PosterBoyForAverage

Sommer
Marsden

Indie photographer and book cover
artist Aubrey Singleton is living up to her last name. A long summer at the
lake has cured her of her recent breakup, and she’s embracing life as a single
woman. What she’s not prepared for is to come back home to find she has a
handsome new
single
neighbor.

Mike Sykes is a roofer—though he’s
afraid of heights—a father of two and recently divorced. Oh and one might
classify him as smoking hot.

The photographer in Aubrey is
smitten, the single woman in her is breathless. She’s ready to make Mike a
star—on book covers and, though she’s wary of a broken heart, in her life. He’s
not so sure. Mike sees himself as a life complication due to his younger son’s
illness, and not hot by a long shot. In fact, he thinks he’s the poster boy for
average.

But a “business” trip to Key West,
rife with hunky models, sets a backdrop for a shot at true love…

A Romantica®
contemporary erotic romance
from
Ellora’s Cave

She was home.

Aubrey hit her foot on the ugly pink chair in her sunroom. A
puff of dust rose up to meet her. She coughed once, shook her head.

“Well damn, my mother was right.”

She could still recall Wendy Singleton saying, “If you’ll be
all summer at the lake, you should put dust covers down on your furniture.” Had
she? Nope.

“Oh well, lesson learned.”

She pulled the iron security bar from the track of the
sliding door and dragged the door open. It obeyed with the shriek of unused
metal. After the main door was open and some autumn air slipped into the
claustrophobic room, she opened the other four windows until a gust of October
wind cleared away the burned-dust smell.

“Better.”

At the sound of her voice—and because the door to the outside
was being opened— came the tip-tap of tiny feet. Four of them. Bruce came
running in to circle her ankles. Then he pressed his face to the screen door
and barked out into the backyard announcing his arrival home. He was named
Bruce after Bruce Wayne, so he also went by Batman. Her dog’s name had been
easy to choose given the almost perfect mask of black fur around his blue eyes.
And his ridiculously pointy ears. Bruce was half-miniature dachshund, half-mystery.
Aubrey’s bet was on bat.

“Yes, yes, out we go.” She pulled back the screen and there
he went. Taking off like a brown-and-black, short-and-squat rocket. He darted
out on the deck and tore around the side toward the house next door that had
stood empty for six months.

Bruce barked at the mother cat and her kittens who had taken
up residence in the backyard. Though Aubrey doubted they were kittens anymore.
Bruce also barked at the den of rabbits that lived near the fence and the fox
that made it his mission to dart through all the backyards in a straight
line—bound for God knows where—at least once a week.

“Bruce!” she yelled, but she was laughing as she followed
him out. Her eyes took in the abandoned garden, riotous now with weeds and
tomato bushes that had gotten out of control. Lavender speared its pretty
purple flowers into the mix and she could see that the jalapeno bush was
literally weighted down with a bounty.

Apparently the key to good gardening was to give up on your
garden and go away for the summer. By the fence that separated the neighboring
yard from hers, the pumpkin plant had gone wild. It had climbed the fence and
tendrils had climbed all the way across the lawn toward the old shed. Lo and
behold, there were actual pumpkins nestled along parts of the lawn, the fence
and the shed.

Aubrey couldn’t help herself. She laughed out loud.

Bruce dashed down to check out the orange orbs and promptly
cocked a leg.

“Batman, no!” Aubrey started clapping her hands wildly but
to no avail. All she got was a mildly startled expression from her dog.

“I thought his name was Bruce.”

Aubrey started, jumping in the process. Her hand clutched
her heart and she let out a little yelp. Embarrassing all on its own, even more
so when she found the source of the voice.

Shirtless, buff, tan and smiling. He held a pair of manual
hedge clippers and had the most shocking-blue eyes she’d ever seen. Her hand
reached for her absent camera before she remembered it was still packed up with
all her stuff in the car.

“Sorry,” he said, grinning.

“I…it’s okay. Just let me swallow my heart.” She tried a
grin of her own and when he shifted position the itch to reach for her camera
slammed her again. “You are not a burglar, I hope.”

“Do most burglars attack the overwhelming amount of ivy on
the fence before doing said burgling?”

Aubrey snorted. “Nope. At least no burglar I’ve ever heard
of, though they might come in handy. That ivy’s been creeping up that fence and
trying to infest my yard since Mrs. Crandall died.”

He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up in dark
peaks. He was just the right amount of dirty and sweaty to make a pleasing
picture.

“Oh!” Aubrey said. “And I’m Aubrey Singleton. Owner of this
oddly painted bungalow.”

He tipped his head back as if to survey for the first time
her small aqua-and-pale-yellow structure. The flower boxes under the windows
were fish-scaled and a pleasing pale sea-green.

“I like it,” he said. “Makes me feel like I’m on vacation.
All the time.”

“Are you?”

“No,” he chuckled. “I’m your new neighbor. Lucky you. Mike
Sykes is my name.” He thrust out a hand and then reconsidered, almost pulling
it back.

Aubrey rushed forward to grab it and shake. She was no prima
donna and the urge to touch him was a strong one. Something about him was appealing
to her. He seemed open. Genuine. Kind.

“Aubrey Singleton.” She caught his grin. “But I already said
that, didn’t I?”

“You did.”

“Sorry. I was used to no one being out here. And before that
I was used to old man Crandall being the only person doing yard work. You are…a
change.”

Something shifted in his bright eyes. Maybe a dark and
fleeting curl of lust? She knew that inside her belly she felt that faint
flickering kick of attraction. But it would be stupid to get involved with
someone who lived right next door. What if he was a serial killer? Or he
collected painted china dolls? Or dressed his Chihuahua up. Or…

“—all summer?”

Aubrey shook her head to snap her mind out of the what-ifs.
“Sorry?” She shoved her hands in her pockets and watched Batman trying to pee
on the tomato bushes in the raised beds. Fortunately he was too short to hit
anything but the wood and the surrounding grass.

“Where have you been all summer, neighbor? The lady next
door…” He looked up, snapped his fingers. Clearly trying to remember.

“Roberta.”

“Yes, Roberta. She said you lived here but I was beginning
to wonder if you actually existed.”

“Oh I exist. I was up at the lake working for the summer. My
parents have a lake house and they hardly ever use it and after what happened—”
She cut herself off, realizing that she should have skipped that part.

“What happened?” He leaned his forearms on the fence and she
nearly laughed. He looked very much like their neighbor Roberta primed to hear
some grade-A gossip.

“I broke up with my boyfriend. Shouldn’t really call him a
boyfriend. My sometimes companion.”

“Sometimes companion?”

She snorted before she could stop herself. “When he wasn’t
companioning someone else.”

“Ah.”

“Yes ah. So I packed up Bruce and my stuff and went to hang
out at the lake for a few months. Not too shabby, right? No sad story there.”

Other than the aloneness that was getting to her more and
more the older she got. But tall, buff and sexy didn’t need to know her sob
story.

Mike Sykes shrugged and Aubrey couldn’t help but appreciate
what it did to his shoulders. “I guess not a sad story but breaking up is never
an easy thing, is it?”

His face grew clouded for a moment and he took his clippers
and dissected a hefty section of ivy.

“Spoken like a person who knows from experience.” She might
get to find out his story right up front after all.

“Oh I know.” He straightened up and grinned at her. “But you
don’t need to hear my sob story. You need to go stop that, I think. I’m pretty
sure there’s some poison ivy in there. It’s all over my yard.”

He pointed and Aubrey sighed when she spotted Bruce in a
section of overgrown foliage along the far fence. “Not to mention all the
rabbits like to poop in that section,” she growled.

Mike laughed. “You know where the rabbits poop?”

“You learn fast when you have a dog who thinks rolling in
rabbit poop is the height of fine cologne. Ugh!” And she was off, snarling at
Bruce, who paused to give her the most innocent look a dog ever mustered. She’d
chased him up on the deck and was herding him toward the back of the house for
a bath when inspiration struck.

“Hey, Mike Sykes!” she called over the deck railing. He
looked up at her and again she was a bit staggered by the blue of his eyes.

“Yeah?” He shielded his face from the late afternoon sun and
again his shoulders did that sexy little bunchy dance of muscle beneath skin.

“I have a tradition around here. Dusk in the summer is adult
beverage time. I like to watch the fireflies from the deck. Of course the
mosquitoes eat me alive but I just count that as the circle of life. If you
want to join me, just hop the fence, or ya know…” She felt the odd tickle and
dip of butterflies in her stomach. Was she really a little smitten with her new
neighbor?

She thought she might be.

“Or?”

“You can use the gate. You have my permission,” she laughed.

He laughed too. “Good to know.”

And then she had to deal with Batman because he was trying
to make a break for it.

* * * * *

Keeping the dog in the tub had proved more than a feat. So
once that was out of the way and she was officially drenched and smelled of wet
dog herself, Aubrey climbed in the hot spray.

She shut her eyes, letting the water wash over her face.
There behind her closed eyelids was the perfect image of one suntanned, sweaty
new neighbor man. He had dark, dark hair but she could see, upon remembering,
streaks of silver here and there along the sides. He was probably
thirty-five-ish, give or take. The silver didn’t detract from his good looks.
If anything, it added to it.

“Wow. Shut up, brain,” she whispered. “Fixated much?”

But she found that she was. At least a teensy bit. As she
soaped her hair, considering for the millionth time getting it all chopped off,
she flipped through her mental file of all the men she’d taken pictures of this
summer. Off the top of her head, Aubrey could conjure Brad, Mick, Dan, Sam,
Kevan with-an-a, James and Dirk. Each one more handsome and more cut than the
next one.

Brad had been a genuine towhead surfer boy with bronzed
muscles that were from being active, not hours at the gym. His smile was
devastating. Dirk had been a light-chocolate hottie with pecs that would
literally repel quarters if you threw them at him. She knew—she’d done it, at
his encouragement. He had a tattoo that rode low on his hips from one hipbone
to the other. She’d never seen the whole thing, but had more than once been
tempted to ask him to pull down his swim trunks so she could see. Maybe touch.

But she never had. The summer seemed to be a time for her to
recoup the part of herself that had been shaken up by the whole disaster with
Will.

“But Sam was a challenge,” she reminded herself. Aubrey
rested her forehead to the shower wall and let the water beat down on her skin.

Sam Jacobs was very tall, very lean with fawn-colored hair,
sea-glass-green eyes and a spray of fine freckles over his nose and cheeks. A
drop-dead, white-toothed smile that was somehow innocent instead of Hollywood.
To top it all off, he’d been the nicest guy Aubrey had ever met. He’d taken her
out to the carnival after she’d done his photo shoot. He’d bought her a funnel
cake and a glow stick.

He’d also been seven years her junior. A whopping twenty-one
years of age. Legal to drink, but somehow not old enough for her to feel okay
rolling around in bed with him.

It had been one date and they had parted friends.

“And now this.”

She heard Bruce’s tail whacking the outside of the bathtub.
It made her giggle. It meant her curious little canine was sitting out there on
the bathmat eavesdropping. She peeked past the shower curtain to confirm this.

“Now a sexy new neighbor man,” she went on.

Bruce sneezed, seemed to nod and continued to pound out a
drumbeat with his still-wet tail on her tub.