ALL IN (7-Stud Club Book 1)

by Christie Ridgway

  “Someone came looking for you this morning.”

  For some ridiculous reason, her mind leaped to the thought of her neighbor. Come to apologize? “It was him?” she asked.

  May shook her head. “Not Ethan.”

  Ethan? Well, of course, the other woman had thought of Gemma’s ex, the ex who kept materializing even though she’d broken up with him months ago and recently moved out of the condo complex where they’d both had units. She’d given hers up because it had been beyond awkward to run into him so often, but even then she’d encountered him more than once in the last week.

  But if not Ethan…

  Her wayward thoughts returned to her neighbor—Boone—and she tried to imagine him inside her businesses. The decor wasn’t overly fussy and frilly, but her shop’s name and mission statement was “Gifts for Girlfriends,” heralding it as the place to find just the right thing to give your bestie for her birthday, for her bridal or baby shower, for any special occasion or merely just because.

  There wasn’t a whiff of masculinity about the interior, though May had been making noises about designating a corner as “Gear for Guys” or “Booty for Boyfriends.” It was worth thinking about. But now Boone’s big boots and wide shoulders would seem wildly out of place.

  Gemma didn’t need a man like him in her world.

  She didn’t want a man like him in her world!

  She didn’t want any man right now—or in the foreseeable future—period.

  But what if he had stopped by? At the thought, her pulse ping-ponged, wrist to throat to opposite wrist. Trying to appear casual, she picked up a carved stone bird from a nearby table and pretended to examine it.

  “Unruly black hair, bedroom eyes?” she asked her assistant, recalling her neighbor. “Is that an apt description? Tall, buff, with a stubble of whiskers along a perfect jaw?”

  The ensuing silence was as loud as a shout. Oh, crud, Gemma thought. Way to run at the mouth. She glanced over at May. “Um—”

  Her assistant held up one hand. “I’m gay and he sounds hot to even me. Who the heck are you talking about?”

  Gemma grimaced, cursing the man. His testosterone had infected her system or something. “Never mind that.” Of course it wasn’t him. He had no way of knowing where she worked. “Tell me about my visitor.”

  May hesitated. Gemma narrowed her gaze, trying for stern and uncompromising, two things that were as foreign to her nature as a near-panting response to blatant, flagrant virility.

  “Oh, fine,” her assistant said, with a little shrug that caused her bronze-highlighted curls to bounce. “I’ll let it go for now. It was your mother who stopped by.”

  Gemma carefully returned the carving to the table. “She say what she wanted?”

  “You know,” May said, “I’ve never really had a conversation with her before. Usually she breezes in and out, or you’re here, so there’s not much chance—”

  “I get it.” On the few occasions her mother had visited the shop, Gemma had hustled her away before the older woman had an opportunity to reveal much about herself.

  Which would reveal too much about her daughter.

  “Did you, uh, help her with what she needed?” Gemma glanced around. “I mentioned to her I thought my aunt might like those new vegan bath bombs for her birthday.”

  May nodded. “Gift-wrapped them. She also scooped up that adorable egg timer that came in earlier in the week.”

  “Terrific,” Gemma said, trying to sound enthusiastic. “Anything else?”

  “Well…” Her assistant glanced down, then back up, the stalling tactic making Gemma’s nerves twitch.

  “What?” It could be anything, she knew. Vivien Marquette wouldn’t hesitate to advise a browser on which of the barely-there negligees displayed in the bedroom would be the most conducive to engaging male attention—followed by commitment. Or Gemma could imagine her picking up the bottles of the he-and-she intimate warming lotions they stocked and offering a detailed assessment of their efficacy in encouraging a man to turn a passion-filled night into a long-term promise. “As you might have figured out, my mother has a particular interest—”

  “She told me she’s getting a divorce.”

  “Ah.” Gemma nodded, maintaining a neutral expression. “True.”

  May cleared her throat. “Not from your dad?”

  “No.” He’d been Hubby Number One, and they’d split when Gemma was a toddler. Not long after there’d been a new man in the master bedroom. Around then, or maybe between Spouse Two and Spouse Three, her mother had shared with Gemma what seemed to be the mantra of the women in her family. “We’re the marrying kind, my love,” she’d said, matter-of-factly.

  It seemed to hold true for Gemma’s grandmother, mother, and aunt, who between them had ten marriages. Grandma had passed now, but with both Aunt Rita and Vivien Marquette single at the moment, Gemma supposed that number would increase.

  “Are you okay?” May asked, eyeing Gemma closely.

  “Abso yes,” she assured her, using one of her assistant’s favorite expressions.

  “Well, good,” May said, and Gemma breathed a sigh of relief as the other woman brushed past her in the direction of the kitchen.

  Glancing around, she decided all was in place and she might as well get on with her day. “I’ll be in the storeroom if you need me,” she called out.

  But May was already hustling back, in each hand a brownie square on a napkin. “Not so fast boss lady.” She passed over one of the treats. “Tell me more about ‘bedroom eyes.’”

  Gemma groaned, her gaze dropping to the snack. “He didn’t want them,” she finally admitted, waving the napkin around. “That’s why I brought them here. Have you ever known anyone to turn down chocolate?”

  “You mean he of the bedroom eyes and the stubble of whiskers on his perfect jaw?”

  The flush rising up her neck deserved ignoring. “Yes. The neighbor at my new place. He did me a favor and I brought over the brownies as a thank you but he wouldn’t accept them.”

  May didn’t seem to share her surprise. “Maybe he’s allergic.”

  “What?” Gemma stared. “That’s a thing?”

  Her assistant shrugged. “Gives my grandpa hives.”

  “It’s a man thing, then.” Gemma thought it over. “He didn’t say.”

  “What macho dude wants to admit M&M’s send him running for an oatmeal bath?”

  “Oatmeal bath,” Gemma murmured to herself, but her mind had stopped short of warm water in a deep porcelain tub to linger on the thought of her neighbor—Boone—stripping out of his shirt then shoving down his jeans to display a wealth of hair-roughened skin and bulging muscle. Truth, she’d never fantasized about a man’s genitals, but she knew his would be impossible to overlook, his shaft thickened and flushed, the tip as ruddy as his lips, the sac below full and heavy-looking.

  Aggressive. Almost…threatening.

  At the thought, her whole body flushed while a cold, ticklish yet delicious shiver traced her spine. More images spun out in her head—but always those dark, dark eyes of his fixed on her, daring her to take up the challenge oozing from every pore of his big, intimidating, sexy body.

  I’ll be the best you’ve ever had, a deep voice promised.

  “You should bring him something else,” May declared, jolting Gemma back to the present.

  She blinked at her assistant, fighting to emerge from the depths of the heated daydream. “Um, what?”

  “Snickerdoodles, strawberry cupcakes. Something besides chocolate. Something he’ll want from you.” May dimpled, all cheery innocence. “You know, to re-establish the power balance.”

  “Want from me? Power balance?” Gemma could only echo stupidly. But then the idea sank in. Was that the problem? Boone had performed a favor for her and she wouldn’t be able to rest—admit it, last night she’d been consumed by thoughts of those hands—until she equalized the scales.

  Until she gave him something he wanted.

&nb
sp; Another shiver edged down her spine at just how dangerously appealing that sounded.

  * * *

  “Beer,” Boone said, sliding a bottle in front of Eli, who sat at the glass-topped table on his backyard patio.

  The other man grunted in thanks, his attention focused overhead. “What do you call this thing again? I forget.”

  “That’s what’s known as a roof, it keeps the rain from getting you wet and the sun from burning your bald spot.”

  “Har har,” Eli replied, running his fingers through is full head of thick hair that hung nearly to his shoulders. “I’m talking about the whole structure, with the studs and shit.”

  “Since it’s open-sided except for the studs and shit, we usually refer to it as a pergola.”

  “That’s right,” Eli said. “Nice.”

  “You thinking of building one out at your place?” Boone glanced up. Today rain wasn’t a consideration, but the shade was welcome on a warm winter afternoon like this one. “We could get you a deal.”

  The other man shook his head. “God, no. I’m doing the bare minimum of upkeep at the family homestead until the twins go to college and I can sell.”

  Boone swallowed some of his own cold brew. “How are the twins?” he asked. “I thought you might be busy today ferrying them to the mall or to volleyball practice or something.”

  Eli leaned forward and glanced side to side, as if readying to impart a great secret. “I don’t generally broadcast this,” he said in a low voice, “because I’m unwilling to alarm members of our community, but since you and I are teamed up to organize Hart’s bachelor party…”

  Suppressing his urge to smile, Boone waited out his friend’s exaggerated pregnant pause.

  “Lynnie and Molly are now driving.”

  Rearing back, Boone stared at his friend. At eighteen, Eli had become guardian to his four younger sisters following their parents’ death in a car accident. The oldest two were in college now, Boone remembered that, but it was inconceivable that those four-year-old twins who had trailed Eli like baby ducklings in the early days were now old enough to legally get behind the wheel of a car. “They’re sixteen,” he said numbly, trying to fathom the idea.

  “And even more eager to get out from under my thumb than I am for them to do so. Which is a hell of a lot.”

  Boone eyed his friend, wondering if it would truly be that easy to go from man in charge of a handful of younger siblings to empty nester before age thirty-two. “You’ve got future plans?”

  Rubbing his hands together, Eli grinned. “You know it.”

  “Find a good woman? Settle down? Get yourself hitched like Hart?”

  His friend’s jaw dropped. “Is that some kind of curse you’re trying to lay on me?”

  Boone laughed. “Okay. You’re going to dedicate yourself to spending Saturday nights hopping from bar to bar and collecting phone numbers?”

  “It’s going to beat sitting around drinking soda so I’m prepared to rescue a little sister from the clutches of a groper, a goober, or just some average high school guy who’s forgotten there’s a testy grown man waiting beyond the front door.”

  Boone didn’t know who to feel sorrier for…Eli and the responsibility of all those girls or the girls themselves, who had a protective big brother hovering at their backs. He lifted his beer bottle in his buddy’s direction. “To that free-and-easy life ahead.”

  Eli clinked glass to glass, swallowed some beer, then set it down. “I guess we should move on to discussing the last night of Hart’s free-and-easy.”

  “Yeah,” Boone replied. “I hate to break it to you, but I promised no strippers—”

  “I have four sisters,” Eli said, glaring at him.

  “Okay, okay.” Boone held up his hands, reminding himself not to get on the wrong side of a man who’d sacrificed his evenings to watch internet videos learning to French braid and who’d chaperoned his squealing siblings to boy band concerts. Boone had always suspected that Eli wore his own hair long because his little sisters loved playing beauty salon with him as their number one client.

  “Here’s my idea,” he continued, because he wasn’t a big fan of handing over cash to get women to disrobe either. “Cooper offered up his family’s lake cabin. We could get Sophie to pack us a weekend’s worth of food, stock some beer, bring fishing poles and…”

  As he noted his friend’s distraction, he frowned. The man wasn’t listening. “What?”

  “Who’s that?” Eli asked, his gaze focused somewhere in the near distance.

  Boone glanced over his shoulder, his gut already sinking. Yeah, one look confirmed his worst suspicion—that his neighbor was in her backyard. There’d been a problem with the fencing between the two properties and he’d had to call the installers to rectify the issue. They’d gone so far as to remove one panel, but that left a gap through which he—and Eli—had a clear view of Gemma in a pair of baggy overalls, the hems rolled up at the ankles. She wore a skinny-to-her-ribs white tank top beneath and a pair of lace-less sneakers on her feet.

  They were a blinding white and looked wholly impractical as she wielded a hoe to attack a plot of cleared earth that by shape and size appeared to be designated as a vegetable garden.

  “Who?” Eli asked again, his gaze never leaving the woman, her hair pulled up in a high ponytail, the ends tickling the nape of her lovely, slender neck.

  “No one,” Boone answered abruptly, then instantly regretted it. As if Eli would buy the answer. As if Eli wouldn’t sense something was afoot with the way that he’d said it.

  Sure enough, the man’s focus turned to Boone. “It’s like that, huh?”

  He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Eli let a moment pass. “You know,” he said next, his tone conversational, “you could ask her to Hart’s wedding.”

  “I won’t.” Boone slid her a sidelong glance, and wondered if she’d applied sunscreen before venturing out. Her skin was creamy, a tell-tale shade that had betrayed every reaction when she’d spoken with him the morning before. It made her as easy to read as a stoplight.

  The initial flush of interest. A sweet layer of pink embarrassment on top of that. Then a darker tinge on what he could see of her throat that spoke of shame for ogling him so blatantly.

  Yeah. The spark of attraction that popped and sizzled in the air between them made her a bit upset and more than a little uncertain.

  As well as heated.

  But her obvious discomfort with it told him all he needed to know. She wasn’t a woman who’d tumble briefly into his bed before easily rolling out, happy enough for the temporary pleasures found in a casual hookup. He didn’t blame her for not wanting what little he had to offer, and he also didn’t intend to waste time or make her more uncomfortable by pursuing what wasn’t right for her. What wasn’t in the least bit smart for either of them.

  “Okay.” Eli studied him, a considering expression on his face. “Maybe I’ll ask her to Hart’s wedding.”

  Though his abs clenched and his fingers curled into the throttle position, Boone kept his grunt noncommittal.

  Eli’s smile was sly. “Unless you stake a claim, that is.”

  “Not gonna happen,” Boone asserted. “Now, back to the party—”

  “That’s too heavy for her,” his friend suddenly said, distracted again. He jumped to his feet and moved fast, already stepping over the property line between the open space in the fencing when Boone caught up to him.

  “Hey,” Eli called out to the woman. Gemma shifted their way, her arms cradling a flat of what looked to be fledgling strawberry plants. “Let me get that for you.”

  Scooping it out of her hold, he gave her a smile that probably sent all his young sisters’ friends swooning. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

  “Oh, thanks. Um…” Her glaze flicked to Boone.

  Looking for him to offer an introduction to his friend, obviously. But he couldn’t do it, because he didn’t trus
t himself not to add that Eli wasn’t any more of a stayer than he was himself.

  And remember, she was none of Boone’s business.

  The other man didn’t hesitate to take care of that small courtesy himself. “Eli King,” he told her, and asked where she wanted him to place the flat. As he complied with her directions, he added a light running commentary, that was quick to include the fact he was raising four younger sisters.

  Bastard, Boone thought with a scowl. Unfair to disarm her that way.

  And yeah, she was reacting to all his I’m-a-big-brother-so-no-danger-here charm. As if that wasn’t damn danger enough.

  Gemma kept up her side of the conversation, but none of the words filtered past Boone’s irritation. He just stood at the corner of the garden, watching Eli wield a metal rake to smooth the turned-over earth, racking up more brownie points, the kiss ass. When Boone’s pretty neighbor sent his friend a blinding smile, the triumphant look Eli arched his way felt like a punch to the ribs.

  But Boone kept his cool, feet spread wide, arms crossed over his chest, until Gemma’s voice reached his ears again, and this time their meaning penetrated his dark mood. A second flat of plants sat in the back of her car, she said. “I’ll get it,” he replied, the first words he’d spoken in her presence today.

  Color crawled up her face, but she didn’t object.

  He almost did, however, when he returned with the strawberries to see his friend, both hands gripping the handle of the rake, resting his weight on it as he leaned close to Gemma.

  Close enough to breathe in the scent of her hair if he so chose.

  Boone imagined it, his nose against the sun-warmed dark silk. He thought about nuzzling her there, then lifting his head and chucking her under the chin so their eyes might meet.

  Hers were the palest of blues, a rain-drenched shade that didn’t do a thing toward cooling his lust. Even in those baggy overalls, he’d noted the small handfuls of her breasts and the slenderness of her waist before it flared into the curve of her hips. He wanted to reach down and discover for himself what she wore underneath the denim—lace, cotton, thong, boy shorts. It wouldn’t matter, because what he really wanted was to slip his hand beneath the material and stroke between her thighs, coaxing her response.