âYouâre killing meâ¦â
Jakeâs voice was as rough as sandpaper. He let his button-down fall, leaving him in his undershirt, and then his pants dropped and he kicked those out of the way.
Rebeccaâs gaze moved down to his thigh even as she ran her fingers over her bare tummy. Jake tensed as he waited for her verdict.
âAre you going to just stand there staring?â she asked.
âI donât know what to do first,â he said. âYouâre stunning.â
For all that she was driving him wild, the hint of a blush that warmed her cheeks was almost more than he could bear. âThatâs a pretty good place to start â¦â she said as she covered the distance between them.
âBut an even better place would be in the actual bedroom.â
Dear Reader,
Welcome back to the next story in the ITâS TRADING Men! trilogy. Weâre in the second month of Trading Men on Trading Cards with the St. Marks Lunch Exchange group of single women in midtown Manhattan, and a new batch of hot hunks have just entered the dating pool!
Iâm so excited to introduce you to Rebecca Thorpe and Jake Donnelly. Rebecca is the CEO of a very large philanthropic foundation, and at twenty-eight, sheâs not willing to settle for anything less than the perfect husband. So far, several have come close, but none have had that magic something.
When she sees Jake Donnelly on a Trading Card, she falls instantly in lust. Heâs completely wrong for her. Jakeâs a former NYPD detective, wounded in the line of duty, who lives in Brooklyn. He doesnât care about the social registry or where she got her degree. Heâs the man of Rebeccaâs most wicked dreams, and she canât wait to cut loose with Jake for one night of carnal indulgence. Only, they both soon realise that one night wonât be nearly enough â¦
I hope you enjoy the fantasy and fun of Have Me, and continue on with Want Me in June.
As always, I can be reached at [email protected]. Hearing from readers is the best thing ever!
Love to you all,
Jo
Where R U???
REBECCA THORPE DIDNâT bother returning her friend Breeâs text because there was no need. She was already walking up the pathway to the St. Marks church basement, the ready-to-be-frozen lunches sheâd prepared in a large tote in preparation for the bimonthly lunch exchange. That wasnât what had slowed her pace though. She took her hand out of her coat pocket and stared again at the trading card sheâd been toying with for the past fifteen minutes.
Ever since Shannon Fitzgerald had introduced the idea of using trading cards for trading men, the lunch exchange group, now numbering a whopping seventeen women, had been in a dating frenzy. The concept was simplicity itself: everyone involved recommended men they knew who were eligible and in the market. Whether they were relatives, friends or even guys without that perfect chemistryâfor them at leastâthere was suddenly a bounty of prescreened, fully vetted local men. None of whom knew that they were members of this very select group.
On paper Gerard had seemed ideal. He was gorgeous, not only on the front of the card, either. Tall, dark, handsome, heâd gotten his degree from Cambridge, then had come to New York to work for the United Nations. He was urbane, sophisticated, dressed like a dream. And heâd taken her to dinner at Babbo, which was never a bad thing.
Sadly, like the other three men Rebecca had gone out with, courtesy of the trading cards, there had been no sizzle. Maybe sheâd see Gerard again because he was fascinating, and they had many common interests, but the man she was looking for wasnât him. Sheâd known ten minutes into the date that the magic was missing, and while sheâd been disappointed, she hadnât been surprised.
She was too picky. Or something. She couldnât spell out her criteria for the one but she certainly knew when she hadnât found it. Sheâd never had luck with men, and that had as much to do with her being a Winslow as it did with her taste, but the end result was that she hadnât truly connected with a man, not for the long haul, and the trading cards hadnât changed her luck.
So, with all due respect to the trading cards and to the whole idea of dating, she was done. No more cards for her, no more setups, no more blind dates, no more searching and no more hoping.
If she met someone in the course of doing what she loved, then great. If she didnât, she was fine with that, too. At twenty-eight she wasnât willing to say sheâd never try again. She wanted to have a partner, maybe even have kids. But for now? Work was enough. Work was almost too much. It barely left time for her to visit with friends, go to movies, the theater, read a book. She was taking herself out of the game.