stepped back and looked her over top to bottom. “Fair warning. I’m going to steal it tomorrow.

  Petra’s grandmother, her beloved Busha, had made dresses for Petra, Rachel and Bree from forty-year-old patterns she’d had since Petra’s Momma used to go dancing as a very young woman. Rachel’s was short, showing off her mile-long legs, and made out of a deep-purple paisley fabric that set off her green eyes.

  “I tell you what, leave yours in its place and it’s a deal,” Rachel said.

  Petra’s dress wasn’t quite as flashy, but it was gorgeous in its simplicity. The black halter top had a deep cowl neckline that draped low between her breasts and was open almost to her waist in the back. The asymmetrical skirt showed her knees in the front, but hung to mid-calf. She’d finished the outfit with all silver accessories—long, dangling earrings, an upper arm cuff that coiled like a snake above her right bicep, a thin headband and high, strappy heels

  “Alex looks like he murdered that old couch Busha has in her den,” Bree observed as she joined them, looking fine in the little gold lamé sheath that hugged her small but curvy body in all the right places.

  The outfit their friend Alex was wearing was indeed hideous. The shirt had a mustard-yellow, rust-orange and avocado-green mod pattern. The corduroy pants matched the rust color in the shirt and were so tight they hugged his ass and thighs before flaring out from the knee down. On his well-muscled six-foot-six frame, that was a whole lot of garish color.

  “Would you believe those are vintage?” Petra asked, smiling as she found him standing across the room. Lord he was a beautiful man, ugly clothes and all. “He got those clothes straight out of his dad’s closet.”

  Bree nodded. “I believe it.”

  They’d all met and loved Alex’s father Mac Morrison—the source of Alex’s incredible height, bright c
oppery-red hair and cobalt-blue eyes—who was just as fun and outgoing as his son. Although Alex’s day-to-day style was significantly more low-key than his dad’s, which still had a tendency to be attention-getting. To say the least.

  “I have to say I’m diggin’ the way those pants are showing off that tush of his,” Bree said, following Petra’s line of sight.

  It was a nice ass—round and tight and slightly concave on the sides. Even when he was wearing baggy, unflattering scrubs at work he couldn’t completely conceal it or the rest of his big, strong body.

  Rachel mirrored Bree’s smirk. “Someone should really bring back tight pants on men, I say. There really is a lot of fine man tush on display tonight.”

  Petra nodded. “Your man’s included,” she said to Rachel.

  Bree’s boyfriend Cooper had gone the way of the hippie biker, wearing a widely folded bandana tied low over his forehead, leather riding vest with no shirt, grubby jeans and heavy biker boots. Rachel’s boyfriend Ben, on the other hand, looked like an extra straight off the set of Saturday Night Fever in a shiny polyester shirt unbuttoned to mid chest and tight white pants.

  Rachel’s smirk went several shades naughtier. “I had those pants taken in so they would fit him that way.”

  Bree held up her hand and Rachel high-fived her.

  “Any idea why Alex is so cranky tonight?” Rachel asked.

  “He’s really off his game,” Bree observed, casting another glance his way.

  Petra had noticed it too. When she’d asked earlier he’d just said he hadn’t gotten much sleep after working the night shift at the hospital, where they were both nurses on the pediatric floor, but Petra didn’t buy it. She’d known Alex a long time, and lack of sleep didn’t have a negative effect on him. Something else was going on.

  “It’s kind of scary,” Rachel said. “Did he put his keys in the drawing? Ben said he keeps talking about how he should leave.”

  “Leave?” Bree squeaked. “He can’t leave. We’ll have an odd number of players.”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.” Petra sipped her wine. “You’ll have no problem finding two women willing to tag-team some lucky bastard if it comes to that.” Come to think of it… “You know, it’s been a while since I’ve been with a woman, and even longer since I’ve played in a threesome. I volunteer.”

  She watched, highly amused, as her friends exchanged a look. That was definitely not what they had planned for her.

  “You just leave any problems that may or may not arise to us, ‘kay?” Bree asked with a sassy little tilt of the head.

  “We’ve got this covered,” Rachel added. “Alex isn’t going anywhere, even if I have to tie him to something.”

  The three of them turned and looked at Alex at the same time, each of them likely considering Alex tied up. Petra was.

  “Cooper is so getting tied up and tortured tonight,” Bree murmured, bringing them back out of their thoughts.

  From where they were standing, Petra could see the door at the opposite end of the house open. The question of who her friends meant to set her up with was answered as Dr. Michel Bonhomme came into her kitchen through the back door.

  She looked at her friends, who were pointedly not looking at her all of a sudden. Rachel murmured something about checking on Ben, who was on duty at the makeshift bar in the living room, and took off in his direction.

  Bree headed for Michel, calling out a pleased “You made it.”

  Petra felt as though she should have known it was going to be him. She’d been openly admiring him from afar for years. Her friends knew all about how much she used to fantasize about getting her hands on him one day.

  He was the black-haired, blue-eyed, smoldering-gaze variety of stunning—tall, lean and always smelling of the finest cologne. It didn’t hurt that his native French still clung to the way he spoke, even after something like twenty years of living in the States.

  She and Jude had invited him to the bisexual parties they’d held in the past with the hope that one or both of them would end up with the sexy Frenchman. Sadly, neither of them had ever gotten his keys in the handful of times he’d attended, and she hadn’t thought to start rigging the games until much later. Not that she ever would have rigged the game in her own favor.

  Now her friends, bless their hearts, were about to help her scratch an old itch.

  The only problem with that was Petra knew from the snippets of talk she’d heard after past parties that he seemed to prefer men, or women who behaved like men, in bed. And while she enjoyed being the dominant bed partner most of the time, tonight she’d been hoping to end up with someone who got all alpha-male behind closed doors.

  Someone who took charge, used her up and left her limp as a ragdoll.

  Someone who gave whole new meaning to the word “ravage”.

  “I had to park in front of the garage,” Petra heard Michel say to Bree as she sauntered into the kitchen to join them. “There were no open spots on the street.”

  “You’re welcome to park wherever you like,” Petra told him.

  Bree held out her hand and Michel put his car key in her palm.

  “What are you drinking?” Bree asked him.

  “Do you have red wine?”

  “We happen to have a really lovely pinot noir, as a matter of fact.”

  He gave Bree a smile that made Petra’s knees go a little weak. “Perfect.”

  “Coming right up.” Bree turned and gave Petra a wink once her back was to him.

  “You’re in costume,” Petra said, not sure why she was surprised.

  Like Ben, he looked as if he was ready for the dance floor in a snug shirt with an appropriate ugly design and black pants pulled tight over his flat lower belly and hips. He came across as aloof to some but was actually warm and very approachable.

  “You look amazing,” she told him, taking his hands when he offered them.

  He held her arms out at her sides as he looked her over. “Not as amazing as you.”

  She gave him a coy smile and dipped a little curtsey. “Merci.”

  He chuckled low and kissed her on both cheeks, then her mouth.

  Oh no.

  Even though it lingered a moment longer than would have been considered casual, and in spite of the fact that his lips were warm and soft, she felt nothing. And by nothing she meant not so much as a tingle in the smallest of her toes.

  She pasted what she hoped was a pleased smile on her face, slipped her arm through his when he drew back and headed toward the living room.

  “Come in and join the party. Rachel and Bree did a gorgeous job.”

  “I see you have a new bartender.” Petra didn’t miss the open admiration in Michel’s eyes as he looked Ben over. Rachel’s fiancé had the tall, dark and holy-hell-he’s-hot thing down to a T. “Jude is not with us tonight?”

  Her stomach sank. He’d asked because Jude had tended bar at every one of the parties she’d thrown in the past. It wasn’t Michel’s fault he didn’t know that she and Jude had broken up. She’d only told the handful of people at work she considered her close friends, and he hadn’t been one of them.

  “No, Jude won’t be here tonight.”

  He stopped strolling. “So the rumors are true?”

  “If the rumors are that I came home from work one morning to find him packed and ready to leave for a year’s worth of volunteer work in Haiti, yes.”

  His eyebrows went up in interest. “So he made it there?”

  She blinked in surprise. Michel knew? “What do you mean?”

  “We sat together at the March of Dimes benefit. He told me then he’d been looking into different organizations, deciding who he wanted to work with.” He made a sympathetic snicking sound with his tongue. “You are not happy about this.”

  She swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat but couldn’t answer.

  Michel didn’t wait for her to answer. His eyes dropped to her mouth, then lower to her neck and the deep V of skin betwee
n her breasts. “So, mon petite souris, you are free to play while your pussy cat is away?”

  She snorted a surprised laugh, which earned her another of his devastating smiles.

  “I’m free,” she told him, smiling even though she felt like bursting into tears.

  He skimmed his hand over the small of her back and one corner of his mouth curled mischievously. “For now?”

  Petra drew in his scent and warmth. The feel of his hand on her skin, his touch enticingly soft, and the way those dark-blue eyes took her in hungrily was causing the beginning of a tremor low in her belly.

  Maybe she was going to have to give his kiss a second chance.

  “Forever,” she said, swallowing hard. “I am a little mouse without a pussy cat.”

  “Foolish man.” Michel shook his head. “C’est la vie. His loss is our gain, no?”

  She forced a seductive smile she did not feel. “We’ll find out, won’t we?”

  Chapter Two

  He needed to stop staring at her. He needed to stop sulking like a lovesick teenager. He needed to get his ass in gear and do something, even if that something was get his keys out of the bowl by the front door and take the last shred of his dignity home and put it to bed. Alone.

  Alex shifted his weight from one foot to the other and continued to lean against the fireplace, growing more disgusted with himself as he did.

  Morrison men did not sulk. They did not brood or mope, and they did not stand by and watch while the woman they wanted was offered up to someone else by her best friends at a sex party. Morrison men were the descendants of warriors who fearlessly went after what they wanted, especially when it came to women, probably the last conquest worthy of a good fight.

  If his dad had been there he would have cuffed Alex upside the head on principle.

  Alex knew Rachel and Bree had something up their sleeves, and he knew it wasn’t him. He’d been helping Petra get through her breakup with Jude because he was her friend and he loved her. He’d been biding his time, waiting for the right moment to tell her just how much he loved her, and they were about to cockblock him in a big way.