It's HERE!Excerpt:
Stacy Thomas glared at the song lyrics in front of her as the breeze off Lake Michigan ruffled the notebook page. She was missing something with her words. They sounded flat and deficient, kind of like her sex life at the moment.
Sipping her small, plain coffee under a shaded café table, she glanced at the sandy-haired guy in the black t-shirt at the next table. Since he was engrossed in the Chicago Tribune’s sports page, she ignored her dead mother’s voice in her head—which had grown louder since Stacy had moved back into the Evanston house she’d inherited—telling her it was rude to stare.
He was just the kind of man who could spice up her fantasies, but who she wouldn’t have a shot at, especially today with her hair pulled back in a no-fuss ponytail and her dark-rimmed glasses perched on her nose. Neither did much for her too-round face. And she certainly wasn’t dressed to impress in her old t-shirt, shorts, and worn-out Teva sandals.
Without taking his eyes from the newspaper, he grabbed his coffee cup and bought it to his full lips. The motion brought Stacy’s attention to his tanned, muscular forearms covered in blond hair. She imagined he must have similarly dense hair on his chest that would feel silky under her fingertips.
Her gaze followed the line of his arm, over his nicely defined biceps and up to his broad shoulders. He wasn’t bulky like a bodybuilder, more like a football player or a physical laborer, and he wasn’t top-heavy. Having watched him walk out to the patio with his coffee earlier, she knew his jeans hugged some nice thick thighs and a tight ass.
He caught her gawking and winked one of his blue eyes. Her cheeks burned as she dropped her head and stared at her notebook on the table.
A soft chuckle reached her ears from his direction. “Do I have a chocolate moustache?” His deep bass voice vibrated through her.
“Chocolate?” She looked up in surprise.
He lifted his cup as if he were toasting her. “Hot chocolate. I can’t stand the taste of coffee.”
“But it’s close to eighty degrees out here.”
He raised a brow. “What’s in your cup?”
“Coffee.” The cheapest thing she could buy that allowed her to get out of her empty shell of a house and occupy one of the café tables.
He shook his head. “I’ll never understand the prejudice against drinking hot chocolate in the summer when drinking hot coffee is deemed acceptable in any weather.”
She laughed, pleased that he seemed to have a brain to go with all his yummy brawn. “I never thought of it that way.”
"Yeah, it's tough to be a chocolate fan. Takes lots of perseverance and thick skin."
