Take My V-Card
Layla Valentine
Contents
Take My V-Card
Prologue
1. Rhona
2. Rhona
3. Rhona
4. Rhona
5. Rhona
6. Rhona
7. Rhona
8. Rhona
9. Rhona
10. Rhona
11. Rhona
12. Blake
13. Blake
14. Rhona
15. Rhona
16. Rhona
17. Rhona
Epilogue
Layla Valentine & Holly Rayner
Accidental Triplets
Introduction
1. Cassidy
More Books in this Series
Take My V-Card
Copyright 2018 by Layla Valentine
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.
All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.
Prologue
2012: Rhona
“I don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” I hissed into the phone, dodging the friendly but curious smile of the security guard by the door.
“Oh, hush! What if he shows up when you’re saying stuff like that?” Sara had her mother-hen voice on full blast, using the same tone that had convinced me to do this in the first place.
“I’m early,” I argued. “He won’t hear me if he’s not here.”
“He’s notoriously early,” Sara sniffed. “Get off the phone and keep a lookout! He’ll be there any minute.”
“Okay.” I blew out a tense breath, trying to calm the butterflies in my belly. “Ugh, tell me how I’ll recognize him, again?”
“Italian,” she said slowly, as if I were a child. “Tall, dark, handsome. Carrying a red rose. Got it?”
“I got it, I got it,” I said, my belly twisting again.
“Great. Now get off the phone and relax! You’re going to have a great time.”
“Sure I will,” I muttered as I hung up. “One of these days, Rhona, you’re going to have to learn how to say no to that woman.”
I hovered around the entrance to the San Bravado Observatory, watching like-minded people drift in and out. I had chosen the venue based on the intrinsic romance of star-gazing, but now I was regretting it. What if he thought the outing was weird or nerdy?
“Then he’s not your type anyway,” I told myself under my breath. “Assuming I have a type…”
I checked my watch, and realized that it was now time for us to meet, and I had been there for ten minutes already. My desperation was showing, I could tell. Shaking it off, I pasted a fake smile on my face, then quickly let it fall when I caught my reflection in a window.
“Let’s not scare him away,” I whispered.
Closing my eyes, I forced myself to relax. I shook my disobedient mane of blond curls off of my shoulders and straightened my miniskirt, regretting wearing something so short.
I’m fine, I told myself firmly. I’m fun, I’m pretty, I’m smart… That’s what all the movies say guys want, right? Besides, there’s no way to lose in this scenario. Even if he isn’t my happily-ever-after, he’ll give me dating experience.
I paced around, looking at the space-themed sculptures dotting the observatory lawn, keeping one eye on the thin crowd trickling in from the parking lot. I checked the time again. Ten minutes wasn’t that late, right? He probably hit traffic. Twenty minutes… Okay, maybe he spilled coffee on himself and had to change and then hit traffic. Thirty minutes… Maybe…maybe nothing.
Out of excuses for a man I didn’t even know, the full force of the disappointment slammed into my chest. I felt like a fool, mortified that the guard at the door had witnessed me getting stood up. Hot tears sprang into my eyes as I glimpsed his sympathetic expression. I turned to leave, whirling too fast to outrun the awkwardness.
Instead, I crashed face-first into a broad back.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” I said in a rush, realizing with a shock that my tears—and mascara—had ended up all over the back of his sports coat.
“Whoa! You all right?” he asked, turning to catch me as I stumbled back in my too-high heels.
“Oh! Yes, I’m sorry.” Flustered, I desperately wanted to extricate myself from the situation. But something about his dashing, confident smile and the warmth in his sea-green eyes made me pause.
“You look upset,” he commented matter-of-factly.
“Yes, I… Well, I hate to admit it, but…”
“You got stood up?” he filled in.
“Yes,” I admitted with a little laugh.
“Me too. At least, I think I was. She’s, let’s see…about forty minutes late at this point.”
“Mine too,” I sighed. “Who stands up a blind date, anyway?”
“Ouch,” he said with a wince. “You don’t think…?”
“That he got here, took one look at me, and turned around? I’ve been trying not to.”
“If he did, then he really is blind,” the man said, flashing that smile at me again.
My cheeks heated, and I glanced up at him through my lashes.
“Was yours a blind date too?” I asked, more to keep him talking to me than anything else.
“No, but it was a first date. I probably shouldn’t have asked her out at all… Office romances, and all that.”
“Hard to avoid when you spend all your time at the office,” I said ruefully. “At that point, it’s either date a coworker or let your pushy friend set you up.”
“Exactly,” he laughed. “What is it you do?”
“I’m an intern at an advertising agency. The work’s brutal, but the pay is worse.”
He laughed authentically, giving me a much-needed ego boost. Telling me I was pretty made me happy, but laughing at my humor… Well, that was something special. I found myself hoping that our dates would never show up.
“Does your friend push you into things like this often?” he asked with a chuckle.
“Oh, yeah. This wasn’t the first time, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. She made me go bungee jumping with her last year, and my stomach still hasn’t recovered.”
His laugh rippled like hot fudge over my senses, warm and delicious. I checked the time; our respective dates were nearly an hour late.
“No-shows,” he said, looking through the glass doors at the small crowd lingering in the foyer.
“Looks like. Maybe they met each other, fell in love, and are halfway to a chapel as we speak.”
“Maybe,” he said with a little sigh. “C’est la vie.” He blew a kiss out into the dark with a flourish.
“You speak French?” I asked, delighted.
“Oui, oui, mon ami. Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir, amour?”
“Wow,” I breathed. “What does that mean?”
“I have no idea,” he said with a self-deprecating shrug. “I picked all that up from movies.”
I giggled, smitten. I reminded myself that he wasn’t my date, that the tardy woman still had first dibs, and that if my Italian blind date ever did show up, I would be obligated to spend the evening with him. I fervently hoped that wouldn’t happen, and wrestled with my own guilt on that point for several minutes while the charming man in front of me continued to make me laugh.
“I’m Blake, by the way,” he f
inally introduced himself.
“Rhona,” I told him, reaching out to shake his hand. Sparks skittered over my skin the instant his warm, strong hand encased mine, igniting a fire in my cheeks.
“Rhona’s a great name. I love Rhona.” He disarmed me with that cheeky grin, leaving me flustered.
“Rhona loves…er…I mean…”
“It’s all right,” he laughed. “You don’t have to confess your undying love for me just yet. Plenty of time for that later.” He winked at me, and I just about melted into the floor. “Say,” he said, looking at his watch. “I think it’s safe to assume that they’re never going to show. What do you say we try to salvage this night together?”
“Are you asking me out?” I asked, attempting a coquettish smirk.
“Easy to do when you’re already dressed up and out of the house,” he said with an appreciative glance up and down my body. I blushed, then giggled, feeling delightfully giddy.
“Well, I accept,” I told him, taking his arm. “Where shall we go?”
“Hm… You know, I hear the observatory is having their monthly open house tonight! What do you say? Care for some stargazing?”
“I love stargazing! I do hope the observatory is nearby.”
“Oh, look!” He twirled me around in a full circle, pointing me back at the entrance. “We’re here!”
“Magical!”
“After you, my dear,” he said with a theatrical bow.
“Why, thank you, good sir!” I answered in kind, curtsying deeply; it was an awkward feat in a mini skirt, but I managed it. Barely. Laughing like old friends, we walked arm-in-arm into the observatory.
“Look!” He pointed at a sandwich board in the hallway. “The Milky Way show is about to start!”
Eagerly, we hurried inside. The dome was half-filled with amateur astronomers, all reclining in the theater seats, gazing at the swirling projection above.
“You choose the seats,” he invited with a sweep of his arm. “I chose the venue, after all.”
I shook my head at him in amusement, then chose two empty seats near the center of the dome, where we would have the best view. Lying down beside one another in the dark was surprisingly intimate, and I quickly found my mind flooded with vague, tantalizing images of what we could be doing if the room was empty. And locked. Definitely locked.
“There are eight planets in our solar system,” the narrator began as an image of the solar system swirled onto the ceiling.
“Nine,” Blake hissed bitterly. “Pluto’s still my homie.”
“I never will forgive them for disowning him,” I agreed with a chuckle.
“Mercury… Venus…” Each planet filled the sky, one after the other, in sync with the narration. It made me feel as if I was falling, and I reached out for something to grasp. His hand, relaxing on my armrest, deftly caught my hand as I flinched. Heat washed over my body, evaporating the moisture from my mouth, and I shivered.
“Are you cold?” he whispered.
“No,” I told him honestly. “Just excited. I haven’t been to one of these in years.”
“Me neither,” he confessed. “But I used to come every month when I was a kid. My dad loved astronomy; he wanted to be an astronaut.”
“Did he ever manage it?” I asked.
“Not quite,” Blake chuckled. “He wasn’t really designed for space travel, physically. Smart man, though. He created some of the simulations that NASA uses to train, and he says it’s close enough for this lifetime.”
“He must be a genius,” I murmured, watching Mars spin above my head.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Does that bother you?” I asked. “Make you feel pressured, or anything?”
“Nah,” he said with a shrug. “Just gives me something to live up to. My parents were never the pushy types; they always just wanted me to do my best. It was on me to decide what my best was.”
“And what did you decide?” I asked.
“Still working on that,” he breathed on the tail of a contented sigh. “But I’m giving myself five more years to figure it out.”
“How old will you be in five years?”
“Thirty,” he said with a sly grin. “How about you?”
“Younger than thirty,” I teased.
“No, come on, seriously. I gotta make sure I’m not holding the hand of a high-schooler right now.”
That made me burst out laughing, earning me severe shushing from the other observers. I whispered an apology, then turned back to my impromptu date.
“I’ll be twenty-seven,” I told him. “So I guess I’ll give myself eight years to figure my life out.”
“Thirty’s a good milestone, right?”
“It is,” I agreed. “But I really hope I get myself figured out before then.” I was beginning to wonder if I would get the chance to figure at least one of those things out tonight, but quickly shut that train of thought down. I barely knew the guy, after all.
But it didn’t feel that way. The longer we whispered in the dark, staring up at the stars, the more I felt as if I had known him all my life.
“Every object and organism in the universe is made up of these same elements,” the narration continued.
I shivered as the hairs on my arms stood up. “Every time I hear that, it blows my mind a little bit,” I whispered. “Just knowing that I’m cut from the same cloth as stars…it makes me feel immortal.”
“Me too,” he agreed. “Like everything is connected, and I’m just a stitch in the fabric of everything.”
I sighed blissfully as he stroked my knuckles with his thumb. I couldn’t imagine a better person to get stood up with. The hour we spent flying through the galaxy seemed to last for an instant and a lifetime all at once, and I was floating on air as we rose to leave.
“Want to check out the museum? I wonder if they’ve gotten any new moon rocks since the last time I was here!” Blake was as excited as a child, and his energy boosted my own giddy pleasure.
“What are we waiting for?” I asked, taking his hand. He beamed at me, pleased and surprised, and we hurried out to the museum.
“I almost took an internship here,” he confessed as we examined the various space minerals on display beneath thick glass cases. “But it was my inner child talking, and he isn’t real clear on the concept of bills and living wages.”
“It would be difficult to launch a career in here,” I quipped as I leaned against a scale model of a launch pad. He grinned, which was far more validating than it should have been, but I didn’t care. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had this much fun with anyone.
“No, but seriously, it’s pretty hard to launch a career anywhere in San Bravado right now,” I added ruefully. “I’m holding out hope that the Cinderella levels of drudgery I’m suffering through at work will eventually pay off.”
“I hear that,” he said emphatically as he spun a model of the solar system, making the little plastic planets fly through their orbits. “I’ve been chipping away at a career for years now, but I swear it feels like I’m trying to walk up an icy slope in skater shoes soaked in grease.”
“Descriptive,” I said with an appreciative grin. “Accurate, as far as analogies go.”
“Eh, we’ll make it,” he said with a confident smile. “We’re young, strong, smart, and attractive. That’s all you need to make it in Cali, right?”
“If we can make it here, we can make it anywhere,” I declared with an open-armed twirl. “Wait, that’s New York.”
“It applies,” he laughed. “But we’ll make it, I know it.”
“How can you be so sure? You just met me.” I realized I was flirting, but didn’t stop myself.
“Because I know your vibe,” he said with a grin. “Intimately.”
“Intimately, huh?” I said. “How intimately?”
“As intimately as I know myself,” he said with a wink. “It’s that fire in your eyes, the way you hold your shoulders like you’re ready to take on the world
. I see those same things in the mirror every morning.”
“I believe that,” I said with an appraising glance. “Yes, I think you’re right. I think we will make it.”
“And if not, there’s always fast food,” he grinned. “Nothing like delivering pizzas after flipping burgers all day.”
“Speaking from experience?” I asked.
“Hey, that junior programming job didn’t fall in my lap right outta high school, you know.”
“It wouldn’t,” I agreed, my eyes scanning the room as I spoke. “Whoa! When did they put that in?” I grabbed his hand and tugged him toward the little photo booth which stood humbly in one corner.
“I love these things!” he said happily, climbing inside. “Come on!”
He tugged me in with him, and we squished together to fit inside the frame. My pulse raced as he pressed his cheek to mine, but my nerves were quickly washed away in laughter as we made silly faces and posed for the camera. Not satisfied with only five photos, we did the whole thing twice.
“I’ll keep one and you keep one,” he insisted. “You choose.”
“This one,” I said, grabbing the first. I liked the evolution of our expressions in that one, me from nervous to giddy to fun, him from giddy to silly to playful. The other was good too, but one of the pictures caught me blushing, and I didn’t need a visual reminder of my awkward desire.
We turned the wrong way out of the photo booth, and came to a guarded and locked door.
“What’s in here?” Blake asked the guard curiously.
“The big telescope. Staff only. You’re welcome to use the telescopes in the balcony room, right through there.”
“You want to?” he asked me with a grin.
“I will never, ever turn down a telescope,” I told him eagerly.
We hurried inside, paid for our turn at the little telescopes, then sat beside each other and peered up at the night sky.
“Light pollution,” he said with a frustrated sigh.
“And regular pollution,” I agreed, squinting through the yellow haze which obscured the stars. “I wish we could use the big one.”
Take My V-Card Page 1
