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Oh no. Just no.
“No,” Ansley said immediately, her tone unusually high-pitched. No, they couldn’t be the Shlykov brothers. She was expecting three old grouches. But then again she was also expecting a toy store in the literal sense of the term.
“Can you excuse me for a moment? Please,” she said, then pursing her lips, she marched on shaky legs toward the exit.
But even as she squinted up at the old-fashioned sign hanging above the entrance of the door that readCupid’s Toysin a bright and cheerful font, she knew it was a moot undertaking.
She had hoped she had the wrong address. Maybe it was the building next door, except the buildings on either side, were already deserted and boarded up. Besides, the key she had been given had fitted perfectly in the lock.
She had the right place, all right.
“Cupid’s Toy’s, my ass,” she mumbled.
Okay. Okay. Okay.
She just had to regroup. Everything was still fine. The fight was still on. She was still going to win.
Oh gosh. No wonder Marjorie and her then-future husband had holed themselves up in her store back then when they first met. It was a sex shop. They were not only discovering their love for each other, but they were also discovering their love for each other’s bodies with toys too.
Out of her habit of being a natural-born cheerleader, she clenched her fists and waved them in the air, then murmured, “Go, Marjorie.” But she couldn’t extend the cheer to reach the expression on her face as she tried to also estimate how screwed she was.
It was all her fault anyway for assuming it was a kid’s store, and really she was only a little to blame for the mix-up. Anyone would expect that the only kind of business a sweet lady like Marjorie would own would be a kid’s toy store, not an X-rated treasure chest of sometimes battery-operated pleasurable bliss.
Her entire spiel had been based on it being a children’s toy store, and she would be appealing to the childhood memories of what she had grossly mistaken would be old men who wanted to tear the store down. She had hoped that they had grandchildren themselves. For all she knew they could have bought gifts for their own children from the very same store. Yeah, that speech was not going to happen now.
Yup, she was a bit screwed.
Now she was going to have to appeal to the three unfairly but obscenely hot men who decided to change the arrangements of their meeting and showed up at the shop instead of the coffee shop they were supposed to meet at.
She needed a strong drink, and drinking was something she hardly engaged in. She didn’t need an injection of alcohol to have fun. She was fun by herself.
Chewing her lips, she desperately scanned the area for a bar or a liquor store, but the closest she could come to serving any kind of drink was a food truck advertising freshly pressed fruit juices. That would have to do.
She ordered a regular juice, gave herself a brain freeze as she gulped down the sweet and icy drink, then clutching her head, told the man her handbag, which she had dropped in the kerfuffle of her stunned confusion, was still in the store and she would be back in a bit to pay him. He clearly took pity on her and was nice enough to tell her it was on the house, and all she could do was whisper a gratified thank-you.
Rethink. Regroup. Redo.
Two things had thrown her off her game. One, the sex toys, and two, the disgustingly gorgeous men who were going to tear down dear Marjorie’s store. One certainly affected her more, much more than the other.
But so what if they were not at all what she expected. So what if they were young and sexy with a mind-blowing charisma that should be declared detrimental to anyone’s health.
The objective was the same.
She still had to make sure they didn’t take down Marjorie’s store.
The fight was still on indeed.
Once she marched back in there, she was going to be a different person. She had been momentarily whacked sideways into next Tuesday, with a chair calledsurprise, but now there were no more surprises. She had been caught up, clued in.
Their handsomeness and their rather sensual glowering could only melt her mind once and no more. It was like that saying she had glanced imprinted onto one of the wooden paddles.
It’s only kinky the first time you do it.
The same could be said about their effect on her. She was practically immune to them now.
The game was on. The battle forged. And victory would be hers.
Or her name wasn’t Ansley Victoria King.
