Play Fling (A Stupid Cupid Book) Read Online Free PDF Page B

pheromones diagram A.
Watching his mouth move just did things to her. Tinkered with her
concentration. Plucked at her libido.
    She needed to focus. Brooke. Dinner. The
break-in. Her seven slender gold bracelets, her cupid handcuffs,
jingled on her right arm when she powdered her not-so-pert nose.
They constantly reminded her. Brooke Munkle had to fall in
love.
    Or Millie wouldn’t get back to her old life.
Or Kiki Kent might as well be dead instead of missing. Or she would
lose AJ.
    Millie smiled tightly at her reflection. With
a fluff and a toss of mousy brown curls, she adjusted her meager
bust and exited. AJ stood behind his architect’s desk, scanning her
latest bunch of bachelor files. Mouse sized guilt squeaked inside
her. She should be doing that. Not only was he sex and lust, he was
kindness and consideration, too?
    She couldn’t do this without him.
    She pulled her coat on. “Any luck?”
    AJ shook his head, tossing a file aside.
“Aren’t there any more parameters I can request?”
    “If I had any. Good credit, educated, no
felonies, weight, height. No wait, have we added weight? What do
you usually use again?”
    “Selecting the Ms. Right is an entirely
different set of parameters.”
    “Let me guess. Two, in particular, right?”
she asked.
    AJ grinned. There was that, too. He got her
dumb jokes. A finger of heat rippled over her shoulders. She shook
it off, shrugging into the parka. It was snowing in Reno. Again.
Why couldn’t they land a gig somewhere tropical? Why did every last
one have to be in some cold or damp or dirty little city?
    The jacket’s material hissed with her
movements. It smelled like swimming pool. “I shouldn’t be
long.”
    AJ nodded, his attention back on the files.
Millie waited for something else to say. Today’s miserable failure
had left her drained. The only dirt she could find in Brooke’s
entire place was poor laundry skills and a photo of Brooke’s
wedding day. Zilch, in a nutshell, unless…she’d looked so happy in
the photo. “Has her ex-husband’s file come in yet?”
    AJ shook his head. Millie let out a nice
long, loud sigh. Ahh. Forget it.
    She was stalling and, while leaving AJ always
felt a bit like caffeine withdrawal, she needed to get to Ramone’s.
To Brooke.
    To pinpoint why her wedding day was the first
thing Brooke needed to see when she came home.
    Millie grabbed her keys and left. She half
wanted to forget the whole mess and let Brooke stay pissed. Buy
some time to send AJ with more parameters, time to brainstorm. But
Brooke would only get madder. This assignment didn’t need to get
harder.
    Wouldn’t it be nice if she could just explain
the truth. “You see, Brooke, I’m a new cupid, a felon of sorts on
community service so to speak, and I’m crap at it. I haven’t made a
match in the three years I’ve been stuck in this mess. However,
you, Brooke, are in luck. I have vowed to find you love if it’s the
last thing I do. And it might be. So, while you were waiting for me
today, all embarrassed and angry, I was picking your lock, invading
your apartment and begging the universe for a break in your case so
I could isolate some schmuck to love you, ditch off one of these
bangles here, and get back to who I used to be. Fabulous. See? No
need to get mad. No need to fret. Get on board, help me help you.
All that shit. Sound good?”
    Good.
    Five minutes later, Millie swerved into
Ramone’s and parked. She spotted Brooke’s Acura. Steam wafted from
her mouth only to be sucked off by the wind. She shook her hands
out. Now or never. No wonder she still wore all seven gold bands.
Love just wasn’t her drink of choice. Give her a shot of like any
day. Lust on the rocks. She trudged up the wet slope of strip mall
parking lot to the restaurant’s door. Red checked tablecloths and
candle-dripped wicker wine bottles faked authenticity. Scents of
Florence sunsets, memories of Andalusia beaches, hovered in her
mind’s peripheries.
    She stepped inside