Love on the Boardwalk Read Online Free Page B

they were both back home, Joe would let her take a field trip to watch Brad in action on a case.
    But the part of her that was pure woman could tell he was tap dancing around the truth for a reason. Trina had excelled at her five years of tap class. She’d partner him and not let go. “You didn’t start out the night this way. Sure, your luck’s turned around. But half an hour ago you were in a strip club. Alone. In a city known for wild and crazy partying. Spill it,” she ordered.
    Brad sighed. Shuffled his feet like a toddler ‘fessing up to sneaking cookies. Jammed his hands in his pockets. The ocean crashed onto the shore, punctuating his silence. Finally he sighed again, and this time let it out long and slow. “I’m on my honeymoon.”
    Holy crap balls. That was not at all what Trina had expected. The questions slammed into her brain as fast and scattered as shotgun pellets. How had she gotten the signals so wrong? How had he met and proposed to someone else so fast? Why on earth honeymoon in a classically seedy gambling town? Oh, and where the hell was his wife?
    Yeah, that one pretty much overshadowed the rest.
    Unless...appearances could be deceiving. Maybe Brad wasn’t as straitlaced as he appeared. Maybe he and the missus had come to Atlantic City for a very specific reason. Trina didn’t have a judgy bone in her body. Different people liked different things, and that made life very, very interesting. But she didn’t want to participate in some of those...ah...differences. No matter how flattered she was that Brad had found her worthy. Better to send him on his way and go back to her original treat for the evening, boardwalk fries. Also hot and steamy, but not nearly as satisfying.
    “So...you were trolling the strip club for a threesome? To spice up the old honeymoon? What are you—swingers? Into ménage? Or more?” Trina slipped off his jacket and tried to hand it back. “Thanks, but I’ve got a hard and fast rule when it comes to sex. One at a time is enough for me. I don’t think I’d know what to do with all the extra appendages. It’d be like playing naked Twister. Spin the dial and put your left arm on the red—”
    Brad gasped. Coughed. Almost laughed, and then sort of choked while he pushed the jacket back at her. “A threesome? With you?”
    Well, that stung. The utter disbelief in his voice verged on rudeness. She didn’t want to participate, but it’d still be nice to be wanted. Trina let the jacket drop to the sand. Rising temper catapulted her voice at him loudly. “Don’t you dare pretend it hadn’t crossed your mind. I saw you eyeing me.”
    “Because I think you’re pretty,” he yelled back. “Not because I want a threesome.”
    “What, I’m cute, but not cute enough to take home to the wife?”
    “I don’t have a wife,” he burst out. “Dana dumped me, remember? Six months ago. This week was supposed to be our damned honeymoon.”
    “What?”
    “I forgot to cancel my vacation request. The captain thought it’d be better for me to use the down time, since it was already scheduled. So I’m here. Alone.” He held up his left hand and wiggled his empty ring finger. “No wife. Definitely no threesome.”
    “Oh.” That was a relief. It meant he wasn’t a scuzzball for noticing her in the first place. But his outburst didn’t clear everything up. “You really planned to honeymoon in Atlantic City? With the slot machine geezers in velour track suits and puking frat boys?”
    “No. We were supposed to go to Mallorca.”
    Trina could do an amazing amount of math in her head. She’d won more than a few bar bets by multiplying a ton of numbers faster than a guy could add them up on his smart phone. But geography wasn’t her strong suit. There were at least ten states that Trina lumped together under
The Middle
and didn’t even try to distinguish. And all the Eastern European-i-stan countries confused the heck out of her. But at least she recognized the names.