by L. Loren
Messy Mandy Presents
The Lunchtime Chronicles
Bottoms Up
Lunchtime Chronicles
Issue 12
March 4, 2020
L. Loren
Bottoms Up
© 2020 L. Loren
All Rights Reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBO and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
A Note from Messy Mandy
Bottoms Up
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Fresh Meat: Chapter 1
The Layover – Chapter 1
Coming March 31, 2020
About the Author
Also by L. Loren
Dedication
Thank you so much to Siera London for inviting me to be a part of this wonderful series. I appreciate all the calls, guidance and leadership it took to pull this project together. You made this collaboration fun for me, even though I know that is was not an easy task keeping us all in line.
To my Season 2 Lunchtime Chronicles fellow authors, along with S. London, - Xyla Turner, Reana Malori and Brooklyn Knight – thank you for the experience. I appreciate being able to bounce ideas off you and absorbing your genius. You are all very gifted writers and it was a pleasure.
To my husband, Doug, thanks for listening to my storylines, character archs and chapter readings. Even when you are tired from working all day you still make time to support me. It doesn’t go unnoticed.
The readers of LTC – Thank you for your continued support of this project You guys rock! Thanks for welcoming me into Mandy’s world and making me feel at home.
A very special thanks to Dar Albert of Wicked Smart Designs for the fabulous cover and to Pam Gonzales of Love2Read Romance for her excellent proofreading skills
A Note from Messy Mandy
Welcome to Messy Mandy Presents: The Lunchtime Chronicles Season 2, steamy, short erotic romance served piping hot. Lunchtime series launched with Siera London’s WHIPPED at the Interracial Romance Author Expo in Daytona Beach 2019. There are 8 books in Season 1. Read them, leave reviews, tell your friends and then follow my Facebook page: The Lunchtime Dish with Messy Mandy where I spill the tea.
LUNCHTIME CHRONICLES SEASON 2
featuring stories by:
Siera London, Brooklyn Knight, Xyla Turner, L. Loren and Reana Malori.
Bottoms Up
Summary
Harley
I was mortified when my best friend tricked me into spending my birthday weekend on a luxury yacht full of sugar daddies. I may like older men, but I don’t make it my business to sleep with them for trinkets.
When the lecherous old man refused to take no for an answer, my hero, clad in a pristine white captain’s uniform saved the day.
Now all I want is for the silver fox named Mateus to take me to his cabin and make me his.
Mateus
It was love at first sight. Well, maybe it was lust, but who cares. All I could think about was capturing the heart of the beautiful woman on my preference sheet. She was a charter guest, which meant off limits.
When that bastard put his hands on her in front of me, it changed the game. All bets were out the window and I went into protective mode. I played a game of Mr. Steal Your Girl and won. Now she’s mine and I’m never letting go. I have an insatiable thirst that only she can quench.
BOTTOMS UP is an interracial erotic romance (BWWM) with a HEA. It is a part of the Lunchtime Chronicles series which can be read as standalone novels.
WARNING: This book contains explicit sex and graphic language.
Chapter 1
Harley
M
y name is Harley Madison. I am a six-foot-tall, dark skinned black woman with an MBA from the University of Miami. I’m a trust fund baby who owns her own business, and I am about to go to jail for murdering my best friend. You know why? Because, of my addiction. Don’t worry. No druggie here. Well, not in the traditional sense of the word. I am addicted to caffeine! Coffee! The good stuff. If I don’t get my fix before I see my bestie, there is going to be big trouble.
Paradyce, the chick I consider closer than blood, has been texting me nonstop for the last half hour. She was the only one who contacted me this early in the morning. I groggily swiped at the screen of my phone to stop the offending sound and sat up in bed. Ugh, I needed more sleep. After reading the texts I wanted to throw the phone across the room. That was the lack of coffee in my system talking. Generally, I was a happy go lucky type of girl, but not before my infusion.
Dyce: The Big 3-0 is coming!
Dyce: Did you forget?
Did she really think I had forgotten her thirtieth birthday was coming up? I shook my head in disbelief. Our birthdays were a day apart and we have celebrated them together since we were thirteen. I was trying to think of a response when the phone chimed again.
Dyce: Hello!
Dyce: Where RU?
Dyce: Answer me
Dyce: RU Sleep?
Dyce: Hit me up
If she kept this up, I was going to have a huge headache to go along with my grogginess.
Dyce: On God. If u don’t call me, we’re done.
Dyce: Did you hook up last night?
Damn, now that she mentioned it, I could use a good piece of dick to take the edge off. My mood swings have been out of order lately. Like mama used to say, a nice piece of dick could cure all that ails you. Problem was, the only one I ever experienced was attached to a man who was incapable of staying faithful. Hence the reason I finally kicked his cheating ass to the curb a few weeks ago. I drifted into my own thoughts about my ex, Stanley.
As Paradyce continued to bombard me with text messages about her plans for our birthdays, I began to get more and more intrigued. I should have some say in what I did and where I went for my own birthday, but she took so much pleasure in planning I usually just went along with it.
Dyce: Chica, I have secured a sponsor for our birthday celebration. We are headed to the Caribbean. Sun, fun, a yacht and lots of hot deck hands.
Me: Sponsor? Kill me now!
Dyce: Have you had your coffee? You need it.
Me: I barely had any sleep. You know we had inventory at the store last night. I just laid down about two hours ago. GO AWAY!
When the phone chimed a couple of seconds later, I pulled the duvet over my head and kicked my feet like a two-year-old having a tantrum. Keeping my head under the cover, I read the text with one eye open.
Dyce: NOT MY PROBLEM! Get your tired ass up! We have shopping to do. Be there in 15.
This chick here. I groaned because I knew she would not let me sleep. Dragging myself out of bed, I found my way into the bathro
om to get ready for an exhaustive day of shopping on Lincoln Road. I hated shopping in those ostentatious designer stores with overpriced clothes that most people couldn’t afford, but somehow managed to wear. It was my worst nightmare come true, but it was a part of my bestie duties. If I didn’t love the girl so much, I would bail.
Dyce was one of those people who live for the fashions, darling. It was an expensive habit that I had no interest in partaking. Living in a tropical climate meant I could wear as little as possible at all times and I loved it. I would be a beach bum if my father would have allowed it. Board shorts, bra tops, and anything that would show off my canvas of tattoos was my comfort zone. I didn’t need red bottoms pinching my feet when I had the sickest collection of sneakers in Dade County. Nor did I need designer dresses cutting off my circulation, when I could just throw on shorts and a tank and be happy. Relaxation and comfort were my main concerns when buying clothes, not labels and who wore it best competitions on social media.
The fact that Dyce and I were besties shocked a lot of people. We looked nothing alike. I was tall to her short. She was curvy to my athletic figure. I was a delicious shade of ebony, while her Cuban heritage made for a lightly tanned skin tone. One of the main differences was, she flunked out of college freshman year and I opened my own internet business during my sophomore year, which I later sold for millions, obtained my degree in Marketing and went on to earn my MBA all before the age of 25. My success caused people to think I was some sort of Alexis Ohanian. Nope, far from it. I was nowhere near as driven as the man who captured Serena’s heart. My business projects were always a way for me to have fun. When I was done with that part of my life, I had no problem selling the business and moving on. I believe I was a gypsy in a former life.
My latest venture was a sneaker shop for rare and unusual kicks. It was thriving due to the location and connections I made through Dyce. She may party her ass off and participate in activities some would consider shady, but the woman was smart when money was concerned. She knew how to grab a coin. Being kicked out of college the second semester of our freshman year taught her some tough life lessons. She knew how to survive.
Dyce was the life of the party, always going and going like there was no tomorrow. I was right there by her side, but I knew better than to flunk my courses. My father would have killed me. She never could find the balance between partying and studying. With all the trips we took, she burned through her trust that her grandparents left her within three years. At that point, Dyce started living off her rich, so-called sponsors she was always talking about. They were nothing more than glorified sugar daddies that she met on the N2U dating site. That site was not for those purposes and she would more than likely be kicked off if they found out, but she gave zero fucks. Leave it up to Dyce to find an older man willing to pay her way. She could sniff them out like a hound dog.
Though I liked to party like any woman in her twenties, I knew my limitations. Instead of falling victim to the same lifestyle and allowing it to take over my life in a negative way, I focused on business. Since I still loved the party scene, I came up with a way to make money at the same time. I started a party promotion business called Quench. I asked Dyce to help me run it. If there was one thing she knew and loved, it was how to throw a party. Dyce was an enormous help with all the contacts she had in the industry. Most of them came from her ventures as a sugar baby, but I didn’t judge her. It wasn’t like she slept with all her dates.
Those men were smart, successful and generous with their time, knowledge and money. Quench soon became one of the most sought-after promotion companies in Miami thanks to their expertise. We called our company that because we sold a high energy atmosphere that attracted the best crowds. People were always so thirsty for status in Miami. Our events were a sure-fire way to gain popularity and status in the 305, thus quenching their thirst.
The loud knocking on my door dragged me out of my ruminations. I couldn’t believe Dyce was able to pull this Caribbean trip for our birthdays. We were going on a luxury yacht that one of her many sugar daddies charted for the weekend. I loved my friend more than anyone who didn’t share my DNA. This boat trip was going to be lit, and her man was paying the bill. I don’t even want to know what she had to do to get him to agree to this.
My only caution was her sugar daddy had friends. I just hope she didn’t give the expectation that I would be giving up the goods to any of her man’s friends that were sure to tag along. Older men were nicer to hang out with on a boat, but they tended to have mean streaks when they felt disrespected or rejected.
I had seen his friends and they were not very pleasing to the eye. His best friend, Fletch had grabby hands and loved to call black women his little chocolate drops. I was a pretty easy-going chick, but that burned my ass every time I heard it. I opened my front door to find Dyce all dolled up and ready for our outing. Was she really wearing four-inch heels and a ton of makeup this early in the morning?
“Hey, you little succubus, it’s about time you got here. Why did you text me so early? You know I need my beauty rest.”
I rolled my eyes pretending to be annoyed. In truth, I wasn’t that bothered by her texts. I was always happy to see Dyce, no matter how sleepy I was. I just needed my coffee, which she handed to me and smiled.
“Listen you little wendigo, don’t fuck with me today. I need to go shopping like you need to get laid.”
Well that was rude. True, but rude.
“Touché, hoe and thanks for my bean juice. Now, please tell me that just because your sponsor is paying, he does not expect me to play with any of his friends.”
Dyce stopped laughing and gave me that sad look she always had whenever one of her men was brought into the conversation. I continued sipping on my sweet concoction, while listening to her pitch.
“Harley, I know his friends are big flirts and a bit handsy, but they are Tito’s friends. They are good men. Plus, with the money he is shelling out for this trip, he has a right to tag along and bring a friend or two.”
“You know I am not sleeping with any of them, Dyce. I need you to tell them before we get on that boat. Besides, if you wanted to charter a boat, I could have just asked to borrow my dad’s.”
“And have him spying on us? No way. Besides, your father’s boat isn’t near as nice as this one and we wouldn’t get to be on TV.”
“TV? What scheme have you cooked up now?”
“We are going on the TV show Down Below!”
I side-eyed this girl as if she was mentally insane.
“Dyce, I know you’re lying? Are you serious? You know I live for Captain G! He is my fantasy man. A damn dreamboat. Now him, I will fuck six ways to Sunday.”
“Down Below is one of the most popular shows on KUDOS! Network. We are going to be famous! Yaaaaas! I am going to help you get a piece of your Captain Bae. He is yummy!”
“I have a good feeling about this trip.”
She pulled out her phone and showed me a few pictures of the most luxurious yacht I had ever laid my eyes on. Simply gorgeous. It really was a high-rise apartment floating on the water. It was easy to get caught up in the hype. I could see why Dyce would say yes and worry about the consequences later. It was just her style.
“As long as this friend keeps his hands and all other body parts away from me, I’ll be good. The only gray hair I want to see on that boat is Captain G’s head between my legs.”
“Harley, we are going to have so much fun. Trust me, I spoke to the booking agent and requested the hottest crew of deck hands they have. We will have eye candy for days.”
I am here for the eye candy.
“Who all’s coming on this thing anyway?”
“Why do you always do that, as if you would stay home if you didn’t like the group?”
“Never that. I just like to know who is coming so I know if there will be any mess. You know how some of your friends can be, spreading lies on that Messy Mandy website. Your friends can’t be trusted to keep
their mouths shut and you know it. Knowing them, by the end of the trip I will be pregnant and living with that old bald friend of Tito’s.”
Dyce looked at me sheepishly and then went on to explain how Cinta and Melissa, a couple of her friends would be joining us on the trip because it was her birthday and they wanted to help celebrate. She added that Tito was bringing fellow sugar daddies, Martin and Will along for the ride.
“Did you even consider I may want to bring a friend or two to hang out with me? I mean it is my birthday celebration also.”
“Well, no. I mean Tito is paying for the trip, so I just assumed the invites for extras were for me. Besides, you don’t hang out with anyone other than me.”
“Narcissistic much? Oh, and for the record, I do have other friends. You should have at least offered. Now I am going to be on the party boat where I have to avoid a creepy old man on my birthday.”
“Whatevs Harley. You are going to be so far up your Captain Bae’s ass you won’t even notice.”
“Yeah, you’re right! If that man gives me even a hint that he is interested, I’m going down. I mean it’s going down.”
I stuck out my tongue and did a little shimmy shake. That caused Dyce to start laughing. We cackled and laughed our way to her car. My coffee was now infused in my veins and I was feeling like myself again.
“Then you should be happy. Once he sees you in the new bikini I am going to pick out for you, he won’t stand a chance.”
“Girl, yes. I need you to hook me up just this once. However, don’t go overboard. I need him to see the real me and fall in love. You think you can find a suit that will make that happen?”
Dyce rolled her eyes at me. She was always getting on me for being too conservative. According to her I wasn’t sexy enough. I did not feel the need to flaunt my sexuality. I was a tomboy for the most part and I was comfortable in my skin. I didn’t need to wear a string bikini and 3-inch heels to pull a man. The right one would come running with me in my sporty swim shorts and tank top.
