Aly came over to where I was sitting and drinking beer, and sat on my lap. I rubbed my hand up her leg and let my thumb graze the crease between her thigh and that sweet, sweet pussy of hers.

“Want to go upstairs for a quickie?” I mumbled into her long red hair. She was wearing this gauzy, see-through white tank, and her hair was all wavy and wild. I wanted to yank it back and fuck her from behind. “Or we could take a quick ride in my new car and stop for a little nooky?” I teased her.

I’d kept the Hummer for the car seat and dog crap, but I did buy myself a hot date car. It was a fast little Porsche convertible in cherry red—my favorite color, by the way. Lane had tried it out this past week, and wanted one himself. Maybe I’d get him a little present for helping me get to where I was in my business.

“Al, you hear the big plans?” Lane called out.

Shit.

She raised one of her eyebrows. “Um, no. Do tell.”

Lane paused from flipping the last burger and scowled at me. “Jake, what the hell? Why do I have to be the one?”

“Because you have a big fucking mouth,” I shot back, frowning back at him.

“Jake, Maddy can hear you and repeat after you,” Bess said, scolding me.

Aly poked my arm, definitely not letting this go. “Lane, Jake? Bueller? Anyone? Can someone please tell me what’s going on?”

Lane shot me a shit-eating grin before he focused on Aly. “You’re sitting on the lap of a mogul, Al. My brother just stroked a deal with the biggest luxury hotel chain in the country to franchise his gyms in every single location. That’s right . . . Fizzle To Go will be in almost every major city soon, so when you travel, you don’t have to miss your gym at home.”

Her eyes huge, Aly turned in my lap to gape at me. “Babe? Why didn’t you tell me?”

I ran my hand over her cheek. “I needed to make sure it really happened. I still don’t believe it, but it looks like I need you to come back to work and go over the papers and actually hire a legal team. Lane’s guy has been filling in, and I need my main girl back.”

“Seeing as how I totally took advantage of my maternity leave, I get it.” Aly wrapped her arms tight around me, hugging me in only the way she could. “How did this happen?” she whispered. “It’s like a dream come true!”

I shrugged. “Well, the baseball team was traveling and didn’t like the hotel facilities after using mine, so they may have suggested to one hotel to check my shit out.”

“Jake!” Bess yelled at me again.

“Okay, Bess, I got you. I’m watching my language.”

“You have a baby now too, so clean up your act.”

I nodded and went back to my wife, whose ass was rubbing my chubby. “Let’s go celebrate upstairs.”

She smacked my chest. “Later, after Tabby goes to bed, I’m going to give you a little congrats present, but not now.”

“Promise?”

We were interrupted by the dogs barking at a squirrel scampering up a tree, and the puppies going wild trying to climb up right behind it. Whining ensued when they couldn’t catch the damn thing. Then crying followed, which was my cue to grab my baby girl. I knew it wasn’t bad for her to cry for a minute, but not my Tabby.

“I can get her, babe,” Aly said, hustling behind me.

“I was just going to bring her to you.”

She stopped and hooked her hands on her hips. “That’s not it, and you know it. You just can’t stand her crying for an extra second, and you’re the fastest one here.”

I nuzzled Tabby’s hair as I lifted her, inhaling her awesome baby smell. “Okay, yeah, but so what?”

“No one is ever going to live up to her softie of a daddy, Jason.”

I shrugged. “And that’s a bad thing?” I asked, knowing no one was ever going to be good enough for this little girl.

When I handed Tab over to Aly, she situated the baby’s head under her shirt. Of course, I stood guard to make sure no one saw boobage. My boobs.

“By the way, I’m not a softie,” I told Aly as I stroked a finger down her cheek. “I’m a bad-ass bodybuilder, Aly-cat, and don’t you forget it.”

“You’re just like your brother,” James chimed in. “You were all hard until you met a woman, and then you went soft like mush.”

“Isn’t it time for Cliffie to get a bottle or something?” I said, and shooed him away.

James just laughed and snagged a wine spritzer or some other girlie drink from the cooler next to me before walking off.

“You know I’m tough, right?” I asked my wife as I plopped down in the chair next to her, running my hand over Tabitha’s back under Aly’s shirt.

“Yeah, babe. You’re big and tough on the outside, but neither of us were survivors until we met each other. We’re our own little fairy tale, meant to be together. Beauty and the Beast.”

Isn’t that the truth? I leaned in to kiss the top of her fiery red hair, trying to get a quick look at those gorgeous tits of hers.

Maybe later.

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Read more from Rachel Blaufeld in Electrified, Book One in the Electric Tunnel Series.

CARSON GRAHAM shifted into fourth gear as he hightailed it away from the club toward his hotel. Why did he keep coming back to Vegas? Who the hell knew. If there was one thing he didn’t have any trouble finding or getting, it was willing women.

He knew women weren’t really “things.” They were interesting, often complicated creatures, and he both appreciated and respected them. He just happened to like women in his bed who came with no strings. It was the twenty-first century, after all, and there were plenty of women who liked that kind of deal.

He had never settled down, and he sure as hell wasn’t about to start now. At closer to forty years old than thirty-five, he felt the bachelor life suited him just fine. Or maybe it was that he only deserved the single life. His particular circumstances hadn’t exactly set him up for success in the relationship department.

Picking up a little speed, he changed course and steered toward the mountains, needing more time to clear his head.

It would be great to be on his motorcycle right now, to be able to lean into the steep and winding curves, but it was back in his garage on the East Coast, grounded—just like his life at the moment. The sports car he’d rented here in Vegas would have to do.

As he shifted the engine into fifth gear the car jetted forward, allowing the tension to bleed from him with the increased RPMs. He was trying to drive away from the pull as fast as he could; the pull coming from an insanely gorgeous stripper he was lusting after in a big way.

There was something magnetic about Sienna Flower, dragging him in deeper and deeper. More than her sleek, toned body and her sensual moves when she wrapped herself around the pole, there was a draw deeper than the physical. Carson wasn’t a hard-up kind of guy. He never got like this over a woman. Ever.

Growing up without a mom, he was fairly certain there was nothing lasting about “love.” If a mother could actually up and leave her child without any notice, like his did, there was no such thing as forever. His dad had done the best he could to be everything to Carson, but the fact remained: When a six-year-old’s mother left and never came back, that fucked with a kid.

It fucked with a grown man too. As a result, Carson never considered love an option.

Lust, a few cocktails, dinner out, and then a good roll in Egyptian cotton sheets—that was Carson’s modus operandi. He definitely didn’t have any delusions of long-term love.