Just a Number (Downtown #1) Read Free Page B

drink, and then he was out the door. He was the wildest of our group of college buddies, but he found Cinnamon and that was it. Her name is not really Cinnamon but to us she would be forever labeled spicily.
    After graduation and while some of us were in graduate school, we rented a house together. Small quarters, thin walls—you get the idea. Anyway, Leo fell hopelessly in love with a fellow law student named Cindy. Well, she was in favor of giving our boy blue balls and we often heard his distress and begging. Yes, I did say thin walls. “Cin-baby. Come on. I love you. You know you’re the one. Cin-come-on, Cin-come-on, Cin-come-on.” We fell all over ourselves. And of course, being assholes, we would chant—when she wasn’t around—his words until they started to sound like Cinnamon. We then referred to Cindy as Cinnamon. It just caught on. Habit. One we don’t ever plan to break. We love her; she’s the best and she knows it. I believe she gets a kick out of the nickname and likes that it gets to Leo. It put a grin on his face, too.
    A few too many drinks later, Rex had Trey on the road back to his bachelorhood antics. Once again, they were challenging each other as they did every time we were out. Often they tried to get me to play into their bets… their games, but I wasn’t one to go home with girls from bars or parties. I refused to fall in step with them. And Leo kept them from overstepping boundaries. Kept them within the legal limit of harassment. Kept them from slandering women. Kept their propositioning from being unlawfully inappropriate, and definitely kept them from stalking.
    Trey was in the zone. Ready to join our pal in the serial dating realm, he bowed to Rex as if he was ready to listen to an old, wise master. Of course, Rex loved it, and began speaking to Trey in a masterful sensei voice, “Oh. Trey-son. I have so much to teach you. My recent research has taught me what women want.”
    “Lord, help us.” Leo shook his head.
    “Rex, you need to start working for men on some manly sites.” I knew what he had been up to lately.
    “Trey, don’t listen them. Leo is married; he has no clue. Dash, well… he has his head in a guru temple.” Rex waved me off.
    “And where are you getting your information, Rex?” I knew, but I wanted to hear if he would divulge his source or, I should say, sources.
    “Fuck off, Dash! Okay, Trey, hear it is: Women want you to take what you want, dress slick, be a combination of charming and polite, confident bordering on cocky, show interest in them, and in the bedroom—they want you to take charge. Some even want to be spanked. That Fifty Shades guy changed our lives forever.”
    “Oh, don’t forget the part about how well it all works if you’re a billionaire,” I reminded him as Leo and I almost fell off our stools while Rex tried to shelter Trey from us.
    If only that was all it took. Not that I was looking for anything permanent. I had rules and restrictions to be followed if anyone wanted to enter my bed or whatever bed with me and, more often than not, no bed at all:
    No happily-ever-after.
    No relationship.
    No details of personal life.
    Travel was best for sex. My passion provided me with complimentary transportation and lodging. Other bonuses: Easy hook ups, new faces, new bodies, and new pussies. My healthy cock was never lonely. It had been too long since I had gotten away. Too long since I’d gone without vacation pussy. The retreat could not get here fast enough! I thought viewing the various hookups in progress around me.
    Ready to call it a night, I walked up to the bar to close out our tab. That was when I felt it before I saw it. It was such an ugly word for the temptation that stumbled upon me, quite literally. The one that could have had me breaking every one of my rules.
    Yes, when the dark-haired temptress with icy blue eyes brushed up against me, guided by her tall, willowy friend toward the exit, I fell into a trance. I wanted