Fore Play

by Julie Cannon

  Fore Play

  What would you do if being with the woman of your dreams meant sabotaging your career?

  That’s the exact situation high-profile executive Leigh Marshall finds herself in when she falls hard for her golf pro, who also happens to be an ex-con. Her board of directors hasn’t gotten the memo regarding workplace equality and who she sleeps with is still more important than her stellar qualifications.

  Peyton Broader has no interest in anything other than keeping her head down, reporting to her parole officer, and getting her life back. Oh yeah, and making up for nine years of celibacy. The last thing she needs is to lose her job or get sucked into other people's drama, no matter how hot and tempting the woman is. So why can’t she stay away from Leigh?

  Acclaim for Julie Cannon’s Fiction

  In Smoke and Fire…“Cannon skillfully draws out the honest emotion and growing chemistry between her heroines, a slow burn that feels like constant foreplay leading to a spectacular climax. Though Brady is almost too good to be true, she’s the perfect match for Nicole. Every scene they share leaps off the page, making this a sweet, hot, memorable read.”—Publishers Weekly

  Breaker’s Passion is…“an exceptionally hot romance in an exceptionally romantic setting. …Cannon has become known for her well-drawn characters and well-written love scenes.”—Just About Write

  In Power Play…“Cannon gives her readers a high stakes game full of passion, humor, and incredible sex.”—Just About Write

  About Heartland…“There’s nothing coy about the passion of these unalike dykes—it ignites at first encounter and never abates. …Cannon’s well-constructed novel conveys more complexity of character and less overwrought melodrama than most stories in the crowded genre of lesbian-love-against-all-odds—a definite plus.”—Richard Labonte, Book Marks

  “Cannon has given her readers a novel rich in plot and rich in character development. Her vivid scenes touch our imaginations as her hot sex scenes touch us in many other areas. Uncharted Passage is a great read.”—Just About Write

  About Just Business…“Julie Cannon’s novels just keep getting better and better! This is a delightful tale that completely engages the reader. It’s a must read romance!”—Just About Write

  “Great plot, unusual twist and wonderful women. …[I Remember] is an inspired romance with extremely hot sex scenes and delightful passion.”—Lesbian Reading Room

  Fore Play

  Brought to you by

  eBooks from Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  http://www.boldstrokesbooks.com

  eBooks are not transferable. They cannot be sold, shared or given away as it is an infringement on the copyright of this work.

  Please respect the rights of the author and do not file share.

  Fore Play

  © 2018 By Julie Cannon. All Rights Reserved.

  ISBN 13:978-1-63555-103-7

  This Electronic Book is published by

  Bold Strokes Books, Inc.

  P.O. Box 249

  Valley Falls, NY 12185

  First Edition: May 2018

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Credits

  Editor: Shelley Thrasher

  Production Design: Susan Ramundo

  Cover Design by Sheri (graphicartist2020@hotmail)

  By the Author

  Come and Get Me

  Heart 2 Heart

  Heartland

  Uncharted Passage

  Just Business

  Power Play

  Descent

  Breakers Passion

  Rescue Me

  I Remember

  Smoke and Fire

  Because of You

  Countdown

  Capsized

  Wishing on a Dream

  Take Me There

  The Boss of Her (Novella)

  Fore Play

  Acknowledgments

  Again, it takes a village to create the end product you’re reading, and there are too many people to mention. However, a special shout out to Erin for her eagle eye.

  Dedication

  For my family

  Chapter One

  “See ya soon, baby.”

  Peyton didn’t turn around or even acknowledge the voice as she walked down the wide corridor.

  “You’ll be back,” the voice said confidently, then ended the statement with a familiar, spine-tingling cackle.

  Step after step took her farther away from this place, this hellhole, her home for the past nine years, two months, and eight days. She wasn’t looking back because she didn’t need reminders. She would never forget the chipped cement floors, block walls with peeling paint, the three-inch-thick reinforced windows, the hard, metal beds bolted to the floor with a thin mattress, scratchy blankets, and wafer-thin pillows. Almost every metal sink faucet in the place dripped, and the steel toilets were missing their lids. She never needed to worry about putting the seat down—there was none. Small tables were bolted to the floor below a four-foot shelf hanging crooked on the wall above the desk. Redecorating was not an option.

  She had nothing in her hands as she moved silently over the floor. She’d walked in with just the clothes on her back and was walking out the same way, albeit forty-two pounds lighter. Habit and discipline made her stay on the right side of the four-inch-wide black stripe that ran the length of the corridor. She was leaving catcalls, well wishes, drama, conflict, mayhem, and bullshit. No more roommates who farted, barfed, and couldn’t stop talking or crying. Behind her were liars, cheaters, dopers, and those that would sell their body for a bar of soap—or to survive.

  She’d had a first-row seat when pissed-off inmates threw feces at guards, spat on each other, and stuck each other with shanks made from an old toothbrush or comb. She’d witnessed beatings and heard things she’d never forget. No more strip searches, cell searches, and cavity searches. Three thousand, three hundred, fifty-four days subjected to being poked and prodded with black batons from impatient guards or those who got their power fix over those that had none. Three thousand days of nonstop noise. Even in the dark of the night when the lights were out, it was never quiet. Crying, coughing, talking, or fucking—it never stopped. Three thousand days of rising to a horn, eating, showering, and even shitting to a horn like trained animals or Pavlov’s dog—basic behavioral training.

  Each step took her closer to fresh air, clean clothes, and hot, delicious food. Where she could lie on a soft bed, with fluffy pillows and clean sheets. A closet full of Nike shoes, Levi’s, and Ralph Lauren. Where she could have private phone conversations and hot showers any time she wanted. Every step, every foot, every yard brought her nearer a place where she could see warm smiles, hear genuine laughter, and enjoy loving faces around the table.

  She stopped in front of a battered gray door, the lock as large as her fist. The man beside her sadistically took his time selecting the right key to slide noisily into the keyhole. The click of the bolt retracting was quieter than when it had slammed home behind her nine years ago. At that time, the sound had echoed off the walls, settled deep in her gut, had never left, a constant reminder of where she was—the Nelson Correctional Institute for Women.

  The thick metal door creaked loudly, like a shrill train whistle, as it swung open. She waited patiently, focusing on keeping her face expressionless and her breathing steady. She fought the urge to bolt across the threshold and out the front door. She prayed this wasn’t a dream. It was the same fantasy she’d had for months after
coming here. The ones she’d had in the last few months were similar but ended with the door slammed in her face—cruel, vicious laughter coming from every direction.

  Peyton was poked one more time on her back, just above her kidney, this time much harder than necessary. Were they ever necessary?

  “You’ll be back,” a harsh voice said, his tobacco breath suffocating her. “You all do.” He ran his stick suggestively down the crack of her ass. “And I can hardly wait.”

  Chapter Two

  “Fore! Shit! Goddamn it! Son of a bitch!”

  “Jill, relax. It’s just a game.”

  “You think it’s a game, because you’re good at it.”

  Leigh couldn’t help but laugh at her best friend of more than twenty years. They’d met in high school at volleyball tryouts and were complete opposites. Leigh was barely five-and-a-half feet tall, Jill almost six feet, with more than a few extra pounds. Leigh was a jock, and all Jill had going for her in the athleticism department was her height. Leigh’s blond hair secured in a ponytail through the back of her ball cap was a sharp contrast to Jill’s jet-black, so short people often mistook her for a man. Leigh excelled in just about every sport. Jill, not so much. She had heart and she tried, but without a certain amount of skill she was just a recreational athlete.

  “If you keep having that kind of reaction when you hit the ball, you’ll never have fun.”

  “So, this is supposed to be fun? How is this fun? You hit the ball, go after it, hit it again, go after it again, hit it again. See my point?” They shouldered their bags and started walking down the fairway. Jill brushed aside her observations of the game of golf, asking, “How’s the new job?”

  Leigh didn’t like talking about it, afraid to jinx it. She had just been promoted to chief information officer for Cementic, a company that after years of success had finally cracked the Fortune 500 list. She’d worked at Cementic for twelve years, starting fresh out of MIT with her master’s degree in electrical engineering and information technology, as a senior programmer, working her way up the ranks to her current position. She was one of a handful of women in a senior leadership position at Cementic and, as much as she wouldn’t admit it to anyone other than Jill, had been determined to crack the final glass ceiling.

  “It’s going okay.” Five months ago, Steve, her boss at the time, had notified the board that he was retiring. To anyone who didn’t understand the intricacies of successful executive transition, it typically took months to find a successor, and in the constantly changing world of information technology, profits and a high-visibility company made it that much more difficult. Finding the individual with the right skills, temperament, and personality to work in conjunction with the other leaders of the company was never easy. Leigh, along with, courtesy of the grapevine, three external candidates, had interviewed with at least seven people for the position. She was offered the job the day after her final interview.

  For the past few years, Cementic had been undergoing a transformation, and they brought in several new hires to run senior leadership positions, people with levels of expertise that those who had grown up in the company did not possess. Other than one colossal failure, their strategy had been extremely successful, and Cementic profits and market share had soared. Shareholders were happy, the board was happy, the CEO was happy, and everyone wanted to stay that way.

  “So, you actually play golf with those guys?”

  Leigh had told Jill that all the senior staff golfed together at least twice a month. “It’s not just men. Caroline is the head of HR, and I’ve played a few rounds with her. I play with my boss in a few weeks.”

  Jill punched Leigh’s arm good-naturedly. “It’s true. Deals really do happen on the golf course.” Jill was an attorney and had always been in private practice. Her area of expertise was environmental law and not office politics.

  “As much as I’d love to think that the business world has evolved beyond that in the past twenty years, you’re probably right.”

  “Especially in the male-dominated field you’re in,” Jill added, like Leigh needed reminding. “So that’s why you drag me out here week after week.”

  “Yep. If I can’t use your body for money or sex, I’ll use it to help me fit in with my new peers.”

  “You know, Leigh, you can use my body for sex any time.”

  “In your dreams,” Leigh replied, giving Jill her own teasing punch on the shoulder. It was an ongoing joke between them. They’d started out as friends and would never be anything other than just that. They had no sexual attraction and certainly no sexual chemistry between them. They’d seen each other through more girlfriends than they cared to count, been with each other reveling in the excitement and happiness of new love, cried on each other’s shoulder in heartbreak, and shared a gallon of Rocky Road ice cream as they bashed the girl who had just broken their heart. Leigh had been Jill’s maid of honor in her wedding several years ago.

  “Are you still seeing Tiffany?” Jill asked, lining up her next shot.

  “Pay attention to what you’re doing,” Leigh said, not wanting to talk about her last girlfriend.

  Jill settled her feet the appropriate shoulder-length apart and adjusted her hands on the grip of her club, looking from the ball to the pin one hundred and twenty yards in front of her. Jill’s first shot had gone wide of the fairway, and she’d be lucky to get her second anywhere near the green. Looking back at the ball she said, “Way to change the subject, Leigh,” just before her 5 iron connected with the ball.

  “Yeah, baby,” Jill exclaimed, raising both arms, her club flailing over her head. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  Leigh shook her head. “See. What did I tell you? Don’t take it so seriously, and look how well you do.”

  They walked another fifty yards, and Leigh pulled her 8 iron from her bag, settled in front of the ball, swung, and connected solidly with her ball. She watched it sail to the green in a perfect approach shot, landing approximately ten feet from the cup.

  “So, are you going to answer my question or not?” Jill asked, knowing enough golf etiquette to not ask while she was taking her shot.

  “Not.”

  “Why not? I thought you said she was hot and a rocket in bed?”

  “I said she was very pretty and very attentive.”

  “Pretty, hot, attentive, rocket, same difference.”

  Leigh rolled her eyes at the euphemisms Jill had chosen. “Because there is more to dating someone than a pretty face and skilled hands.”

  “There is?” Jill asked. “I never had a problem with it.”

  “Because that’s all you were looking for. At least until you met Joyce,” Leigh said, referring to her best friend’s wife.

  Jill stopped and looked at her, surprise on her face. “And you’re looking for something else? When did this happen?”

  “I’m not,” Leigh said, maybe a little too defensively.

  “You need a wife, you know.”

  Leigh glared at her. “I don’t need a wife.”

  “See, that’s the problem, Leigh. You need one. You just don’t want to admit it to yourself.”

  “No,” Leigh said carefully. “What I need—”

  “What you need until then is some wild, raunchy, uninhibited, no-attachment sex. Hey,” Jill said, like she’d just thought of something earth-shattering. “How about the woman we saw filling the drink coolers when we got here? She was hot.”

  Leigh started walking again, pulling her putter out of her bag as Jill shot a decent approach on the green, her ball, however, landing forty feet from the cup.

  Leigh had to admit it had been a while since someone made her toes curl, and Jill’s idea was appealing, as was the woman she described. However, hooking up with the wrong woman could jeopardize everything she’d worked for. You never knew who worked for whom, who had the ear of someone who was important in your next career step. Leigh was planning to hold her boss’s job for seven or eight years before she moved
on to a larger company. Maybe something in the Fortune 200.

  “Am I right or what?” Jill asked as they stepped onto the sixth green.

  “I don’t kiss and tell.”

  “Bullshit, Leigh. Yes, you do. How many times have you woken me up at zero-dark-thirty telling me all about her?”

  “Jesus, Jill. You make me sound like a frat boy bragging about his latest conquest.”

  “No. We were sorority, and you’re simply sharing things with your BFF.”

  “Shut up and putt. You’re away,” Leigh said, using the term that signified Jill’s ball was the farthest from the hole.

  It took Jill five strokes to get her ball into the hole, whereas Leigh needed only three.

  “So, what happened with Tiffany?”

  “Nothing earth-shattering,” Leigh finally said, knowing Jill wouldn’t let up until she knew all the details. “She was a very nice woman but a bit dull. I was bored after a few weeks. She didn’t have anything original to say, and the only thing we had going for us was sex, so I ended it.”

  Four men had just finished teeing off on the next hole as Leigh and Jill approached, so Leigh didn’t say any more. When the foursome started walking toward where their balls lay, she pulled her 3 wood from the bag and removed the Mickey Mouse head cover—a gift from Jill on her thirty-seventh birthday three months ago. “Now shut up and get ready to hit the ball. And relax.”

  Chapter Three

  Peyton pushed the accelerator pedal on her cart as the two women approached the seventh tee box.