Lust or Love

Excerpt From: Lust or Love

When Jules Whitman spotted the hunk on the other side of the room at the speed dating event, she wished she’d worn the red dress that stopped mid-thigh and showed her cleavage. The one that made her look like a babe the stud muffin would want to take back to his pad and screw her brains out. Instead, she’d chosen a modest blue dress, thinking she wanted to look like the kind of woman a man took home to meet his mother.

Forget that. So what if she’d decided it was time to think about a man who was marriage material? Now that she’d seen him, she’d rather entertain a few fantasies. Like the one about what lay beneath the fly of his snug khakis. And what he could do with it.

Men moved from table to table to meet the women, and the way those trousers embraced his delectable ass when he walked fired her imagination. A yellow polo shirt strained across his broad chest and impressive biceps, titillating her pussy.

He was sexy, and she wanted his cock.

Everyone kept scorecards and, when the event ended, if a male and female chose each other, they’d receive contact information and could take it from there. Jules was ready to take it anywhere and everywhere with Stud Muffin.

The object of her lust glanced her way occasionally, but she craved long, lingering looks that told her he was as eager to meet her as she was him. Meet? She wanted his meat.

At long last, he reached the table next to hers. He looked even better up close, if that were possible. Dark hair that crackled with life, amazing blue eyes and a cleft in his chin. Tall with big feet and hands… She almost had an orgasm gazing at his crotch. Weren’t large feet supposed to be a sign? And what could he do with those hands? Anything he wanted with her, that was for certain.

She sighed. She’d like to get her hands on his dick. She’d stroke it, and he’d…

She could see his nametag, now. Parker. She liked that. Strong and masculine, it suited him. Parker was to die for. If sitting this close made her heart race and her nipples pebble, what would happen when he sat across from her?

The intoxicating scent of Excite, her favourite aftershave, wafted her way, and Jules inhaled deeply. Parker was only an arm’s length away, and her fingers itched to touch him. He was a magnet, and she was metal. He was bread, and she was soft, melting butter. She clasped her shaking hands in her lap to make sure she kept them off him.

What was wrong with her? She was acting like a child and thinking like a poet. Instant, intense attraction had never happened to her before.

Feeling Parker’s eyes on her, colour rose to heat her cheeks. Her insides quivered. It must be love at first sight. Or was it lust? She should know. She’d set herself up as an expert when she wrote her book, Telling Lust from Love. But the truth was, she’d only been in love once, in college, and it hadn’t happened like this.

Her guidebook for singles was no longer on the NYT bestselling list, and Jules missed the excitement that came with all that. So she’d been toying with an idea for a new title, Ways and Places to Meet Mr. Right. Since spotting Parker, she’d concluded speed dating would make the top ten activities, if they hooked up. And she planned to make that happen.

She hadn’t attended tonight’s event just as a career move, though. She’d come looking for a Mr. Right of her own.

She’d always thought she’d fall in love with a quiet, gentle guy who enjoyed romantic pursuits like dining and dancing. He’d wear business suits to the office and look like he belonged in them. He’d give her roses on Valentine’s Day and jewellery for her birthday. At night, he’d read bedtime stories to their kids before he and she made love and fell asleep in one another’s arms. That was the kind of man a woman married, and the guy she’d fallen for in college had been something like that. She’d gotten over him but hadn’t changed her standards.

Yet it was so not the kind of guys she’d chosen since. Why was it all the men she dated were the opposite? Did she do it on purpose? So she wouldn’t wind up married? Sometimes, she wondered. Jules sighed again.