Messing with Miki (A MFM Ménage Romance) (Playing For Love Book 5) Read online

  Messing With Miki (A MFM Menage Romance)

  A Playing For Love Novel

  Tara Crescent

  Text copyright © 2017 Tara Crescent

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  My editor Jim takes the comma-filled words that emerge from my keyboard and shapes it into a story worth reading. As always, my undying gratitude.

  Additional thanks for Miranda’s laser-sharp eyes.

  Cover Design by Eris Adderly, http://erisadderly.com/

  Contents

  Free Story Offer

  Messing with Miki

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Epilogue

  A Preview of Dirty Therapy by Tara Crescent

  A Note from Tara

  About Tara Crescent

  Also by Tara Crescent

  Free Story Offer

  Get a free story when you subscribe to my mailing list!

  Boyfriend by the Hour

  This steamy, romantic story contains a dominant hero who’s pretending to be an escort, and a sassy heroine who’s given up on real relationships.

  Sadie:

  I can’t believe I have the hots for an escort.

  Cole Mitchell is ripped, bearded, sexy and dominant. When he moves next door to me, I find it impossible to resist sampling the wares.

  But Cole’s not a one-woman kind of guy, and I won’t share.

  Cole:

  She thinks I’m an escort. I’m not.

  I thought I’d do anything to sleep with Sadie. Then I realized I want more. I want Sadie. Forever.

  I’m not the escort she thinks I am.

  Now, I just have to make sure she never finds out.

  Messing with Miki

  They’re my bosses, and I’ve been hired to destroy them.

  Men are not to be trusted.

  My father cheated on my mother. My ex-husband cheated on me.

  I won’t let it happen again.

  No more guys. From now on, all I care about is work.

  Then I meet my two new bosses. My two wickedly hot, good-looking new bosses. Finn Sanders and Oliver Prescott.

  Brilliant. Charming. Rich. Successful. And oh-so dangerous.

  I’ve been hired to hack into their systems and destroy their company.

  Not a problem. I can do this. I have skills. Resources. And I’m definitely immune to Oliver and Finn. I’m not attracted to their brooding intensity. I can resist the fire in their eyes. I can ignore this pull I feel toward them…

  Then they find out who I am and why I’m working for them.

  And it turns out that Finn and Oliver have a few secrets of their own…

  Prologue

  When it is all finished, you will discover it was never random.

  unknown

  Miki:

  Thanksgiving should be a time of gratitude and reflection.

  Bite me.

  The line inches forward. The terminals at Houston's George Bush Intercontinental Airport are always busy, but today, they’re practically bursting at the seams. Swarms of tired and cranky passengers are everywhere. Several freak storms in the area have disrupted flight schedules, and the ticket agents are frantically rebooking the travelers, doing their very best to cope with the melee.

  Miracle of miracles, my flight is still on schedule. Probably the only thing that’s gone right in six weeks.

  I queue up in the serpentine line, waiting to check in my luggage, two big suitcases, bursting at the seams with everything I own in Houston that I want to keep. My clothes, my computer equipment, my collection of silly and impractical shoes. My laptop I clutch to my chest—the the gate agents will pry that from me over my cold, dead body.

  Twenty long minutes later, I finally reach the counter and hand the tired-looking agent my ID. She pulls up my details on her computer, and eyes my two suitcases dubiously. “There’s a fee for checked luggage,” she says, looking like she’s bracing herself for an argument.

  Poor woman. It must suck to work on Thanksgiving. “I know,” I reply. “That’s alright.”

  She punches in more keys, weighs my luggage, charges me for overweight baggage, and then prints out my boarding pass. I look at my seat assignment and wince. 31B. That’s the back of the plane, in a middle seat. On a four-hour flight.

  Pasting on my friendliest smile, I give her a hopeful look. “You don’t have an aisle or a window seat open?”

  She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Hickman. It’s a full flight.”

  Ah well. A middle seat is a minor bump in the shit sandwich that has become my life in the last month and a half. “I’ll deal with it,” I reply. “Oh, and it’s not Mrs. Hickman. It’s Ms. Cooper. The divorce will be finalized in December.”

  In normal times, Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. It’s a day dedicated to eating. There are no crowded malls to wade through, no presents to buy. What’s not to love?

  These are not normal times.

  Six weeks ago, I thought I’d surprise my soon-to-be-ex-husband Aaron at work on a Friday evening. We’d barely seen each other in the last three months, and I’d planned to surprise him with a spontaneous date night.

  Except I walked in on his assistant Peggy giving him a blowjob in his office, bobbing her big blonde head on his junk.

  Even worse? They’d been doing the dirty-dirty for eighteen months. Yup. When Aaron and I were standing up in front of a judge, promising to love and honor one another, he was having an affair with his assistant.

  Let’s just say I’m approaching the holiday with an emotion that does not resemble gratitude in the slightest.

  Two hours later, we board the plane. I take my crappy middle seat. The other occupants in my row haven’t shown up yet. Maybe they missed their flight, I think hopefully, then scold myself for that uncharitable thought. Just because you’re in a craptastic mood, Mackenzie Cooper, it doesn’t mean you have to be a bitch.

  Coopers do not complain. Coopers square their shoulders, hold their heads high and carry on.

  My family lives in Manhattan, but I haven’t told them about the impending divorce. I’m sure my mother will try and talk me out of it, and I’m just not ready to deal with her yet.

  I feel like such a fool. My friends tried to warn me that I was jumping into marriage with Aaron, but I wouldn’t listen. Aaron was tall and handsome, and I was the nerdy computer chick. I’d been so
thrilled that he noticed me that my common sense had fled.

  I’d been wearing love-goggles, and I was blind. And stupid. And now I’m paying for it. When I get to Manhattan, Wendy, Piper, Katie, and Gabby will give me pitying looks and ask me questions about what Aaron did and what I’m going to do next.

  I’m not ready to talk about it. I’m not ready to face the future.

  Enough brooding. I pull out my dollar-store notebook with its neon pink cover from my backpack and start making a list.

  Top Five Ways in which I'm Going to Reclaim My Life.

  Move away from Houston. I'm done with this town. I'll always be the woman who walked in on her ex-husband's assistant giving him head under his desk at work, and I'm never going to be able to leave that memory behind.

  Move back to Manhattan. Find an apartment.

  Find a job. Manhattan is not a cheap place to live, and my savings won’t last long.

  Get a cat. I don't have to worry about Aaron's stupid and imaginary allergies anymore.

  Sex is allowed, but love is off-limits.

  I underline that last resolution several times until I stab a hole through the paper.

  That’s when someone clears his voice. “Excuse me,” an amused male voice says. “If I could get to my seat—”

  I look up, and my eyes widen. The two men standing in the aisle are absolutely gorgeous. The one laughing at me is big, blond, and broad-shouldered, like a modern-day Viking. He's wearing a carelessly un-tucked white shirt with dark blue jeans and worn sneakers, and he still looks like a million bucks. And his friend? His friend, with his custom-tailored gray plaid suit, dark hair, piercing blue eyes and lean, taut body, is just as drool-worthy.

  I’ve won the plane lottery, ladies. Pity I don’t care.

  I get up, and the blond man slides into the window seat. It’s a tight fit. His shoulders are broader than the seat, and his knees hit the back of the row in front of him. I’m five-feet-three-inches, and I don’t have enough room. The Viking is easily six feet tall, and he must be acutely uncomfortable.

  “Are you together?” I ask the dark-haired one. “Would you like to change seats?”

  “No thank you,” he replies. He has light blue eyes, the color of the sky on a cloudless day, and when his gaze locks on mine, my heart beats a little faster. The corner of his mouth quirks up. “I talk to Oliver all the time at work. Right now, you look much more interesting than he does.”

  Well, okay then.

  Is he flirting with me?

  What should I do?

  I’m a hacker. Ask me about registry settings, and I’m your woman, but put me in front of a good-looking guy, and unless he’s talking about brute force attacks or botnets, I’m a tongue-tied, stammering mess.

  The noise that emerges from my throat is a mixture of a laugh, a snort, and a neigh. Lovely. Thank you, universe. You couldn’t make me smooth and sophisticated, could you? No. You had to make me sound like a donkey with a head cold.

  My cheeks flushing with embarrassment, I slide into my chair, my shoulder bumping into Viking-guy. “Sorry,” I murmur and try to hunch so I’m not making contact with his body.

  His smile widens. “Hi,” he says. “I’m Oliver. Tell me why you want a cat, who Aaron was and why he pretended to be allergic, and most of all,” he bends his head toward me, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “why sex is allowed, but love isn’t.”

  “You read my list.” Shock makes my voice indignant. Aren’t people supposed to pretend they aren’t reading over your shoulder? “You’re rude.”

  He laughs easily. “I’ve been accused of that and more,” he says. “But you’re right. That was rude of me. Allow me to make it up to you.” He raises his hand, and like magic, a flight attendant is at our side, beaming radiantly at Oliver the Viking.

  Good-looking-guy-magic. Aaron had it too.

  “I know it’s against the rules,” Oliver says to the attendant, his smile charming and ever-so-slightly-apologetic. “But you couldn’t grab some orange juice from your cart for us, could you? As well as three of your mini-bottles of vodka?”

  She simpers at him. “Of course,” she says. “It’s a four-hour flight, and these seats don’t recline. It seems the least I can do.”

  In about thirty seconds, she returns with a handful of bottles. Oliver takes them from her with a smile, and the dark-haired guy slips her a folded bill. “Thank you,” he says. “I really appreciate it.”

  Whoa. Smooth. I’m pretty sure that was a hundred dollar bill, unless they’ve started putting Benjamin Franklin’s face on smaller denominations.

  Oliver hands me my share of the spoils. “Will you accept my peace offering?” he asks, his eyes twinkling.

  It seems silly to pout for four straight hours, and this might be exactly what I need. Though I’ve cried and I’ve fumed in the last six weeks, I haven’t gotten shit-faced. Maybe I do need to get good and drunk.

  Closing my notebook, I tuck it into the seat pocket in front of me. “Okay,” I say. Opening my OJ, I take a long drink from it before adding the vodka. “Truce.”

  Two hours later, I’m chatty, and I’m well and truly on the way to being drunk. Which sadly only takes three of the little mini-bottles, because I’m a lightweight.

  I’m sitting between Finn and Oliver, their thighs brushing against mine. Drunk-Miki is much better at flirting than Sober-Miki, or so I think. “Now that we’re friends,” Oliver says, a smile dancing on his lips, “Who’s Aaron?”

  “My husband.”

  Finn’s eyes fall to my left hand. I lift it up. “No ring,” I announce. “I’m getting divorced.” Unbidden, my eyes fill with tears. I was such a fool. I wanted so much to be loved that I ignored all the warning signs.

  “Hey, hey.” Oliver’s voice is soothing. “Don’t cry.” His big, strong hand covers mine. “It’s okay.”

  Finn hands me a tissue and a bottle of water. I dab at my eyes and take a long sip of the cool liquid. “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” Finn replies, exchanging a glance with Oliver. “You’re not the first person to cry over a failed relationship, and you won’t be the last. Let’s talk about something else. What do you do?”

  I’m a hacker. In today’s world of shell corporations and offshore bank accounts, people hire me to track down someone’s assets. I’m not a lone wolf; I used to work for a company that gave me some protection from getting sued or worse. But the work I did was quasi-legal, and I’m too cautious to talk about it. Even when tipsy.

  “Computer stuff,” I reply vaguely. “It’s very boring. I stare at spreadsheets all day.”

  Oliver’s hand is still on mine, and I don’t know if I should leave it there, or if I should pull it away. I don’t want to be rude.

  Finn’s face is turned toward me, and he’s close enough that if I fall forward, my lips will land on his. It’s a tribute to Aaron’s asshattery that I resist. His lips look soft. His face is covered with dark stubble, and there’s a tiny part of me that wants to rub against it and purr, just like a cat.

  I should stay away from vodka.

  For the rest of the flight, I sip my water and make conversation. They’re easy to talk to. We like the same kinds of what-if TV shows: Person of Interest, Fringe and Sense 8, and the journey passes as we squabble good-naturedly about whether the second and third Matrix movies were any good. There’s still an undercurrent of sexual tension in the air, but for the moment, it lingers in the background.

  I don’t want to leave when the flight lands; I’m having such a good time. I might be fooling myself, but I don’t think I’m the only one. Finn and Oliver linger in their seats, ignoring the rapidly emptying plane. It’s only when the aisle is almost clear that Finn gets to his feet. “We should go,” he says, his voice reluctant. “Miki, it was great meeting you.” He smiles warmly. “And my initial assessment was right. You are much better company than Oliver.”

  I get up as well, grabbing my backpack from underneath the seat in front of
me. Call me paranoid, but I don’t like leaving my laptop in the overhead bins. I didn’t even like leaving it behind when I went to the bathroom, but I also didn’t want Oliver and Finn to think I was crazy.

  The three of us make our way out. Once we’re in the airport terminal, Oliver puts his hand on my arm. “I’d like to keep in touch,” he says. His expression is intense, and suddenly, he’s not the guy I’ve been talking to for the last four hours. He’s in good-looking-guy mode, and sure enough, I’m back to tongue-tied-and-awkward.

  He pulls a business card from his wallet and holds it out. “Call me?”

  My heart lurches. What the hell am I doing, flirting with these guys? My marriage has just ended. I don’t have a job or a home. My life is one big, tangled, complicated mess, and Oliver and Finn will make it worse.

  I swallow hard. “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say, unable to meet their eyes. Then, before they can try to talk me into it, I run away.