Before you grab a copy, check out the sexy snippet below!
From the Blurb:
Everyone is virgin at something
This is the story of a man who's never done it, and a woman with the experience to teach him how
Reid McGrath is drunk and intends to stay that way. It's what a man does when the world he built gets ripped out from under him. He's staked a claim on the back booth at Lucky's where he can fixate on a dancer who makes him wish things were different.
Zarley Halveston dances under shimmering lights in a barely there costume, but it's not the gold medal life she trained for. She expected to stand on an Olympic podium, instead she glitters under disco lights, gyrating on a chrome pole.
Zarley can't see the brooding man in the back booth, but she knows he's there. He's toxic, but it'snot her job to care, until the night he collapses at her feet and she has to choose to step over him or help him up.
Reid thought he'd hit bottom when he was fired as CEO of his own company, but knowing he'd needed the kindness of a stranger, and realizing she was the dancer he'd lusted after was a new low.
Question: What do a fallen golden girl and a sacked tech tycoon have in common except humiliation and failure?
Answer: The reawakening of a champion competitor and the sexual education of a frustrated geek.
Excerpt:
A Tease from Offensive Behavior – Sidelined #1
The one where the hero gets ready to have sex for the first time.
- Ainslie Paton
“Red.”
Reid stomped on the brake and the car jerked to a stop at the red light of an empty intersection. “Shit, sorry.”
“I’m not going anywhere. We have all day, and nothing bad is going to happen.”
He wasn’t five, but that’s the way Zarley was speaking to him and okay, that made it better.
“Talk to me. Tell me why you never,” she hesitated and then said, “took care of this. Not that it’s a problem, it’s not a problem. Everyone has a first time, and it’s totally fine that you never got around to it, it’s just that you’re not the kind of man I expected—”
“To be so hard up.”
“That’s a compliment.”
He grunted. “I don’t have a deep-seated dislike of women.” The light went green and he drove through. “I’m not a closet homosexual. I didn’t have a traumatic first encounter where I failed to get it up or anything. It’s hard to explain.”
“Then you don’t have to. It’s enough that you want me now.”
He risked a look at her. “No, no, no. You cannot be that cool.”
“Having sex before I was ready for the consequences screwed up my life.”
“You’re not talking about a broken heart, are you?” There’d been a tone in her voice that wasn’t storytelling, it was regret.
“No, the whole catastrophe.”
“You don’t have to tell me.”
“I know. And it’s not sexy.”
“Any more sexy than me here with you, on the way to have actual sex in my actual bed and I might drive into the bay.”
“Who said anything about your bed?”
He gripped the wheel. “Jesus, do you want me to rear-end something?”
“I want you to relax.”
“Like that’s happening any time soon.” It was a good thing the traffic was light. He really needed to be out of this car or focus on something other than the fact she was just there, across the console, watching him. “I had my heart broken at sixteen. I thought Dana Masters was the stars in the sky. I thought we’d grow up and build a life together. I had no idea I was her practice warm-up for Iggy Nelson.”
“Iggy was your best friend.”
“Since day care.”
“She wouldn’t sleep with you, but she went with Iggy.”
“Rode him like a bit-torrent stream. Strung me out like a line of broken code.” He hadn’t thought about Dana and Iggy for a long time. Long enough for it to be fine print in his life. Too long ago to still sting. But it did. He’d never failed at anything he’d worked for, set his heart on, except Dana Masters.
Until now.
“So what, you didn’t bounce back, knock Iggy out and prowl around campus with a neon sign over your head saying, I can keep it up all night, do me?”
“Not helping.” He whacked the blinker on with more force than was necessary. “I did knock Iggy out and then l swore off wasting my time on manipulative chicks and locked myself in the computer lab.”
“For years?”
“It’s not like I was the only one. It’s the jocks that get all the radical action, not the computer geeks. Hey, I was full of ambition and power lifting and angry young man and that keeps you warm at night.”
“Okay, but after college, there was no one who tempted you?”
“You know this conversation, which is a hideous personal embarrassment, has done nothing to deflate my erection. That’s a compliment.”
“You know if you don’t stop driving like we’re in a funeral procession, I will jump you before we get to your apartment.”
“And you wanted me to relax.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I do, because there’s no hurry.”
“For you.” Was it possible for your zipper to do you harm? Cut off vital blood flow. It felt like it was possible. “I’m years behind the action.”
“And why is that again?”
He pushed a breath out. Facing nervous stockholders had been easier. “Because I was busy. I didn’t meet anyone I didn’t work with, which made them off limits, and I was building a business that was all guts and glory, and it took every minute of every day not to lose it. When I got finance, I had a lot of people watching me, waiting for me to screw up and I couldn’t afford the distraction. There was precious little leisure time where I didn’t want to sleep.” He’d had a textbook all work and no play life, and in the leftover space, there was a hollowness that was best not contemplated.
“And did I mention I’m socially awkward and since sex is the most intimate of acts, it simply hasn’t been my go-to.”
“Was it worth it?”
He couldn’t answer that easily, the loss of Plus was too raw and the realization of a life he liked without it, too uncertain. What he’d given up for it loomed large. “Some days I wonder.”
“I understand that.”
“You do?” The apartment building was up ahead. Thirty seconds to safety. So why did his left leg have the shakes?
“I was a competition gymnast. I lived and breathed gymnastics. I just started being busier than a twenty-four hour day younger than you did.”
“How old?”
“Thirteen. I left home, billeted near my coach. I finished school by correspondence.”
“What’s the lifespan of a professional gymnast?”
“Eighteen, absolute tops. That’s when I retired.”
So young. And fuck, how old was she now? Eighteen, still. Nineteen, a decade between them. Holy shit, this couldn’t happen.
The scanner wouldn’t recognize the plate of the hire car, which is why they were stopped in the drive. He had to remember the override code to get the shutter up and all he could think about was Zarley being too young.
“You were retired before I started college.”
“Pretty much.”
He tried typing the code on the pedestal keypad and plugged it in wrongly. “How old are you now?”
“Chill, I’m old enough to be here with you.”
He punched in the number again and the shutter went up. “How old?” He couldn’t drive in if she was too young.
“I’m twenty-three.”
Green light. Five years between them. She wasn’t a kid. He drove forward and headed for his space. “What happened?”
“You should be asking what’s going to happen.”
“W-w-what is going to happen?” Apart from Zarley climbing over the console and into his lap.
“You’re going to stop worrying you’re too virgin for me, too old for me, and turn the ignition off. Then you’re going to take my hand, get out of the car, kiss me in the elevator, feel me up outside your door, and then—”
He put his hand over her mouth, then replaced it with his lips. The taste of her, the feel of her in his arms, the idea that she was going to let him fuck her, it stopped all rational thought. This is why he’d stayed away from women, they were bad for business, they could short-circuit your brain.
He had to re-park the car so it was in the space properly, then he got the ignition off, the door open, Zarley’s hand in his. He kissed her while they waited for the elevator and when they got inside she climbed his body like he was her pole, wrapped her legs around his hips and they kissed through his head spins, forgetting to press his floor number, and the twelve-story ride to the end of his self-imposed abstinence.
This is really happening.
The need of it sat in his chest like lung disease, rippled through his body like a power overload. His awareness had narrowed to the flickering tease of her hands and bright sharp sounds she made as they kissed. The end of days was on her tongue and salvation was between her legs and he didn’t know if he was worthy.
He got them out of the elevator and into the apartment without stopping to put her down. She didn’t need him to hold her in any case, his gymnast, his dancer, the girl who could fly and was teaching him to soar with every sucking kiss and flex of her pelvis.
Yanking on his hair slowed him up. “Take a breath, Back Booth, you’re going to blow a fuse.”
“Ow. What?” No way. No stopping. No more waiting. She laughed and put her feet down, lowering her big canvas bag off her shoulder. They were in his living room. There wasn’t enough air in here.
She stepped away, made gentling motions with her hands. “You don’t want it to be this quick.”
“Fuck, yeah I do.” He’d left the front door open. Maybe he was freaking her out. “Sorry.”
“Nothing to be sorry about. But I was going home from work. I didn’t take a shower. I want to.”
He stalked across the room and closed the door. “Ah, okay. It’s, um, through, er.”
She held her hand out. “I know where your bathroom is. I didn’t say I wanted to shower alone.”
“Jesus Christ. That’s some kind of advanced ninja sex. Couldn’t you ease me into this?”
She laughed. “You’re doing fine.” She took his hand. “If you hadn’t told me I wouldn’t have known.”
That couldn’t possibly be true. No one did anything useful the first time around. “I know how it’s all supposed to work. Porn channel. But the real thing, you, it’s nothing like I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“To have some fucking control for a start. I can’t, not, it’s. God, what you’re doing to me.”
“So if I did—” She smacked her lips together, rolled them.
“Then I’m going to come in my underwear.”
“You’re going to come in the shower in my hand or my mouth and then it’s going to be easier to slow down.”
He was only capable of grunting and letting her lead him to the bedroom, sit him on the bed. His brain was a mere receptacle echoing the torturous pains in his body.
“I want five minutes in the shower to myself and then you come join me, okay? Do you want to undress me?”
He took a breath and held it. Why was she asking him these difficult questions? Couldn’t she see he was riding a roller coaster and scared of the rattles, trying not to piss himself.
She nudged his knee and stepped between his legs, her hand spearing though his hair shoving his head back. “Don’t look so worried.”
“There’s more than a decade of heaving male sexual frustration sitting here. I want this so badly I feel like I’m going to choke on it.”
She gave his head a shake. “You won’t.”
He was five kinds of too hot, ten kinds of nervous. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, or how to stop looking at her like she was every lonely night extinguished forever. Part of him wanted to throw her on the bed, rip her clothes off and fuck them both screaming into the next century. That part of him was made from three thousand, six hundred and fifty days’ worth of denial, substitution and regret, and it frightened him how those feelings roared inside him.
“I’ve got you.”
Someone needed to. He gripped the end of the bed. “I think I love you, Flygirl.” He closed his eyes, so dumb. “But then I don’t know what the hell I’m doing.” He waited for her hand to move, the sound of her shoes leaving the room. What could she possibly want with him? He should end this before it got more embarrassing.
He got her lips instead. A kiss to start a global meltdown in his chest, and then the sound of her shoes dropping to the floor detonated in his stomach, bringing swirling discomfort.
He opened his eyes to see her shrug out of her hoodie and pull her tank over her head. She unbuttoned her jeans, sliding the zip down, then bending to take her socks off, giving a cute little hop when one stuck, before easing her jeans down and stepping out of them. It wasn’t a striptease. It wasn’t done to please him. She was just a woman getting undressed to have a shower.
He lost the power to swallow. She stood there, close enough to grab, in mismatched underwear, her hair a nest of tangles from his hands, her face and chest flushed, and just like this, she was the sexiest thing he’d ever seen.
She put her hands behind her back and unclipped her bra, let it fall down her arms and drop to the floor. “Keep breathing, Back Booth. In, out, in, out.”
He knew things about her body even before he saw it bared like this. She was compact, with well-defined long muscles. Her feet turned out like a ballerina’s, her calves were prominent, her thighs strong. She had narrow hips and a flat abdomen, but obvious obliques and abs. Now he saw they led up to firm, round breasts with bubblegum pink nipples that made his palms itch. He wanted to run his nose over the muscle delta in her arm and press his face into her prominent collarbone.
She hooked her thumbs into her pants and bent forward to drag them down her legs. No hair. He hissed like a basketball losing air.
“I’d undress you but I think it might be detrimental to your health right now. Count to a hundred, then get undressed and come get me. Try not to have a heart attack before that.”
When she turned and walked into the bathroom he almost did. He rolled back onto the bed and closed his eyes. Get it the fuck together, McGrath. This isn’t a capital raising, it’s not a listing or fighting off a pre-emptive take over, it’s not work. This is a gorgeous woman who’s into you, maybe as much as you’re into her, at least tonight anyway, and she deserves some fucking coherence, not a bumbling overexcited boy.
The shower water was running and he could see Zarley through the glass screen. There were those dimples at the base of her spine, made for his fingers to sit in, his tongue to explore. Wet, her hair hung almost to her waist. On autopilot, he shed his clothes, watching as she tipped her face to the spray. Never. This was simply never a thing he’d expected to happen.
He palmed his dick, squeezed, wiped the wetness away with his thumb. He was a Mentos Mint dropped in a Coke bottle, about to fizz over and explode.
Ninety-nine. One hundred.
Coming, prematurely, ready or not.
***
Offensive Behavior by Ainslie Paton is a contemporary romance, releasing on March 31 2016.
Book Links: Amazon | Amazon AUS | Amazon UK | Goodreads | Author Site
About the Author:
Ainslie Paton is a corporate storyteller working in marketing, public relations and advertising.
She’s written about everything from the African refugee crisis and Toxic Shock Syndrome, to high-speed data networks and hamburgers.
As Ainslie and as AA Paton, she writes cracking, hyper-real contemporary romances.
Social Links: Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Website
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