LuckoftheDraw

Jayne
Kingston

Book 3 of the Mischievous Matchmaker series.

Turnabout is fair play. Or maybe
karma is a bitch
is
more fitting.

Petra’s friends throw her a key party to help her move on
from a months-old heartbreak. While she is
not
interested in falling in
love again, getting her stunted sex life back on track doesn’t sound like a bad
idea.

Except someone sabotages the key drawing before she gets her
turn. Instead of spending the night with the ultra-hot doc her friends intended
to “accidentally” set her up with, she winds up drawing Alex’s keys instead.

A night with Alex is coveted among players. Petra quickly
finds out the reality of Alex far exceeds his legendary reputation. The moment
they kiss they discover a chemistry so combustible it’s positively nuclear. 
They’re so engulfed in a red-hot haze of passion, neither of them sees it
coming when Petra’s ex returns, repentant and threatening to ruin their
newfound happiness.

Inside Scoop:
These sexy key parties lead to some
pretty wild times, including group sex and male/male interactions, which are
mentioned as past adventures.

A
Romantica®
contemporary erotic romance
from Ellora’s Cave

“Turnabout is fair play you know,” Rachel said with a smile.

“I was thinking ‘karma is a bitch’ would be the more
appropriate phrase in this situation.” Petra Romanov sipped her glass of wine
and scanned the group of people gathered in her living room, laughing and
flirting and having a great time.

Rachel brushed Petra’s hair off her shoulder. “We never
would have set this up if we hadn’t thought you were ready.” She tugged gently
on Petra’s long silver earring. “But if
you
don’t think you’re ready
just say the word.”

Petra had known Rachel and Bree were going to throw this
party for her long before they came to her and announced it. Maybe on some
primal, physical level she’d even been hoping they would do it, but that didn’t
mean she was ready to take an actual step toward moving forward with her life.

Of course, when she’d done the same for Rachel and Bree that
past spring and summer, she hadn’t given them any warning at all, had she?

Petra had hung up her Cupid’s bow and arrow a couple of
months earlier when her longtime live-in boyfriend Jude left her. Before that
she’d had a good run playing matchmaker by throwing Seventies-style key parties
for her friends, rigging the drawing so people she thought would make good
couples ended up together instead of just letting fate run its course.

She’d started throwing those parties as a way to bypass the
usual “Hey, I really think you would like so-and-so, can I set you up?” that
she’d found was more off-putting than effective. After a handful of successful
matches between her more casual acquaintances, she’d set her sights on her two
best friends.

Rachel’s match had worked beautifully. She’d just moved back
to Chicago after living in England for several years and wasn’t aware that
Petra knew Ben, Rachel’s old college crush. Petra had it on good authority—from
Ben—that after a few hot and heavy months of dating, Ben had been secretly
engagement ring shopping.

Bree’s match had been trickier to pull off, considering
Bree’s former distaste for Cooper over a work-related misunderstanding, but
things had turned out the way they were supposed to in the end. After three
months they were already living together for the most part, dividing their time
between his downtown Chicago apartment and her adorable little house in the
suburbs.

“You know I’m not ready to fall in love again, right?” Petra
asked Rachel. Her heart was barely healed from Jude leaving the way he had.

Rachel smiled. “I know, my darling. That’s not what tonight
is about.”

“Good.” She went back to observing the crowd.

“But you are starting to get the urge to do a little fooling
around again, aren’t you?”

Yes she was. She’d had it with spending her nights off work,
lying on the couch watching every godforsaken reality show on cable television.
Her body had started to remind her that she was young and healthy and had
strong sexual needs that were not being fulfilled.

“So, who is my match going to be?”

The group was a good-size mix of couples and singles. Some
of the couples were there to swing, but others—like Rachel and Ben, and Bree
and Cooper—had opted to leave their keys out of the bowl by the door and were
just there to have a good time.

Rachel blinked once, slowly. “The least you could do is play
along.”

“All right fine. I’ll play.” She wrapped her arm around
Rachel’s waist. “Have I told you lately that this is a truly amazing party?”

Because it was so close to Halloween, guests had been
instructed to dress from the swinging Seventies. Everyone was decked out in
costumes that ranged from bell-bottom wearing hippies to disco kings and divas.

Petra’s house was almost unrecognizable. Her stark, modern
furniture had been draped with psychedelically patterned throws and brightly
colored zigzag afghans. Lava lamps and black lights had replaced some of her
lamps. Framed rock concert posters from the time-period—courtesy of her friend
Alex’s dad and his basement bar slash game room—had replaced most of the
paintings on the walls.

The girls had even hung a disco ball from the small
chandelier in her dining room. It cast spinning points of light all over the
partially darkened makeshift dance floor.

“You have, but thank you again,” Rachel said with a pleased
smile. She gave Petra a careful look. “Are you having fun?”

For as much as hadn’t been looking forward to the party, she
couldn’t deny having her circle of fun, sexed-up friends together again was
just what she’d needed.

“I really am,” she answered honestly.

Rachel kissed her cheek. “Good.”

“Your dress is killer, Rach.” She gave her a squeeze,
stepped back and looked her over top to bottom. “Fair warning. I’m going to
steal it tomorrow.

Petra’s grandmother, her beloved Busha, had made dresses for
Petra, Rachel and Bree from forty-year-old patterns she’d had since Petra’s
Momma used to go dancing as a very young woman. Rachel’s was short, showing off
her mile-long legs, and made out of a deep-purple paisley fabric that set off
her green eyes.

“I tell you what, leave yours in its place and it’s a deal,”
Rachel said.

Petra’s dress wasn’t quite as flashy, but it was gorgeous in
its simplicity. The black halter top had a deep cowl neckline that draped low
between her breasts and was open almost to her waist in the back. The
asymmetrical skirt showed her knees in the front, but hung to mid-calf. She’d
finished the outfit with all silver accessories—long, dangling earrings, an
upper arm cuff that coiled like a snake above her right bicep, a thin headband
and high, strappy heels

“Alex looks like he murdered that old couch Busha has in her
den,” Bree observed as she joined them, looking fine in the little gold lamé
sheath that hugged her small but curvy body in all the right places.

The outfit their friend Alex was wearing was indeed hideous.
The shirt had a mustard-yellow, rust-orange and avocado-green mod pattern. The
corduroy pants matched the rust color in the shirt and were so tight they
hugged his ass and thighs before flaring out from the knee down. On his
well-muscled six-foot-six frame, that was a whole lot of garish color.

“Would you believe those are vintage?” Petra asked, smiling
as she found him standing across the room. Lord he was a beautiful man, ugly
clothes and all. “He got those clothes straight out of his dad’s closet.”

Bree nodded. “I believe it.”

They’d all met and loved Alex’s father Mac Morrison—the
source of Alex’s incredible height, bright coppery-red hair and cobalt-blue
eyes—who was just as fun and outgoing as his son. Although Alex’s day-to-day
style was significantly more low-key than his dad’s, which still had a tendency
to be attention-getting. To say the least.

“I have to say I’m diggin’ the way those pants are showing
off that tush of his,” Bree said, following Petra’s line of sight.

It was a nice ass—round and tight and slightly concave on
the sides. Even when he was wearing baggy, unflattering scrubs at work he
couldn’t completely conceal it or the rest of his big, strong body.

Rachel mirrored Bree’s smirk. “Someone should really bring
back tight pants on men, I say. There really is a lot of fine man tush on
display tonight.”

Petra nodded. “Your man’s included,” she said to Rachel.

Bree’s boyfriend Cooper had gone the way of the hippie
biker, wearing a widely folded bandana tied low over his forehead, leather
riding vest with no shirt, grubby jeans and heavy biker boots. Rachel’s
boyfriend Ben, on the other hand, looked like an extra straight off the set of
Saturday Night Fever in a shiny polyester shirt unbuttoned to mid chest and
tight white pants.

Rachel’s smirk went several shades naughtier. “I had those
pants taken in so they would fit him that way.”

Bree held up her hand and Rachel high-fived her.

“Any idea why Alex is so cranky tonight?” Rachel asked.

“He’s really off his game,” Bree observed, casting another
glance his way.

Petra had noticed it too. When she’d asked earlier he’d just
said he hadn’t gotten much sleep after working the night shift at the hospital,
where they were both nurses on the pediatric floor, but Petra didn’t buy it.
She’d known Alex a long time, and lack of sleep didn’t have a negative effect
on him. Something else was going on.

“It’s kind of scary,” Rachel said. “Did he put his keys in
the drawing? Ben said he keeps talking about how he should leave.”

“Leave?” Bree squeaked. “He can’t leave. We’ll have an odd
number of players.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that.” Petra sipped her wine.
“You’ll have no problem finding two women willing to tag-team some lucky
bastard if it comes to that.” Come to think of it… “You know, it’s been a while
since I’ve been with a woman, and even longer since I’ve played in a threesome.
I volunteer.”

She watched, highly amused, as her friends exchanged a look.
That was definitely not what they had planned for her.

“You just leave any problems that may or may not arise to
us, ‘kay?” Bree asked with a sassy little tilt of the head.

“We’ve got this covered,” Rachel added. “Alex isn’t going
anywhere, even if I have to tie him to something.”

The three of them turned and looked at Alex at the same
time, each of them likely considering Alex tied up. Petra was.

“Cooper is so getting tied up and tortured tonight,” Bree
murmured, bringing them back out of their thoughts.

From where they were standing, Petra could see the door at
the opposite end of the house open. The question of who her friends meant to
set her up with was answered as Dr. Michel Bonhomme came into her kitchen
through the back door.

She looked at her friends, who were pointedly not looking at
her all of a sudden. Rachel murmured something about checking on Ben, who was
on duty at the makeshift bar in the living room, and took off in his direction.

Bree headed for Michel, calling out a pleased “You made it.”

Petra felt as though she should have known it was going to
be him. She’d been openly admiring him from afar for years. Her friends knew
all about how much she used to fantasize about getting her hands on him one
day.

He was the black-haired, blue-eyed, smoldering-gaze variety
of stunning—tall, lean and always smelling of the finest cologne. It didn’t
hurt that his native French still clung to the way he spoke, even after
something like twenty years of living in the States.

She and Jude had invited him to the bisexual parties they’d
held in the past with the hope that one or both of them would end up with the
sexy Frenchman. Sadly, neither of them had ever gotten his keys in the handful
of times he’d attended, and she hadn’t thought to start rigging the games until
much later. Not that she ever would have rigged the game in her own favor.

Now her friends, bless their hearts, were about to help her
scratch an old itch.

The only problem with that was Petra knew from the snippets
of talk she’d heard after past parties that he seemed to prefer men, or women
who behaved like men, in bed. And while she enjoyed being the dominant bed
partner most of the time, tonight she’d been hoping to end up with someone who
got all alpha-male behind closed doors.

Someone who took charge, used her up and left her limp as a
ragdoll.

Someone who gave whole new meaning to the word “ravage”.

“I had to park in front of the garage,” Petra heard Michel
say to Bree as she sauntered into the kitchen to join them. “There were no open
spots on the street.”

“You’re welcome to park wherever you like,” Petra told him.

Bree held out her hand and Michel put his car key in her
palm.

“What are you drinking?” Bree asked him.

“Do you have red wine?”

“We happen to have a really lovely pinot noir, as a matter
of fact.”

He gave Bree a smile that made Petra’s knees go a little
weak. “Perfect.”

“Coming right up.” Bree turned and gave Petra a wink once
her back was to him.

“You’re in costume,” Petra said, not sure why she was
surprised.

Like Ben, he looked as if he was ready for the dance floor
in a snug shirt with an appropriate ugly design and black pants pulled tight
over his flat lower belly and hips. He came across as aloof to some but was
actually warm and very approachable.

“You look amazing,” she told him, taking his hands when he
offered them.

He held her arms out at her sides as he looked her over.
“Not as amazing as you.”

She gave him a coy smile and dipped a little curtsey. “
Merci
.”

He chuckled low and kissed her on both cheeks, then her
mouth.

Oh no.

Even though it lingered a moment longer than would have been
considered casual, and in spite of the fact that his lips were warm and soft,
she felt nothing. And by nothing she meant not so much as a tingle in the
smallest of her toes.

She pasted what she hoped was a pleased smile on her face,
slipped her arm through his when he drew back and headed toward the living
room.

“Come in and join the party. Rachel and Bree did a gorgeous
job.”

“I see you have a new bartender.” Petra didn’t miss the open
admiration in Michel’s eyes as he looked Ben over. Rachel’s fiancé had the
tall, dark and holy-hell-he’s-hot thing down to a T. “Jude is not with us
tonight?”

Her stomach sank. He’d asked because Jude had tended bar at
every one of the parties she’d thrown in the past. It wasn’t Michel’s fault he
didn’t know that she and Jude had broken up. She’d only told the handful of
people at work she considered her close friends, and he hadn’t been one of
them.

“No, Jude won’t be here tonight.”

He stopped strolling. “So the rumors are true?”

“If the rumors are that I came home from work one morning to
find him packed and ready to leave for a year’s worth of volunteer work in
Haiti, yes.”