Page 1 of Ride Me

Chapter 1

“Him? After all the stories we’ve heard? You know that man’s picture is under the actual definition of trouble. Which would usually mean I’d do him, and my bad taste in men is legendary.”

Curious tourists eating one table over paused mid-conversation to glance toward Michelle. The male members of the group eyed her friend with lingering appreciation, cataloguing her dark riot of curls, beautiful brown skin and piercing eyes until Allegra’s unblinking stare shamed them back into minding their own business.

She shouldn’t have done this in public. In her haste to explain her “plan” to her uninhibited roommate, she’d forgotten that Michelle Toussaint was the kind of woman that no man could ignore, even when she was talking with her inside voice, which wasn’t currently the case.

Broaching the sensitive subject at lunch had been worth a shot, but deep down she’d known that even witnesses wouldn’t save her from Michelle’s vocal disapproval.

Still, she didn’t have to be so vehement about it.

Allegra pushed her plate away, half of the giant seafood po’boy she’d ordered left uneaten. “You’ve told me most of those stories, Chelle. So many that for a while I was thinking you had.”

“Had what? Done him? You know that was just a figure of speech, right?” Michelle held up her hands as if warding off the evil of the idea. “He’s got some pretty wrapping and I’m not immune to the view, but he’s also carrying a Kong-sized monkey of the King variety on his back, and I have enough problems.”

“You mean his sex thing?”

“I mean his sex thing,” Michelle repeated dryly, studying Allegra with amused resignation. “Why did you ask my opinion? You already knew what I was going to say about this, didn’t you?”

Allegra sipped her sweet tea with a small smirk. “How would I know that? It’s not like you’ve said the same thing every time he’s come up in conversation or anything.”

The he in question was Celestin Dias Rousseau. It was a mouthful of a name for the mouthwatering man who owned the small coffee shop across the street from their apartment. And the plan was all about Allegra getting him into bed.

It was more complicated and nuanced out than it sounded.

“Oh, I know that look,” Michelle said warily. “It’s the same one you always wore right before you’d take my well-meaning advice as a challenge and do something crazy, like jumping off a campus building into an inflatable pool filled with pudding.”

“It was only the second floor,” Allegra muttered. “And it wasn’t pudding, but I get your point.”

Michelle raised one perfectly arched eyebrow. “The only point I’m making is that I know you.”

“You do. It’s one of the things I love most about you.” Allegra snagged a chip from Michelle’s plate before she could stop her. “It’s definitely the reason I left Houston. I wouldn’t do that just to cohabitate with any moody artist who doesn’t like to share her food and makes me sleep on the couch.”

“The couch is a daybed.” Michelle’s arm curved around her plate protectively when Allegra reached for another chip. “And I thought you moved here to escape the overbearing white bread convention you call a family.”

“That too.”

If anyone ever wondered why she’d gone out into the world craving adventure, why she’d made her living visiting and writing about exciting destinations and dangerous locales, they need look no further than the Jarod family album. It was a sad, thin little tome. Filled—not with summer vacations or hilarious antics—but a composed, perfectly put together group of people wearing the same placid smile. Exactly the same. Only the dates and clothing in the pictures changed. Never the Jarods.

Until she’d come home this last time, of course. Everything was different after that. So different, she’d started wishing for a return to the old state of repression within the first week of her rehabilitation.

It was as if none of them were sure what to do with their newly emerging emotions. Her mother could barely look at her without tearing up, and everyone spoke to and about her in those hushed tones reserved for terminal patients and funeral homes. It was like being the unwilling hostess at her own never-ending wake.

She could barely breathe under the weight of all that pity.

Michelle was the only one who took her full recovery for granted, calling her once a week to get a quick physical therapy update before turning the conversation to other things. Normal, ordinary things that had nothing to do with Allegra’s life being over. It was a balm to her soul.

She’d recognized a kindred spirit from that first day they’d moved into the same dorm room at UT. That they didn’t have much in common never mattered to either of them. All through college, they were so close daylight couldn’t separate the two. And after graduation, the connection refused to fade, no matter how many years or miles came between them.

So when Michelle mentioned her roommate, Stacy, was moving out to accept a better paying job in North Carolina, Allegra immediately offered herself as a replacement, thrilled for the chance to start again in a new city with her best friend. She needed to get away from her well-meaning family before she forgot how to live. Forgot how much fun it could be to get into trouble.

Rousseau was definitely trouble.

“Let me see if I have this straight,” Michelle spoke into the silence. “Every morning since you moved here you’ve been wandering around our fair city, building up your endurance—as you should—before stopping for an iced coffee at Café Bwe.”

Allegra leaned her chin on her hand, willing to play along. “Right so far. Please continue.”

“The owner of said establishment gives you one free beverage and sets up an outside table so you don’t have to sit your limpy ass down on the curb, and you decide that not only does this negate his questionable history with women and turn him into a tragic hero instead of a horny dog, but you’d now like to break your record of avoiding men like the plague with a man who might carry it.”

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