Unscripted Love (Road to Blissville, #1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Other Books by Aimee Nicole Walker

  Acknowledgments

  About Aimee Nicole Walker

  Unscripted Love

  (Road to Blissville, #1)

  Copyright © 2017 Aimee Nicole Walker

  [email protected]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to the actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Cover photograph © Wander Aguiar–www.wanderaguiar.com

  Cover art © Jay Aheer of Simply Defined Art–www.jayscoversbydesign.com

  Editing provided by Pam Ebeler of Undivided Editing–www.undividedediting.com

  Proofreading provided by Judy Zweifel of Judy’s Proofreading–www.judysproofreading.com

  Interior Design and Formatting provided by Stacey Blake of Champagne Formats–www.champagneformats.com

  All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original publisher only.

  This book contains sexually explicit material and is only intended for adult readers.

  Copyright and Trademark Acknowledgments

  The author acknowledges the copyrights and trademarked status and trademark owners of the following trademarks and copyrights mentioned in this work of fiction.

  Copyrights and Trademarks:

  Word of Warcraft–Blizzard Entertainment

  Miami Vice–Universal Television, NBC

  Friends–Warner Bros Television, NBC

  The Notebook–New Line Cinema

  Queer as Folk–Showtime

  Kindle–Amazon.com, Inc.

  Captain America–Marvel Comics

  Cinderella and Prince Charming—Walt Disney Company

  Survivor–CBS Television

  Beauty Shop–Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

  “Wind Beneath My Wings”–Bette Midler: Beaches—Buena Vista Pictures

  Dobby “Harry Potter”–J.K. Rowling

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Other Books by Aimee Nicole Walker

  Acknowledgments

  About Aimee Nicole Walker

  To Kathy McFarland and her Sadie,

  I cried along with you when it was time to say goodbye to Sadie. From that heartache came the inspiration for Dr. Dimples. It only seems fair that your Sadie lives on with him. Much love to you for all that you do for authors and readers alike in our genre and your passion for your fur babies. I’m blessed to know you and call you my friend.

  XOXO

  “I need to tell you something, Kyle. I should’ve told you months ago,” I said, staring into his deep blue eyes that reminded me of the Pacific Ocean in Josh’s honeymoon photos. I’d never seen water that color, or eyes for that matter. In fact, his irises were so dark that across the room you might mistake them for brown. I was used to seeing laughter, compassion, and toe-curling desire in Kyle’s bottomless blue eyes, but that night I saw frustration, hurt, and even a little wariness until he realized I planned to come clean with him.

  “You can tell me anything,” Kyle said earnestly, or so I thought. It was hard to judge his tone when we were shouting over the music that blared through the speakers at Josh and Gabe’s Halloween party. He looked earnest and sincere at least. “I won’t like you any less.” Damn, I had hoped that was true, but I wasn’t holding my breath.

  It was easy for Kyle to say that without knowing my secret. I couldn’t hide the truth from him another day. It was tearing me up inside and destroying any chance I had with him. I took a calming breath, stood on my tiptoes, and pressed my mouth to his ear because what I had to say was intended for him only. I had an uncanny ability to humiliate myself by blurting things out at the worst possible time, which Kyle was all too familiar with by then. With my luck, the music would’ve come to a screeching halt had I chosen to say my confession out loud. I whispered two words in his ear that I knew would get an immediate reaction out of him.

  Kyle jerked back and looked into my eyes with a fierce expression that made me nervous. I’d never seen that look from him and I wasn’t sure what it meant for me—for us. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Kyle inhaled deeply through flared nostrils like he was working to calm himself. I expected him to yell, or walk away from me, but never would I have guessed that he would toss me over his shoulder caveman style and carry me out of the party.

  “What are you doing?” I squealed in alarm.

  “Not a word out of you,” Kyle said sharply. The slap to my leather-clad ass that followed was even sharper.

  Maybe it was because I was too stunned to heed his command, or maybe it was because I liked the way my ass tingled from where he slapped it, but I didn’t listen. “Where are you taking me?” I demanded to know.

  Slap! Hello!

  “I’m taking you somewhere we can hash this out in private,” Kyle said. “I can’t believe you, Chaz.” He didn’t sound at all happy with me, and I worried that Kyle’s assurance that he wouldn’t like me any less were nothing more than empty words. How could he not think less of me?

  There are times in your life where you wonder how the hell you’ve landed yourself in a situation. Tossed over the back of Kyle’s shoulder while he stomped out the front door of our friends’ house was one of them. It didn’t take much reflection for me to realize exactly how I got there.

  A year earlier…

  “What’s wrong with Harry?” Dr. Vaughn, aka Dr. Dimples, Dr. Do Me, and Dr. D, asked me. Harry? No, I manscape to within an inch of my life. No wild bush with hairy man berries here! Dr. Vaughn narrowed his eyes and leaned toward me a little bit. I moved back in surprise causing him to chuckle. “Stay still a second,” he said, “you have something in the corner of your eye.”

  Dr. Vaughn cupped the left side of my face in his big, strong hand and gently worked something loose from my right eye. Hand to God I thought I was going to faint right then and there. I prayed hard that the trembling I felt was internal because I was nowhere close to being in the guy’s league. I saw the kind of man he had dated, and I didn’t measure up—probably in more ways than one. In fact, I’d just seen him flirting with his ex-boyfriend in the damn lobby. I couldn
’t blame him for wanting to climb the hunky detective, but I had a feeling that ship had long sailed. Detective Wyatt had his eyes set on my best friend Josh, who tried really hard to hide his mutual attraction to the man.

  “There,” Dr. Vaughn said. He held his finger up to show me the eyelash he’d worked free from the corner of my eye. “Aren’t you supposed to make a wish and blow on it?”

  Do me, Dr. Dimples. Do me, Dr. Dimples. “Are we still talking about the eyelash?” I asked. I felt my face flame red with embarrassment when I realized what I’d said. Dr. Vaughn’s eyes widened as if maybe he imagined my lips wrapped around his cock, but that was probably wishful thinking on my part.

  “Uhhh,” the normally unflappable man said.

  For the life of me, I don’t know what made me do it. Perhaps it was his blown pupils or the racing pulse at his neck, but I wrapped my hand around his wrist and lowered my lips until they hovered over his finger with the eyelash. I kept my eyes locked on his while I gently blew on his long… digit. Dr. Vaughn swallowed hard then broke eye contact long enough to look down at his finger. A wide smile had bloomed across his face before he said, “Looks like you need to blow a little harder.”

  Sure enough, my eyelash dangled from the tip of his finger. That little bastard was clinging to the sexy vet for dear life. Dr. Vaughn cocked his eyebrow as if he dared me to do it again and I surely couldn’t back down after the stunt I pulled. I formed my mouth into the cutest little pucker I could and…

  Meow. The painful plea coming from the cat carrier pulled us both back to reality. What kind of cat dad forgot about his baby’s misery when the hunky vet walked into the room? This one!

  “I love that your hairless cat is named Harry,” the good doctor said, humor lacing his voice. “I appreciate a sarcastic sense of humor. Kind of like the two-hundred-pound Saint Bernard named Tiny I saw earlier today.”

  “Well, I’m funny at least,” I said because I wasn’t sure what else to say. I’d made a fool of myself, which was nothing new, but on a much grander scale than normal. It was time to get things back under control. “I noticed that Harry wasn’t using his litter box as frequently and today I saw blood in his urine.” Harry meowed again as if he weighed in on the situation. “He sounds like he’s in a lot of pain.”

  “It sounds like a urinary tract infection. Let’s take a look,” Dr. Vaughn said, opening the door to the cat carrier. Harry walked to him willingly like he knew help was imminent. He meowed pitifully, earning an extra ear scratch from the vet. “I love how smooth he feels.”

  Yeah, I couldn’t keep my mind from going there. I had something smooth Dr. Vaughn could pet. “He’s… um, great.” My voice broke a little when Dr. Vaughn slid his hand beneath Harry to examine his abdomen.

  “His bladder feels hard and contracted,” he said. “We’ll take some x-rays to make sure he doesn’t have any blockages in his bladder, draw some blood for tests, and hopefully Molly can coax the little guy into giving up a urine sample.”

  “I brought some with me,” I replied. “Harry started peeing outside his box, which was how I saw the blood. I grabbed the first thing that came to mind to get a sample.” I pulled a small mason jar out of my pocket and handed it to him. “I don’t want the jar back.”

  “I bet not,” Dr. Vaughn said. “Well, hang tight in here for a few minutes while I borrow Harry to get his lab work started. The blood test will take a little longer to come back, but the urine test results will be immediate. Hopefully, we’re just looking at a UTI that we can resolve with medication and changes to his diet.”

  “Okay,” I told him. I worried my bottom lip between my teeth the entire time they were gone. Luckily, it didn’t take too long for Dr. Vaughn to come back into the room and confirm the diagnosis.

  “Terry is filling his prescription now, so it won’t be long before you can take him home.” Dr. Vaughn handed my cat back to me. Harry looked up at me with big eyes that pleaded with me to hand him back to the good doctor.

  I kissed Harry’s smooth forehead then smiled up at Dr. Vaughn in relief. “Thank you, Dr. Vaughn.”

  “Kyle,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Call me Kyle.”

  “Why? Because I blew you?” Too bad I said it right as Terry walked into the room with Harry’s prescription.

  “Should I come back?” she asked sassily.

  “No!” I said.

  “Yes!” Kyle answered at the same time.

  “He signs my checks,” Terry said, pointing at Kyle. She laughed heartily then set the pill bottle on the exam table and left the room.

  “Oh my God!” I’d always had a knack for saying the wrong thing at the right time. Or was it the right thing at the wrong time? No, I was pretty sure it was the wrong thing at the wrong time. “I just need to stop talking.”

  “I like your mouth just fine,” Kyle responded.

  “Well, at least someone does,” I muttered while placing Harry inside his carrier. “Do me a favor,” I told him. “Don’t tell my aunt, Sandra, that I brought Harry’s urine to you in a mason jar. She keeps me supplied with the best homemade strawberry jam if I return the jars to her so she can reuse them. I’ll tell her I accidentally broke one instead of telling her the truth.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Kyle said. He looked like he wanted to say something more, but decided against it.

  I’d never seen his playful side before, and I wasn’t sure what prompted him to show it to me that night. He was one of Josh’s clients at the salon, so I saw him on a semi-regular basis. Plus, we lived in a town with a population of just over six-thousand people, so I saw him around a lot, namely the diner. He was always friendly but usually serious. I liked the glimpse he showed me.

  I started to tell him to have a good night, but his hand on the small of my back caused my words to stick in my throat. I had my winter coat on over a sweater, but I was convinced I still felt the heat of his hand. I’d had some pretty vivid dreams about Dr. Dimples, but I never thought they’d have a chance of coming true. Wait a minute. One flirty exchange and his hand on my back doesn’t equal my crush morphing into anything more than spank bank material.

  That didn’t stop me from practically levitating off the floor in excitement when I exited the room. I’d never been high before, but I was certain the detached floating sensation had to be similar. Josh looked at me and did a double take then narrowed his eyes as he searched my face for clues about what happened in the exam room. Technically, nothing happened, but something did because from that night forward, it felt like a cosmic shift whenever we were in the same room.

  I became even more aware of Kyle than before, and I had the impression that he experienced the same with me. Instead of it giving me more confidence, it made me feel more shy and awkward because I knew there was no way in hell anything would come out of the attraction. He was a respected town veterinarian, and I was a receptionist at a salon. It wasn’t that I didn’t have dreams, I just never expected them to come true.

  I quickly learned that life was full of surprises—some of them were good, and some of them were exceptional. For the next few months, I spent my free time writing a book that I thought was sexy and suspenseful, but I felt it needed a bit more technical grit when it came to the subject matter. I figured the best way to get in the head of a hardcore gamer was to become one. I got more than I ever bargained for when I discovered that Kyle was playing World of Warcraft, I mean Doc Paws from B-Ville wasn’t exactly covert or anything.

  We struck up a quick online friendship that became both addictive and dangerous. It was addictive because I craved the flirting banter between us more than alcohol or chocolate, and I loved fine wine and chocolate. It was dangerous because I had fallen fast and hard for a man I would never have, and worse, I allowed him to fall for me. I molded myself into the perfect guy for him because I already had the inside scoop on his favorite things and knew the secrets to his heart. I knew that Kyle would never forgive me if he found out th
at I had deceived him, but that didn’t stop me from taking the playful banter a step further.

  Next thing I knew, we were meeting in private chat rooms and sharing moments that left me breathless one minute and filled with shame the next. Knowing that I was revving Kyle up and making him moan and come was the biggest turn on I’d ever had until I remembered that it wasn’t me that drove him crazy. It was Drew from Columbus. I knew I’d gone too far when Kyle said that he wanted to take the next step and meet me in person.

  I cut myself off from him cold turkey, and let me tell you that I had withdrawals for weeks afterward. Our online romance only lasted a short time, but I suspected it would taunt me for a lifetime. I’d shake hard every time I saw his messages pop up in the app on my phone, but I erased them before I read them and did something even more stupid like pick up the habit again. Kyle wasn’t one to give up easily and persistently messaged me daily for nearly a month before he stopped.

  Ignoring his messages made me miserable, but it was nothing compared to the devastation I felt when they stopped coming altogether. I had myself a good cry and doubled down on my focus to finish my book. Once I was done writing it, I spent all my extra energy on editing it and researching how to self-publish the thing. I had zero expectations when I uploaded the book for sale, but I learned that another surprise was in store for me.

  My book became a best seller, and people actually wanted to read more work from me. By that time, my best friend Josh and his detective had finally realized that they had something special and began a real relationship with dates and a trip to meet their families in Florida. I was so happy for him, but it drove home how lonely I was at night with just Harry and my latest manuscript.

  Burning the midnight oil caught up to me and Meredith and Josh called me out on it after I was late to work and almost slept through Sunday family dinner. Meredith, our queen, wanted to take me to the hospital to get checked out because she thought I was sick, but I promised her I wasn’t ill. She and Josh demanded to know what was going on with me while Gabe silently watched our exchange. I had to come up with something, but I wasn’t ready to tell them about the book. It was still too new, and I had no idea where the hell it was going to take me.