The Screwdriver - Dirty Martini 2 Read online

  Harmony flashed him a nervous smile and headed in the direction of the dancers. Thomas, who avoided human entanglements, scanned the room full of yummy men and women in tight jeans, pointy-toed boots, and ten-gallon hats. Damn, these cowboys and cowgirls knew how to show off their assets. The room was full of sexual tension, and he leaned back in the booth, soaking it all into his skin.

  He actively searched for the man who’d caught his eye. He had short, light brown hair and light-colored eyes. He’d been good-looking, no doubt, and his body, damn, Hercules would have been envious, but that wasn’t what had struck Thomas. The man’s distinct lack of emotions grabbed his attention.

  He couldn’t see the guy anymore from where he sat, and to his own astonishment, he wanted to see him again. A waitress stopped at the table. She turned her hip so he would have a nice view of her curves. “Can I get you a drink, pardner?”

  Thomas smiled but shook his head. “I’ll get one at the bar.”

  “Suit yourself,” she said. She leaned over to give him a better glimpse of her full breasts. “I’ll stop back by later if you change your mind.”

  “Okay,” he said, scooting out from his chair. She was pretty and she oozed with the pheromones he usually loved to feast upon. No doubt she would make a nice plaything. But tonight, he had other entertainment in mind.

  When Thomas threaded his way to the bar, the cowboy was gone. He scanned the room, finally locating the object of his interest following another man into the bathroom. Curiosity propelled him toward the back hall. There were two doors, one with a bull and the other with a milk cow. He pushed on the door with the bull. Inside, the man from the bar stood at the sink wiping his pants with a wet paper towel. The man who’d entered with him was standing several feet away. He gave Thomas a “what can you do?” shrug.

  The front of the man’s hip-hugging jeans was soaked. “Looks like you had an accident.”

  The cowboy started, sliding on a wet puddle near his feet. He slipped and fell on his ass.

  The man who’d led him in rushed to the sink and tried to help, but the cowboy waived him off. “Are you okay, Jordan?”

  The fallen man, Jordan, reached up, his hand finding air for a few tries until he finally grasped the edge of the sink. The other man tried to help again, but Jordan said, “I’ve got it.” Cautiously, he pulled himself up.

  It was then Thomas realized the man was blind. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to surprise you.”

  “It’s okay,” the guy said. “I live in perpetual surprise.” He turned toward Thomas, and his expression went from blank to curious. The look on the young man’s face registered shock. If he’s blind, then what is he seeing?

  “Are you blind?”

  “Yep.” Jordan sighed.

  “Hey,” the other guy said, “I’m going to go get your brother.”

  “No, don’t,” Jordan said, but the man practically sprinted out the door. Jordan shrugged, his cheeks flushed. “Bartender Jerry. He’s a friend of my brother Mike.”

  He could tell the cowboy was embarrassed, but Thomas still couldn’t feel anything from him. His stormy gray-blue eyes tracked Thomas in a way that wouldn’t have been possible for a blind man. He took a step toward Jordan, and sure enough, the man took a step back, his ass hitting the sink behind him.

  Thomas’s curiosity was now fully engaged. He waved his hand in front of Jordan’s face. “Tell me what you see.”

  Note from G.R.

  I do hope you enjoyed this book, I’d so appreciate it if you’d help others enjoy it too.

  Recommend it. Please help other readers find this book by recommending it.

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  If you love the book or leave a review, please email [email protected] so I can thank you with a personal email. Your support means more than you’ll ever know! Thank you!

  About G.R.

  G.R. George is the pen name for USA Today bestselling author Renee George. G.R writes GLBT contemporary romance and GLBT paranormal romance. Her hot, steamy romances highlight varying themes including gay and bisexual relationships. A published author since 2005, she has written and published over 30 books in the past decade. Accolades include: EcataRomance Award for Best Paranormal Erotic Romance and Best Gay Erotic Romance and a Literary Nymph Blush Award for Best Paranormal Romance.

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  eBooks by G.R. George

  Holiday Hotties Romances, Paranormal MM series

  http://www.holidayhottiesromances.com/

  1. Fruitcakes

  2. You Don’t Know Jack

  3. Stupid Cupid

  The Other Team, Contemporary MM Romance series

  http://www.theotherteam.club/

  1. The Wallbanger

  2. The Hot Toddy

  3. The Gin Rickey

  4. The Dirty Martini

  5. The Old Fashioned – Wallbanger 2

  6. The Hurricane – Hot Toddy 2

  7. The Sparkler – Gin Rickey 2

  8. The Screwdriver - Dirty Martini 2

  G.R. George writing as Renee George

  Midnight Shifters, a Paranormal Romance series

  http://www.midnightshifters.com

  1. Midnight Shift

  2. The Bear Witch Project

  3. A Door to Midnight

  4. A Shade of Midnight

  5. Midnight Before Christmas

  Lion Kings, a Paranormal Romance series

  http://www.lionkingshifters.com/

  1. The Lion Kings

  The Cull, Paranormal Romance series

  http://www.ozarkshifters.com/

  1. Claimed By the Alpha

  2. Protected By the Alpha

  3. Ravished By the Alpha

  G.R. recommends … Lexxie Couper

  “If you love hot, sexy romance, I recommend Lexxie for more contemporary fiction that grabs a hold of you from the first page and doesn’t let you go until the end.”

  Blowing It Off

  Stimulated, Book 1

  Lexxie Couper

  Chapter 1

  Morpeth, Australia

  “You know they’re going to call the big guys in for this, don’t you?”

  Sliding her fingers over the smooth, solid length gripped firmly in her left hand, Phoebe Masters flicked a sideward glance at the tall streak of stunning blondeness beside her and bit back a sigh. “I don’t want the big guys.”

  The blonde—a.k.a. Sami Charlton, a.k.a. BFE (Best Friend Extraordinaire), a.k.a. Australia’s most successful female motocross rider—let out a chuckle. “I don’t think you’ll have a choice, Pheebster. Your studio’s been gutted. With a fire this bad you know they’re going to call in the investigation team. If Dad was alive he’d tell you the same thing.”

  Phoebe’s stomach lurched and she ground her teeth. Damn it, when she’d upped and moved from Newcastle to the utterly parochial, completely charming historical village of Morpeth six months ago, she’d planned to never see the investigation team again.

  “And I don’t believe for a second that you don’t want to see them.”

  Sami’s calm statement made Phoebe’s pulse pound just a little harder in her neck. She bit back another sigh. Here she was, standing in the smoking, charred remains of what was once her studio, the place she spent every day blowing molten glass into artworks of stunning beauty, with the acrid, wholly jarring stenc
h of scorched wood and wet timber stinging her sinuses with every breath. Reminding her with no uncertainty that everything she held dear and valuable was destroyed—and she was thinking about Damon Hunt and William Bradley.

  “I don’t want to see them,” she grumbled, glaring at the object she gripped in her hand, the only thing salvageable in the heartbreaking mess. A long, thick shard of glass that, thanks to the fire, now looked like a massive, slightly demented glass dildo.

  “See who?”

  The gruff male voice behind Phoebe made her jump, the glass length almost slipping from her fingers as she did so. She pulled a face, wrapping her fingers tighter around the accidental dildo like it was her one and only life preserver. “No one.”

  “The investigation team from Newcastle,” Sami said to the elderly man now standing on Phoebe’s left. “This has to be arson. There’s no other explanation for such an accelerated burn of materials designed to withstand high temperatures, don’t you think?”

  The old bloke’s wiry salt-and-pepper eyebrows rose up his creased forehead and he tugged at his somewhat scruffy firefighter’s uniform with calloused hands. “And what would you be knowin’ about arson and accelerated burn, missy?”

  Phoebe let out the sigh she’d been holding back for the last five minutes or so. “Captain Kilgour,” she placed her fingers lightly on the prickly old firefighter’s arm, “this is my best friend, Sami. Sami’s dad was the commander of the Newcastle District Fire Investigation Unit.” She turned and gave Sami a pointed look. “Sami, this is Keith Kilgour, the captain of Morpeth’s fire brigade.”

  Kilgour squinted at Sami. “Was?”

  Sami nodded. “Was.”

  Phoebe knew her best friend wasn’t going to expand on her answer. The death of her father in a house fire still hurt Sami deeply.

  Kilgour’s eyes narrowed even further before he returned his attention to Phoebe. “Well, much as I hate the idea of those upstart buggers from the city coming here and tellin’ me my business, the young missy is right. There’s somethin’ about the feel of the place I don’t like.” He sucked in his checks and smacked his lips. “It tastes wrong.”

  Sami nodded. “Too bloody right.”

  Phoebe frowned, ignoring the fluttering little knot in her belly at the “upstart buggers from the city” coming anywhere near her. “So what you’re telling me,” she grumbled, crossing her arms over her breasts, “is I can’t start cleaning up until the investigation team—”

  “William and Damon,” Sami interjected.

  Phoebe gave her a scowl. Damn, she was one for providing details today. “Until the Newcastle team come up and—”

  “Work their magic,” Sami finished for her, a grin playing with the corners of her lip-glossed mouth.

  Phoebe scowled harder. Were it not for Captain Kilgour standing beside them, Sami would be finding herself the recipient of a bloody good punch to the arm. Work their magic? Under no circumstances were Will Bradley and Damon Hunt working any kind of magic on her again. Ever.

  “That’s right, Ms. Masters,” Captain Kilgour agreed, giving Phoebe what she suspected was supposed to be a reassuring smile. “The Newcastle boys will need to take a look at this before you can touch it.”

  Phoebe let out a shaky sigh. Damn it.

  “I could take a look around, Dad.”

  A younger version of Keith Kilgour, dressed in a pristine firefighter’s uniform that almost—almost—hid a paunch and narrow shoulders, sidled his way over the charred mess, giving Phoebe a wide smile as he plucked the glass shaft from her hands. Blue eyes tried hard to hold hers, the effort lost when Captain Kilgour barked out a laugh.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Harvey. You barely passed the last fire science and behavior training course.”

  Harvey Kilgour’s fleshy cheeks glowed red and Phoebe suppressed a need to shuffle her feet. Since moving to Morpeth, she’d more than once had to decline Harvey’s eager invitations to coffee, lunch, dinner, breakfast, a trip to the local drive-in. Six months of being “courted” by Harvey. And that was the word he used whenever he asked her out, courted, as if their relationship was anything more than determined suitor and non-interested recipient. Several rejections later and he still hadn’t taken the hint. Still, seeing him get shot down by his father was a touch uncomfortable.

  It wasn’t that Harvey was grotesque or repulsive; he wasn’t. In fact, he seemed quite personable in a slightly desperate, puppy-dog kind of way. He was polite, charming, had an old-fashioned sense of propriety and an almost boyish innocence about him. He’d turned up with handpicked flowers a few times, had offered to fix anything in her home or studio if needed. When she’d come down with that very nasty dose of the flu, he’d arrived at her door with a steaming boiler of vegetable soup so bloody delicious it was all she could do not to run her fingers around the inside of the pot when it was all gone. Soup he’d made. How could she say no to a guy like that?

  How indeed? But she had. Often.

  For reasons she couldn’t put her finger on, something in her belly told her to stay away from Harvey—or at least keep him at arms’ length. Something that made her feel…unsettled.

  What? More unsettled than the way Damon Hunt and William Bradley make you feel? Is that even possible?

  Yeah, but that unsettled had nothing to do with an inexplicable discomfort and everything to do with two tall, dark, sarcastic and alpha-to-the-extreme men awakening sexual longings she couldn’t deny no matter how hard she tried.

  A shiver rippled up her spine and before she could shut it out, a flash of memory blinded her…

  William’s towering form, buck naked and completely aroused, his dark blond hair a tousled mess, his eyes glinting with hunger as Damon impaled her on his equally impressive cock. Damon’s full lips traveling over her throat, his strong hands squeezing her backside, her moans of rapture a familiar soundtrack to a weekend spent—

  “Better go write the report—”

  “Can I walk you to the—”

  “Time I hit the road—”

  Phoebe blinked, the cacophony of voices jerking her from the wholly unsettling memory. Her heart pounding too hard for her liking, she looked at Sami, for the moment needing to focus on one thing, one speaker—and her best friend was the least…vexing. “You’re going?”

  Sami pulled a face. “Yeah, I know. I suck. But I have a photo shoot with Inside Motor-Sport magazine this afternoon and a meeting with my agent in less than three hours.”

  Phoebe shot her watch a quick glance. With the way her best friend rode the classic Ducati she loved like a…well, a lover, Sami would make it back to Sydney with time to spare, as long as she wasn’t arrested for speeding.

  “Okay,” Phoebe grumbled, turning completely to the Amazonian blonde to give her a hug. “Next time come up for longer than just a night.”

  Sami squeezed her back. “Hey, if some prick hadn’t burned your studio down I’d be mooching off you for brekkie and you’d be wishing I’d hurry the hell up and go home.”

  Phoebe chuckled. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

  Sami flashed the kind of grin that made her the darling of the motocross world—cheeky, sexy and very, very devilish. “Of course I am. Say g’day to Damon and Will for me.”

  Phoebe’s belly flip-flopped. “Bugger off with you, Charlton.”

  With another squeeze, this one a tad gentler, Sami turned on her heel and strode from the blackened mess of Phoebe’s studio, hips swaying. “Better still,” she tossed over her shoulder, swinging her helmet beside her leg like a schoolgirl swings her school bag, “give them both a kiss.”

  “A kiss?” Captain Kilgour’s voice sounded mortified.

  Phoebe bit back a sigh and, turning from the sight of her friend’s departing leather-clad form, gave the firefighter a placating smile. “She’s kidding.”

  Harvey laughed, slapping his dad on the back. “Of course she is, Dad. Why would Phoebe want to kiss the arson investigators?”

  Warmth
crept up Phoebe’s neck and over her cheeks and, unable to stop herself, she pressed her thighs together, the sudden flush of tension tickling her labia, making her want to groan. Why would she want to kiss the arson investigators? She wouldn’t. Especially when those two men were Damon Hunt and William Bradley.

  Yeah, right.

  * * * *

  “Head’s up, Tiny, we’ve got a job.”

  William Bradley spun on his desk stool to glare at the tall man crossing the room toward him. “How many times do I have to tell you not to call me Tiny?”

  Damon laughed, dropping into the low, beat-up couch sitting in the middle of their cramped office. “Well, seeing as it’s been eight years now since I first met you, I’m guessin’…” he affected a pensive expression, crossing his ankles on the cluttered coffee table and lacing his fingers behind his head, “a lot. Besides, you’re a short-arse. What else am I going to call you?”

  Will shook his head and rolled his eyes, giving his partner an exasperated look. “I’m two inches shorter than you.”

  Damon held out a hand. “There you go. Short-arse.”

  “You’re six foot three!”

  Damon grinned. “My point exactly.”

  Will threw a tennis ball at him. “Yeah, yeah, Stretch. Tell me about the job.”

  “You’re going to love this. It’s in Morpeth.”

  Every muscle in Will’s body tensed. He drew in a slow breath, leaning forward on his stool. “Morpeth?”

  Damon gave him a single nod, his brown gaze steady.

  Will pulled in another breath. Morpeth. The village pretending to be a town north of Newcastle was populated by entrenched, born-in-the-blood locals and artisans inspired by the timeless beauty of the place. Not the kind of place an arson investigator usually found himself. But then, he’d felt an almost palpable urge to jump in his car and drive north more than once since a particular artisan took up residence.

  Damn, his heart shouldn’t be thumping as hard as it was.