A First from Juniper Bell's GO WILD

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone here at the Party Pavilion! Hmm, first kisses...I love first kisses, but first meetings are great too. My new Ellora's Cave release GO WILD doesn't show Lars and Katia's first kiss, but they have a really fun first encounter. They meet at a random laundromat in the middle of Minnesota. He's an athlete on the biathlon circuit, she's on a crosscountry road trip. I hope you enjoy this little snippet!

Katia had watched Lars for what felt like hours. At another time in her life, she would have approached him and struck up a conversation that would have inevitably led to the nearest No-Tell Motel. But for once in her life, she was trying to be celibate. So she’d merely watched him the way a cat watches a mouse she’s too lazy to chase. He moved smoothly and gracefully for such a big man. As far as she could tell, he had no extra body fat. To her expert eye, he had to be an athlete. Too tall for soccer. Not quite lean enough for a swimmer. Too lean for a football player.

She was mulling over various possible sports, bouncing one foot on the other, so preoccupied she didn’t notice that he’d moved to stand directly in front of her. Without warning, she found herself staring at the bulge in his jeans, which looked just as impressive as the rest of him. She lifted her eyes up the long stretch of his chest to his face. Intelligent blue-gray eyes gave her a level, assessing look. A broken nose provided the only flaw in his rough-hewn face. Judging by the lines around his eyes, he spent a lot of time in the sun.

Diving? Ice hockey?

She ruled out hockey when he finally opened his mouth and revealed a complete set of even, white teeth. And then she forgot every sport in creation at his next words.

“Will it bother you if I take off my clothes?”

“Excuse me?” Had she somehow expressed her appreciation of his body out loud? She looked around the deserted laundromat. Where had everyone gone? When she’d come in, it had been busy enough. Now it was just her and this Viking god who apparently wanted to strip.

“I’m low on clothes. Traveling too much. If I wash these, I won’t have to do laundry again so soon. I promise I’ll keep my underwear on. I can wash those in the sink.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that on my account. I mean, you can take it all off if you want. I’m cool. Really. I’ve seen naked men before.”

He chuckled, which made his face look about ten years younger. How old is he? Who cares? She smiled saucily.

“I don’t want to break any laws. It’s late enough, I don’t think anyone else will come in. But I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t offend you.”

“Oh. No. Not at all. Go for it.” A committed aficionado of the male form, she settled back to enjoy herself. Who knew that doing laundry in Minnesota would be so rewarding? Her eyes wandered down to the button fly of his jeans. Would he wear boxers or briefs? Would he have blond hair on his chest, or any freckles to speak of? Just how muscular would that spectacular body be? Her mouth watered. She shifted in her chair.

After a moment, she realized he wasn’t taking off a stitch of clothing. “Well?”

“I was kidding,” he said.

Mortified, she felt blood rush to her face. “Oh. Because I was staring.”

“A little.”

“I was just playing a game. Guess the sport.”

One eyebrow quirked in a way she would become familiar with before long. “If you mean my sport, I’ll bet you dinner that you’ll never guess.”

Dinner. It was already almost ten at night. Well, if it was too late for dinner, she could always eat him up.

“Deal.” Scolding herself for her naughty thoughts, which, come to think of it, were probably the natural consequence of her celibate state, she set herself to naming every sport she could think of.

“Wrestling.”

“No.” He lowered himself into the chair next to her. Her pulse skipped to double time.

“Synchronized swimming.” He scowled.

“Fine, more testosterone. Racecar driving.”

“My sport burns no hydrocarbons.”

An athlete with a vocabulary. He got sexier every second.

“Skiing.”

“Getting warmer.”

Yes, it was. The laundromat seemed to have become an overheated locker room while she wasn’t looking. “That weird thing where the skiers jump off a giant diving board a thousand feet up in the air.”

“Ski jumping. Getting hotter.”

But try as she might, she never managed to guess biathlon, since she’d never heard of it. He explained it to her, using a mop as a stand-in for a rifle. She’d never forget the sight of him whirling and kneeling, sighting down the mop handle at the doorknob of the laundromat.

Was that when she’d fallen in love with him?

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Juniper Bell