Jokers Wild: Stripped Bare Read online

  Jokers Wild: Stripped Bare

  Lena Matthews

  Published 2005

  ISBN 1-59578-131-5

  Published by Liquid Silver Books, imprint of Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 10509 Sedgegrass Dr, Indianapolis, Indiana 46235. Copyright © 2005, Lena Matthews. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  Liquid Silver Books http://lsbooks.com

  Email: [email protected]

  Edited by

  Ansley Velarde

  Cover Art

  by Dawn Seewer

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Dedication

  To Janette for all of your inspiration, encouragement, and friendship. Thank you for sharing your dream man with me. I hope I made him everything you wished for.

  Also to Raven and Mike for helping me turn my dream into reality. All of the great things that have happened to me this year wouldn’t be possible without you two. Thank you for it all.

  Prologue

  “Pencils up everyone, time’s up.” A loud, collective groan filled the classroom as students quickly filled in the last few remaining circles on the test sheet. “When I said pencil up, I meant the lead-pointing ends as well,” Professor Brody Kincaid said dryly from the front of the class.

  This was his last class for the semester, so he was just as anxious to get out of there as the students were to get a few extra minutes to write. Looking across the room at the clock, Brody estimated the time it would take to wrap this up, get home and relax with some soft rock and a nice stiff scotch. Teaching adults was supposed to be easier than teaching kids, but most of the students in his classroom were little more than children themselves.

  There were a few sprinkles of gray in several heads, which was a refreshing change, because it made him feel like people were taking his class not just for credit, but to learn. Teaching the willing was a lot more rewarding then teaching the sheep, who were only there because they thought it was an easy A. Renaissance Literature wasn’t a hard subject if you liked to read, but finding a person who liked to read in this instant-gratification world was like trying to find a virgin in high school. They were out there but you had to look hard.

  Sitting on the edge of his desk, he peered out over the room, looking for anyone still trying to write. As usual, his eyes fell on the slightly bent head of Melissa Haddan, who was putting her closed book into her book bag. Her chestnut-brown hair was pulled up and out of the way, clearing her face of unnecessary debris. Her cool, polished demeanor only made him want to see her ruffled and disheveled. Brody wanted to see her above him, sweaty and free. The thought made him lower the papers he held to cover the front of his stirring erection.

  “Could everyone pass their test up to the front of the row and down to the left?” he instructed the waiting faces. Standing up, he walked to the podium and began regurgitating his ‘end of the semester’ speech. “I hope this class challenged you, and that you got as much out of it as I got from teaching it to you. Your test grade will be posted on the door on Friday, along with your grade for the class. Remember your numbers, because it won’t be under your last name. Any questions, I’ll be in my office on Tuesday from eleven to three, and if you want to make an appointment for another time, call my office.”

  Brody raised his eyebrow expectantly. “That’s it people, get out.”

  Laughing, everyone stood up and rushed to the head of the class. Several female students clamored for his attention, but he only had eyes for one. The one that was standing on the edge of the group, looking around at his fan club.

  Not wanting to call attention to herself, she always played down her looks. In her normal late-night school attire, she hid her voluptuous figure behind baggy shirts and jeans. Brody wanted nothing more than to pull her top off and lavish her body with kisses. She reminded him of pin-up girls of the fifties, those full-figured, beautiful women who dominated the screen with their presence and aura.

  Brody wanted her to stay, and he discreetly tried to catch her eyes. Melissa wasn’t one of the academic groupies who got their kicks from fucking professors. In fact, she was the complete opposite. Quiet and reserved, never raising her hand or staying after to ask him questions, she was almost a mirage floating discreetly in the distance. If she hadn’t turned in her work, he would have doubted she was even there.

  Melissa seemed shy and despite her lush figure, delicate. From the first moment he noticed her he felt an urge to protect. Something about the way she carried herself, and the wary look in her eyes, called out to the soldier still in him. That was one of the things that appealed to him about her, that and her full, large breasts.

  He had always been a breast man, even as a teenager he had gone for full-figured women, because he loved to bury his face in their mounds. Once, when he was passing out papers, he had managed to catch a glimpse down her blouse as she was bending forward, and that hint of pale white cleavage froze him in his tracks.

  Brody liked substance more than sex appeal, and that was what put Melissa on his radar. The few times that he’d had a moment with her they had never been alone, which was probably a good thing for his career, because the fact that he was her instructor wouldn’t have deterred him at all.

  He knew that if he had ever been given a chance to be alone with the lush beauty, he would have been hard pressed not to let her hair down and dive between her thighs. He was really looking forward to this semester ending so he could get to know her a little better.

  “Professor Kincaid, I wanted to see about setting up an appointment.” Carol Palmer, a leggy redhead who had done everything but drop down on her knees and suck his cock, was fingering a gold necklace on her neck and smiling up at him as if he were the sun god Ra.

  “Just call my office and I’ll see what we can do.” Brody made a mental note to avoid her call at all costs. There was no way he wanted to be alone with her. He could already see his tenure being tossed out the window.

  “Are you going to be teaching next session?” asked the blonde on his left. Brody didn’t know her. He wasn’t even sure if she was in the class, but he nodded anyway, hoping to avoid being put in a position where he would have to stutter and try to come up with her name.

  Sometimes he felt like a piece of meat on display. His buddies would laugh their asses off if they knew how much he hated being at the receiving end of all those lustful glances. At first it was cool, it was even interesting when he was approached by a student for some after school tutoring that had absolutely nothing to do with his curriculum. He had eaten it up like candy, but then it just got old.

  Brody thought he had heard every silly come-on line ever invented, and some not-so­silly ones, but his sexual urges no longer ran his life. Unless he counted the urge he felt for Melissa. But he was going to be smart about this. He had kept his distance all semester long, even when everything inside of him cried out for him to take her, he resisted. He wanted their time together to be special, not rushed or hidden from view. He wanted to be able to have her on his arm and proudly say ‘this is my woman’.

  The women in his class seemed to get younger every semester. Their skirts got shorter and the tops tighter, but he knew that if he asked any of them to name a great work of fiction, that one of them would say Harry Potter. Looking over to where Melissa had been standing,
he groaned as he saw her ease through the crowd.

  “Mel…” he tried calling to her, but he was too late. She was already out the door before he got her name out. “Fuck,” he muttered to himself as she slipped away. Next time, he thought sourly, I won’t let you get away so easily.

  Chapter 1

  Three months later

  Missy glanced up from her textbook and peeked over the counter, looking for signs of intelligent life forms in need of her help. Intelligent life forms in an adult bookstore, she thought with a giggle, like that was really going to happen. Not that she had anything against the late-night visitors that gifted her with their presence. If it weren’t for people shopping for porn and vibrators at ten o’clock at night, she wouldn’t have a job. A job she needed and really liked, despite the location and the merchandise.

  Glancing at her wristwatch, she mentally gave herself another ten minutes before she would go bang on the doors of the movie booths to rouse the late night whackers, so they could hurry up and she could close up. Not wanting to interrupt their jerks, she always coughed loudly before hitting the doors. No need to scare someone into spraying accidentally on the screen. Not that she was going to clean it up if they did. She didn’t make that much money.

  The bell above the door dinged, alerting Missy of customers entering the store. Setting down her book, she pushed her wire-frame glasses up on her small pug nose, and turned and smiled as she saw her friend Kayla and another woman entering the store. Walking from behind the counter, she embraced the multicolored dressed Kayla, who was beaming as usual. Kayla was one of the few people she knew who constantly had a smile on her face.

  “Hi, what are you doing here so late?” Missy asked, pulling back.

  “We’re here to buy an engagement present for Eliza,” Kayla said, pulling the other woman forward.

  “You’re buying her an engagement present here?”

  “Hey, it’s the gift that keeps on giving.”

  Laughing, Missy followed them to the vibrator aisle, still keeping a lookout at the counter. It wasn’t that she was worried that someone might want to make off with a vibrator, because her policy was, if anyone needed a vibrator so badly that they had to steal it, then they were welcome to it.

  Holding up a large green vibrator, Eliza asked jokingly, “Hmm, when you see this, what comes to mind?”

  “Ointment.” Laughing they put it back and picked up something equally graphic and equally amusing.

  “Okay, what about this?” Holding up a large lava-lamp-shaped butt plug, Kayla asked.

  “That you have to tweak your nipples to turn it on.”

  “My theory,” Missy said, very dignified-like, “Is if you can take something that large in your ass, do you really need it?”

  The women burst out laughing at the assortment of gadgets surrounding them. Missy often thought that the devices were silly, but it wasn’t like she could ask a customer who was buying one what the hell they were thinking.

  The bell rang again and she stepped out of the aisle and watched as several well dressed, tuxedo-clad men entered the building.

  “Hubba hubba, ding ding, baby you got everything,” Kayla said, stepping into the aisle, eyeing the gorgeous men.

  Elbowing her, Missy muttered, drooling herself, “You’re engaged, back off.”

  “Engaged honey, not blind.”

  Smiling, Missy walked behind the counter. Sitting on her stool, she shuffled her feet back and forth, eyeing the men as they strolled down the aisles. There was absolutely nothing sexier in the world than hot men dressed in tuxedos. Nothing.

  “Missy,” Kayla called from the toy section. “Eliza needs to know which anal plug you would recommend.”

  Red heat flushed her cheeks as several of the tuxedo-clad men turned in her direction. Ducking her head, she hid her scarlet face behind her hair and hopped off the stool. She was going to kill Kayla, she fumed silently as she hurried from behind the counter. One of the reasons she liked being back there was because it hid her plump figure, which was exactly what she wanted to do when she was in the presence of mouth-watering men. Hide.

  “Did you have to yell that?” she muttered to a laughing Kayla.

  “Oops, my bad,” Kayla teased. Picking up a plug, she said, “Eliza here is working up the nerve to have anal sex, much to the delight of Chris, I might add, and she’s looking for a starter kit.”

  “A starter kit, huh?” Missy’s whiskey-brown eyes crinkled in delight. She could see why Kayla liked to tease so much.

  “Chris is trying to weasel his way out of my third fantasy, by insisting on this as his reward for fulfilling his end of the bet.”

  “What bet?” asked Missy.

  “Better yet, what was the third fantasy?” Kayla asked.

  “Forget I said anything,” Eliza remarked, blushing.

  “I don’t think so,” Kayla said, leaning against the dildo display. “Inquiring minds want to know.”

  “Okay, I’ll tell, if you tell about a certain phone call you made awhile back.”

  “Never mind,” Kayla muttered, looking down. Her cheeks began to show a hint of pink, which only spurred Missy’s curiosity further.

  “Why do I feel left out?” she asked, looking at the two women.

  “Hey, do you play poker?” quipped Kayla. “Maybe you can come to one of our games.”

  “No I don’t…”

  “Excuse me,” said a deep masculine voice from behind Missy. Turning around, she looked into the eyes of her former college Renaissance Literature teacher, Professor Brody Kincaid. “I would like to be rung up.”

  “Sure, no problem,” Missy said, scampering around him. Walking quickly to the front of the store, she reminded herself that it was highly unlikely that he would even recognize her. Out of a sea of students, she doubted that she stood out. Not one to call attention to herself, she never raised her hand to answer questions, and never showed up too early or too late for class. Missy had crafted the art of blending in to a science.

  Standing behind the counter, she studied him while he put his items on the counter. Dressed like the other men who had walked in, he was wearing a tuxedo without the tie, with the first few buttons undone. His black hair was full and thick and lightly touched the collar of his shirt. In a word, Missy thought, he was delicious.

  Ringing up his purchases, she tried hard not to notice what he bought, but that was like trying not to stare at an accident. Missy really wanted to know, though, why a man that attractive needed a blow-up doll and handcuffs. It wasn’t like the doll was going to go anywhere, but working here she had seen stranger things.

  “So, Melissa Haddan, should I worry that you’re going to try to use this to change your grade on your transcripts?” he teased, as she picked up the pussy lollipops.

  Looking up quickly, she looked, startled, into his large gray eyes. She was surprised that he had even noticed her, let alone knew who she was. “Umm, of course not sir,” she stuttered, as she shoved the pussies into the bag.

  “I was joking,” he assured her, making her blush brighter. “I’m just surprised to see you here.”

  “I guess I could say the same.”

  Chuckling, he nodded his head in agreement. “Touché, Ms. Haddan. But see, I could always use the bachelor party as my excuse.”

  “Well, then, I guess I’ll just use the need to pay my bills as mine.” Missy wasn’t used to men paying her this much attention. The way he was looking at her made her feel warm and itchy. Like her skin didn’t fit. It was very unsettling, but felt oddly good at the same time.

  Stepping back from the counter, he looked down the row of impulse items, and selected a pair of racy playing cards. Tossing them on the counter, he reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out his wallet.

  “Did I hear you correctly, that you don’t know how to play poker?”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s a shame. I happen to be a poker aficionado.”

  “Really?”

  “Y
es.”

  “I know. It’s sad isn’t it? I’ve always wanted to play, but never had the time to learn.”

  “There’s always time,” he said, handing her the money.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I’d be more than willing to teach you.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Missy hesitated. “That’s probably not a good idea.”

  “Anthony Holden said, ‘Whether he likes it or not, a man's character is stripped bare at the poker table; if the other players read him better than he does, he has only himself to blame. Unless he is both able and prepared to see himself as others do, flaws and all, he will be a loser in cards, as in life.’ And I would have to say I whole-heartedly agree. There’s a science to it, an art if you dare, but truly, when it comes down to it, it’s all about how well you know yourself and how far you’re willing to go.”

  Missy felt the urge to look to behind her, to make sure the looks of interest she thought he was sending were really for her. Reaching into the register, Missy took out his change, praying that it was the right amount. Feeling flustered, she thrust the money at him. Reaching for the change, Brody lightly brushed his fingers against hers as he took the money. Her pulse flickered beneath her skin, joining the erratic beat of her heart.

  Brody’s gazed flickered to her mouth as she licked her lips nervously, before swinging back to her eyes. Reaching into his wallet he pulled out a business card and slid it across the counter towards her. Picking up his bag, he asked her. “How far are you willing to go, Melissa?”

  Blushing, Missy looked down at the card on the counter and watched from her peripheral vision as he walked away. Missy stared down at the card as if she was afraid that it was going to jump up and bite her. Reaching slowly for it, she grazed the corner just as Kayla swiped it from under her fingertips.

  “What’s this?” Kayla demanded eagerly.