By the Book_A laugh-out-loud feel good romantic comedy Read online

  By the Book

  Nancy Warren

  Ambleside Publishing

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Also by Nancy Warren

  About the Author

  1

  SHARI WILSON wanted to kiss the dyslexic postal worker who serviced her vintage brick apartment building in Seattle’s Capitol Hill. He’d mixed up her mail again.

  Sandwiched between her own letters for S. Wilson, Suite 325, was a bulky brown paper package addressed to L. Lawson, Suite 235. She’d have another excuse to see Luke Lawson, megahunk. She hugged the package to her, as giddy as a schoolgirl with a crush.

  Okay, she was a schoolteacher with a crush. And what a crush. Her downstairs neighbor made her shiver. It was a combination of a charming smile, tall, rangy body and a twinkle in his sleepy green eyes that just hinted at devilry between the sheets.

  They’d been exchanging mixed mail for months now. In all the misdirected letters, she’d noted nothing was addressed to anyone else in his apartment, and there was no sign of a female when she’d delivered mail to his door, so it seemed logical to deduce he was single.

  And hot.

  Just as she was single.

  And hot.

  Getting hotter every time she thought of L. Lawson just a floor below her and one suite over in 235.

  Fate, in the form of the portly postie, had thrown them repeatedly together and the zing of attraction had been immediate and, she thought, mutual. The last couple of times Luke had come to the door tousled and stubble-cheeked, his heavy-lidded eyes gazing at her as intimately as though she and Luke had just made love. Oh, what those eyes could do to a woman’s blood pressure.

  So why, apart from seduction by eye contact during their neighborly exchange-mail-and-chitchat sessions, hadn’t L. Lawson made any kind of move to get to know her better?

  She bit her lip as she bypassed the elevator and jogged up the stairs to her floor. Maybe he was shy, or uncertain of her feelings or status.

  Perhaps it was time she took charge of the situation and let him know both her feelings—attracted, very attracted, and her status—single. Very single.

  The easiest way to give him the message was to ask him out. Nothing too intimate, just a movie or Chinese or pizza. A simple get-together that would give them a chance to become better acquainted.

  She would run down with his mail, casual as can be, and say, “Hey, I was just going to grab something to eat. If you’re not doing anything, why don’t you join me?”

  Yes. That was the way—easy, no pressure. If he turned her down she’d know where she stood and could ditch the adolescent fantasies that had begun to creep into her mind. Letting herself into her apartment, she snorted. There was nothing adolescent about her fantasies. They were definitely of the not approved for audiences under the age of eighteen variety.

  She dumped her bag of papers to mark on the dining table and picked up Luke’s package. Taking a deep breath, she decided to go for it. She’d reply to the erotic messages his eyes had been sending her way. She’d ask him out.

  Tonight.

  A once-over in the bathroom mirror reminded her that teaching English to a bunch of high school students was no day at the spa. She couldn’t go anywhere without a quick shower. While she was lathered up under a warm spray of water she decided she might as well shave her legs.

  After drying off, she brushed her teeth, fixed her hair, applied fresh makeup and headed into the bedroom. She reached for jeans, then changed her mind. She was sick of jeans.

  A nice flirty skirt just jumped right out of her wardrobe and into her arms. She added a torso-hugging top in her favorite purple, her faux Tiffany earrings and she was ready. She reached into the bottom of her closet for strappy sandals and caught herself. She didn’t want to look as if she’d dressed up for Luke, when nothing could be further from the truth.

  Shari slipped her feet into her worn Birkenstocks instead. Yes, they made just the right statement: casual, not trying to impress, not at all. She retrieved the package, then noticed a blob of something on her skirt.

  Back to the bathroom. She put the brown envelope down, turned on the tap then reached for her hand-washing soap. Ach, she needed a new bar and it was under the sink somewhere. On her hands and knees she rummaged through the bathroom cleaners, boxes of first-aid items, that time-of-the-month stuff, her travel bag for toiletries. Ah, there was the soap, right at the back. She found a clean facecloth, too, and rose.

  And gasped.

  Damn. The faucet was leaking again. Water trickled from its base gathering on the countertop in a pool that had reached Luke’s package and soaked into the kraft paper. She grabbed up the brown envelope and gingerly poked at the wet end. It was a little soggy, but surely there hadn’t been time for the water to soak whatever was inside. Felt like a book. Uh-oh.

  Best to get it into Luke’s hands before the moisture penetrated. She decided to leave cleaning her skirt until later and just scraped off the blob with a fingernail.

  She grabbed her keys, her phone and the package, let herself out of her apartment and ran down one flight of stairs to Luke’s floor.

  In no time she was standing outside his door breathing faster than anyone should who’d only run down a single flight of stairs. She took a deep gulp of air, rehearsed her casual dinner invitation and knocked.

  Silence.

  It hadn’t occurred to her that he wouldn’t be home. He was always home. She knew from their casual conversation that he was a journalist—she’d even seen his byline in the local paper. Almost as soon as she’d had the thought, she heard the lock scrape and then the door opened.

  And Luke Lawson cast his usual erotic spell over her. He was, without doubt, the sexiest man she’d ever seen. No matter how many times she saw him, his in-your-face sex appeal always struck her. And, just as reliably, her heart jumped and started working overtime, pumping blood to every erogenous zone in her body—and a few zones that were borderline but just wanted to join the party.

  The wonderful sizzle of attraction danced and popped through her blood and along her nerve endings as she gazed at him. It wasn’t just the devilish glint in his green eyes, hinting at intimacies they’d never shared, but so easily could. And it wasn’t just the dimple in his chin, or the disheveled dark brown hair that reminded her of lazy Saturday mornings in bed, or the broad shoulders and muscular chest. It was, she decided, the way all the elements of his appearance went together.

  Just right.

  His mouth broke into a welcoming smile when he saw her and the package she held out. “Don’t tell me he did it again?”

  He didn’t sound annoyed at the mail mix-up. He sounded as delighted as she felt.

  She tried to keep the grin off her own face as she handed him his package. “Yep. He did it again.”

  She wanted to say something to him, of that she was absolutely certain, but what was it? She gazed at him, feeling the powerful force of his animal magnetism drawing her closer.

  His gaze skimmed her body, which immediately upped the sizzle wattage. “You look great,” he said. “Going someplace s
pecial?”

  Oh, that was it. Her brain clicked back into place. She was going to ask him out. She glanced down at herself with what she hoped was a this-old-thing? expression. “No, nothing special. In fact, I was wondering—”

  She got no further. A damp squishy sound interrupted, followed by a loud thunk. She glanced down to see the wet end of the package split and a large paperback book fall, in what seemed like slow motion, to the floor.

  The book—a garish-looking, large-size paperback—landed face-up. The title, in black against a glossy red background, was in letters so huge she could have read it from space.

  Sex For Total Morons: A How-To Guide.

  She couldn’t stop staring at the thing pulsing its neon message from the floor. A blush rose on her cheeks. It couldn’t be. If Luke sent away for a book like this…well, that would mean… No. It couldn’t be.

  She stared at the title, as though if she concentrated hard enough the words might rearrange themselves into Home Woodworking for the Handyman or Financial Planning for Beginners. But even when she blinked, the words didn’t change; Sex For Total Morons: A How-To Guide imprinted itself like an X-ray on the back of her eyelids.

  What a disappointment. She didn’t know if she was more embarrassed for Luke, that he needed a how-to manual, or for herself, that she’d discovered his humiliating secret. All she knew was her face was at least as red as the book cover.

  After one of those awful moments that seem to stretch for centuries, she risked an upward glance to find Luke fiddling with the remains of the brown envelope, a duller shade of red coloring his own cheeks.

  “I’m sorry,” she blurted. “It was my fault. The…the envelope got wet. I meant to warn you. I was just, um, washing something in the sink and…well my faucet leaks…” Oh, Lord. She was sounding like a total moron herself. She pressed her lips together to stop her own babbling.

  “I don’t suppose…” He cleared his throat. “I don’t suppose you’d believe me if I told you that book’s for a friend.”

  “It was addressed to you,” she reminded him, feeling worse by the second.

  He sighed. “There is that.”

  Every second the awkwardness between them increased. Disappointment was a lead weight in her stomach. It wasn’t that she’d even planned on going to bed with him, she barely knew the man. But, well, the possibility had always crackled in the air between them.

  At least she’d thought so. Now she had a feeling she’d let her own fantasies turn him into God’s gift to women. Something he clearly wasn’t. Not that she minded, of course. He was still a very nice man.

  It was just that knowing he needed a how-to book took all the fun out of things. It was like easing open a gorgeously wrapped box of chocolates and finding nothing but Turkish delight—blech. Going to see a movie, and arriving to a power outage. Picking up a book and… Oh, God. Don’t even go there.

  Her discovery wasn’t earth-shattering. Just really, really disappointing.

  As each uncomfortable second passed, the urge to escape grew stronger.

  “Anyway.” She forced a bright smile. “I should get going. I’ve got this, uh…” She flapped her hands around, looking for a graceful exit line, some dreadfully important engagement she had to rush off to, some… “thing.”

  The glance he sent her reminded her that she’d just told him she didn’t have anything special on tonight. In fact, she’d said, she was wondering…and had been about to ask him out. Oh, damn. Her addled brain couldn’t think of any graceful way out of the awkwardness. “Well, I’d better be going.”

  “Sure. Thanks for the—” he cleared his throat again “—package.”

  “Anytime,” she called over her shoulder, already bolting.

  LUKE WATCHED HIS SEXY, and seriously flustered, upstairs neighbor run the hundred yard dash to the stairwell, and wondered just how the evening might have ended if the envelope hadn’t broken open at that most inopportune moment.

  Shaking his head at the vagaries of fate and the U.S. Postal Service, he shut the door and eased to a squat in front of the book. The cover was a bit more in-your-face than he would have liked, but it was certainly eye-catching.

  He traced the title, Sex for Total Morons: A How-To Guide by Lance Flagstaff. He picked up the heavy tome and whacked himself softly on the forehead. “Lance, buddy. Your timing sucks.”

  He gazed at the damp, jagged edge of the envelope. If it had only held together a few more minutes… It reminded him of one of the sections in chapter eight, and he shook his head. “Talk about premature ejaculation.”

  Well, his babe-radar suggested he’d been intriguingly close to having a date tonight, till Lance popped out, uninvited.

  Damn. With his latest men’s magazine article emailed, and no looming deadlines for a change, he’d have loved a night on the town. And he couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather spend it with than the lady upstairs. Shari Wilson, Suite 325—the reward he’d promised himself when his most crushing deadlines eased.

  Luke groaned in frustration, knowing a night with Shari wasn’t going to happen anytime soon. Lance had seen to that.

  There were places he could go tonight, but all of a sudden he didn’t feel like going anywhere. Instead, he went to the fridge in his galley kitchen, twisted the cap off a beer and returned to the living room where he settled onto the couch to flip through his new book.

  “Chapter One. First Impressions.” Luke snorted over his beer thinking about Shari’s face as she read the title of the book. He’d made an impression on her she’d remember forever. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite the impression he’d hoped for.

  He most certainly didn’t want to be seen as a guy who needed a how-to book in order to bed a babe.

  Why hadn’t he just told her the truth?

  I wrote the damn book. The words had formed in his mind, but never made it out of his mouth.

  He ought to be proud of his first book. Okay, it wasn’t the novel he’d always planned to write, but it was an honest-to-God book, with real pages and a cover. He’d certainly felt the urge to confess that he was, in fact, Lance Flagstaff, who’d achieved a bit of celebrity with his monthly advice column and blog. He could have joked with her about the pseudonym and hopefully have watched the disappointment fade from her eyes.

  The beer cooled his throat but not his frustration. He was shy about letting anyone in on his little secret. Even though he’d written the instructional book, he wasn’t at all convinced a book could teach lovemaking.

  Like most men, he imagined, he’d learned to make love to women by trial and error, by finding out from his partners what they liked, by being open about his own preferences.

  It had always seemed to work fine. The women he slept with usually came back for more. Quite eagerly, in fact.

  Sex education wasn’t, in his view, a matter of reading. It was a matter of getting out and doing. Luke felt he’d learned something from every woman he’d been with. And he’d discovered that the sex was always unique, because the combination of bodies, likes and experience was always new. How could you explain all that in a few hundred pages?

  How could he teach that there was nothing more sensuous or exciting than asking a woman to show him how she liked to be touched, stroked, or caressed, then giving her the utmost pleasure. And when a woman was equally open about asking him to share his preferences, he was only too happy to show her what turned his crank. That’s how sex worked in his experience, and no book could replace the honest give-and-take of new lovers.

  He tapped the longneck against his teeth. Was he a hypocrite? He’d been writing for years on the subject of sex, usually offering a man’s perspective on the dating scene, what turned men on—gee, that one had needed a whole lot of research. All a woman had to say was, “Wanna get naked?” and that did it for most men he knew. He’d attended various seminars and programs, some hokey and some mind-bendingly scientific, read countless books in the name of research, interviewed enough sexually active men and
women to fill a small country. Through it all, Lance had developed a reputation as an expert on all matters sexual.

  Then came the book offer. Frankly, he’d been flattered to be approached. Plus, the venture had sounded like fun. It was a nice big project with a nice fat advance, so he’d written Sex for Total Morons, secretly wondering if he wasn’t helping deforest the planet for nothing.

  Can a book teach you how to be a great lover?

  The question had plagued him all through the research and writing, and bothered him still. Too bad there was no way to find out if the program he’d outlined in the book actually worked.

  About to toss the book to the table beside the couch, he once again saw Shari’s pretty face turn pink with embarrassment as she’d read the title and its implication had sunk into her mind.

  Wait a minute!

  He sat bolt upright, his eyes bugging out of his head.

  Wait just a damned minute there, Lance. Maybe there was a way to test the book.

  In his colossal arrogance, he’d never explored the possibility that a woman might actually believe he needed a book about sexual technique, never mind be willing to help him learn how to be a good lover.

  But tonight his bruised ego had learned that it was eminently possible. Shari Wilson had hightailed it out of Dodge precisely because she did believe that he, Luke Lawson, had sent away for a brown-paper-wrapped book to teach him how to be a good lover.

  When he got past the insult to his male ego, an intriguing possibility teased him.

  Mutual attraction hummed in the air every time he and his upstairs neighbor got close to each other, whether exchanging mail or chatting as they passed in the entrance foyer. He’d been thinking about her more than he should, given his recent deadline hell. But every time he saw her, he got caught up in her full-lipped smile, the brown hair that hung in sexy curls past her shoulders, the killer bod and the spirit of fun he’d sensed in her.