Shameless Flirt Read online

  Shameless Flirt

  A Hopelessly Bromantic Prelude

  Lauren Blakely

  Contents

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  About

  Shameless Flirt

  1. Bring on the Zeppelin

  2. Here I Come

  3. Testing with Strangers

  4. Boner at First Sight

  5. Secret Handshake

  6. Trick Address

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Contact

  Copyright © 2022 by Lauren Blakely

  Cover Design by TE Black.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book. This contemporary romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This book is licensed for your personal use only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy sexy romance novels with alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Also by Lauren Blakely

  Big Rock Series

  Big Rock

  Mister O

  Well Hung

  Full Package

  Joy Ride

  Hard Wood

  * * *

  Hopelessly Bromantic Duet (MM)

  Hopelessly Bromantic

  Here Comes My Man

  * * *

  Happy Endings Series

  My Single-Versary

  A Wild Card Kiss

  Shut Up and Kiss Me

  Kismet

  * * *

  Rules of Love Series

  The Rules of Friends with Benefits (A Prequel Novella)

  The Virgin Rule Book

  The Virgin Game Plan

  The Virgin Replay

  The Virgin Scorecard

  * * *

  Men of Summer Series

  Scoring With Him

  Winning With Him

  All In With Him

  * * *

  The Guys Who Got Away Series

  Dear Sexy Ex-Boyfriend

  The What If Guy

  Thanks for Last Night

  The Dream Guy Next Door

  * * *

  The Gift Series

  The Engagement Gift

  The Virgin Gift

  The Decadent Gift

  * * *

  The Extravagant Series

  One Night Only

  One Exquisite Touch

  My One-Week Husband

  * * *

  MM Standalone Novels

  A Guy Walks Into My Bar

  One Time Only

  The Bromance Zone

  * * *

  The Heartbreakers Series

  Once Upon a Real Good Time

  Once Upon a Sure Thing

  Once Upon a Wild Fling

  * * *

  Boyfriend Material

  Asking For a Friend

  Sex and Other Shiny Objects

  One Night Stand-In

  * * *

  Lucky In Love Series

  Best Laid Plans

  The Feel Good Factor

  Nobody Does It Better

  Unzipped

  * * *

  Always Satisfied Series

  Satisfaction Guaranteed

  Instant Gratification

  Overnight Service

  Never Have I Ever

  PS It’s Always Been You

  Special Delivery

  * * *

  The Sexy Suit Series

  Lucky Suit

  Birthday Suit

  * * *

  From Paris With Love

  Wanderlust

  Part-Time Lover

  * * *

  One Love Series

  The Sexy One

  The Only One

  The Hot One

  The Knocked Up Plan

  Come As You Are

  * * *

  Sports Romance

  Most Valuable Playboy

  Most Likely to Score

  * * *

  Standalones

  Stud Finder

  The V Card

  The Real Deal

  Unbreak My Heart

  The Break-Up Album

  * * *

  The Caught Up in Love Series

  The Pretending Plot (previously called Pretending He’s Mine)

  The Dating Proposal

  The Second Chance Plan (previously called Caught Up In Us)

  The Private Rehearsal (previously called Playing With Her Heart)

  * * *

  Seductive Nights Series

  Night After Night

  After This Night

  One More Night

  A Wildly Seductive Night

  About

  When my boss hits me with the news that I’ll be working in London for a year, I say yes so fast. What could be better than a year abroad on the company’s dime surrounded by swoony British men?

  Meeting the sexiest, most charming man ever my first day in London — that’s what.

  But then I lose track of him in a crowd. No last name. No number.

  Suddenly, finding him again feels like the most important thing I must do in my year abroad…

  * * *

  Shameless Flirt is a prequel in the Hopelessly Bromantic Duet and it leads into the full-length novel Hopelessly Bromantic. You don't have to read Shameless Flirt to enjoy Hopelessly Bromantic , but you'll likely enjoy this story before the story!

  Shameless Flirt

  By Lauren Blakely

  A Hopelessly Bromantic Prelude

  * * *

  Don’t want to miss a single delicious MM romance? Be sure to sign up for my MM mailing list!

  1

  Bring on the Zeppelin

  Seven Years Ago

  * * *

  TJ

  * * *

  When my boss calls me into her office on Thursday afternoon, I anticipate nothing but the usual sort of assignment—cover a major staff shakeup at a TV network, or an imbroglio at some media giant. Copy due by five, of course.

  I expect to be headed as far as Midtown, not across the Atlantic Ocean.

  “How would you like to work in London for the next year?” asks the no-nonsense newswoman, offering an opportunity I’ve dreamed of since I was thirteen.

  A chance to go back to England?

  Yes, please. More than anything.

  Before I can close my gaping mouth to say as much, Ms. Deadline, as we call her, makes my answer irrelevant. She shakes her head with a curt laugh. “Actually, it’s not really a question. We are sending you to London, TJ.”

  There’s only one thing to say. “Can I leave today?”

  I imagine exactly how it will go, picturing it like a movie montage.

  The flight will entail the requisite number of unruly kids, all somehow seated in the row directly behind me. I will, of course, have to cram myself into a middle seat, which is no fun at six-three. While the future juvenile de
linquents kick the back of my chair for eight hours, the friendly lady next to me will chatter on about the Jell-O molds she’s making for her Aunt Patty’s eighty-fifth birthday party.

  There will, of course, be turbulence.

  Cut to me staring forlornly at the barren Heathrow baggage carousel. As my fellow passengers grab their suitcases and get on with their vacations or their reunions, the airline informs me they’ve lost my luggage. I’ll spend my first night in the city with only the clothes I arrived in.

  I’ll roll with it. Shit happens, bags get lost, and it’s my turn on the conveyor belt of bad fortune.

  No biggie. At least I’ll be unencumbered as I head to the flat I rented, where the leasing agent meets me to say there’s been a wee bit of a mix-up concerning my living arrangements. Of course there has.

  Instead of a sweet pad overlooking the river, my new residence is a dinky unfurnished studio, and one floor up is some crotchety old guy who plays bootleg Led Zeppelin records at all hours. The pipes will be creaky, the hot water finicky, and there won’t be a decent coffee shop for miles.

  And I won’t care, no matter how much I dislike Led Zeppelin.

  Because every dude in London will have an English accent.

  Yes, please!

  I pull myself back to the present and focus on my boss. “I can be on the next flight.” I’m super helpful that way, particularly with opportunities that involve a potential panoply of swoony Brits.

  “Love that attitude,” Ms. Deadline says. “But let me give you the job details.”

  It seems that, after covering the business of TV, media, and advertising for 24News in New York, I’ll now be reporting on the London financial markets. It’s a positive step in my journalism career, and the company will provide relocation services and a furnished flat. I don’t have to do a thing but pack my clothes.

  Nice.

  “This is a huge opportunity for someone so young, and we’re offering it to you because we’re truly impressed with your work.” She stands and reaches across her impeccably neat desk, free of the usual journalist’s mess, and shakes my hand. “You’ll start in two weeks.”

  “Fantastic,” I say, hoping the next fourteen days fly by. “I’ll be ready.”

  Packing up my life is easy. I’m a nomad—give me a laptop and a phone, and I’m good to go. Well, I can’t do without a couple of nice shirts and access to a gym. But other than that, I’m a guy with simple needs.

  Everything complicated is in my head—like all my hopes and dreams—dreams I want to chase in London.

  Well, when I’m not busy chasing men.

  But I plan to make time for both.

  2

  Here I Come

  TJ

  * * *

  On Friday two weeks later, I’m more than ready to hit the road. Even my bags look eager to jet, parked by the door.

  “And I’m outta here,” I announce to my three roommates. For the last year, Trey, Nolan, Ashlee, and I have shared an extremely mediocre apartment in Queens, one that only the under twenty-five-and-dying-to-live-in-a-cool-city set consider inhabitable. Since that describes me and all my friends, there’s a long list of guys and dolls ready to jump on a spare room. A friend of Ashlee’s leaped first, and she’ll be taking my room tonight.

  As I hoist my carry-on bag onto my shoulder, Ashlee keeps shooting zombies on the Xbox. Trey is knitting an argyle sweater vest for a cat. Nolan whips up a mushroom omelet at the stove.

  “Try not to miss me while I’m gone,” I call out.

  “Don’t worry. We won’t,” Ashlee says as she takes out a nest of the undead. “Not until we need someone to fix the sink.”

  “You’ll be crying for your resident handyman then,” I reply.

  “You’ll send us a how-to video, though,” Ashlee shouts over the splatter.

  “I will . . . if you send me a pizza from John’s of Bleecker Street. I’ll pine for their cheese pies more than anything while I’m gone.” I turn toward the kitchen. “Well, maybe not more than Nolan’s cooking.”

  My bespectacled friend and I share a nod of mutual appreciation. “And I’ll miss your sarcasm, TJ.”

  “It’s a good thing we’re both great at something,” I say, heading his way.

  Nolan turns off the burner and steps away from the stove, and I give my college bud a quick clap on the back. “Have fun, and good luck with your mission,” he says.

  I stare at him in confusion. “What mission?”

  “Dude, I’ve known you since freshman year. I know what you want to do in London, and I bought you a goodbye gift.” Nolan reaches for a Duane Reade bag on the kitchen counter and tosses it to me.

  I peer inside and laugh. “Aww. I’ll miss you most of all, Scarecrow,” I say and hug the box of condoms to my chest.

  Then, it’s time to go.

  I leave the keys on the entryway table for the next roommate, and I take off for my new adventure.

  My identical twin waits for me on the street. Since Chance is catching a flight to Florida, we’re sharing a ride to the airport. Plus, it’s extra time to say goodbye.

  When my brother sees my luggage, he laughs. I’ve got only one carry-on and only one suitcase to check, and my younger-by-five-minutes brother is obviously not shocked. Once we’re in the taxi, he whips out his phone, clicks open his notes app, and thrusts it out so I can read it. “Called it,” he says.

  The note—with a timestamp to prove it—is a spot-on prediction. For one year abroad: one carry-on, one check in.

  I laugh. “You know me so well. It’s almost like we share DNA.” Chance has only his overnight bag on the seat next to him as the yellow car peels out of Queens.

  “I also predict you’ll come home with a million books,” Chance says. “I remember when we were thirteen and Mom and Dad took us to London. You lugged home that entire suitcase full of paperbacks. We stopped in at that bookshop on Cecil Court, and you came out with so many books we had to drop them at the hotel before heading to Westminster Abbey.”

  I’ve given most of those books away by now—the story of international teen spy Rhys Locke and the Hollywood bonkbusters from Caroline Vienna—but when I was an awkward, gangly teen, I devoured them and plotted a future. “I remember that bookshop fondly, and I plan to go back,” I say. “Maybe it’ll be my first stop.”

  On the ride to JFK, we chat about our goals for the next few months, something we’ve always done since we were kids—sharing hopes and dreams. Now a ballplayer in his second year in the majors, Chance will be on the road a lot, pitching for the San Francisco Cougars, and he wants to establish himself as their closer, he says.

  As for me, I want . . . a lot of things.

  Things I haven’t admitted out loud to anyone.

  I glance out the cab window, watching New York whip by. Will I miss this city when I’m overseas? I’ve always longed to experience different places, meet different people. More than that, I’ve wanted to create places and people for others to experience. I want to create something out of all the experiences I take in.

  That last one, though, feels so personal and lives so close to my heart that I haven’t even dared to tell my brother, who knows me better than anyone. I didn’t share the idea when I was thirteen as it first took root. Not sure if I’m ready to voice it now.

  “What about you?” Chance prompts in a lull in the conversation. He’s told me about his vision for himself as a pitcher. I suppose that means it’s my turn to crack open my heart.

  Easier said than done.

  I scratch my jaw and shrug. “Oh, you know. Try to grow a beard, eat some fish and chips, meet a hot dude. The usual.”

  Chance rolls his eyes. “Liar.”

  “What?” I protest. “That’s all true.”

  “Yes, I know. But so are the things you’re not saying,” he says with certainty.

  “Twin intuition?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What am I not saying, then?” I counter stubbornly. br />
  He shoots me a no-bullshit stare. “There’s something else you want, TJ.”

  I blow out a breath, wishing he didn’t read me so well. Sometimes it’s just simpler to keep your dreams to yourself. Chance’s goals are different. It’s a lofty ambition, being the closing pitcher for a professional baseball team, but he’s already on a team as a relief pitcher. Maybe it’s a tall ladder, but he’s on a rung.

  My dreams seem so out of reach. Like, oceans and mountains away. Maybe galaxies.

  But I don’t like being dishonest with Chance, so I carve out a portion of the truth. “I’d like to be the best damn reporter I can be. I want to impress the hell out of 24News. Get bigger and better assignments. Tell stories readers can’t put down.”

  There. That’s true enough.

  Chance nods, seeming pleased with that answer. “I have faith in you.”

  “Thanks.” I hope his faith is enough for both of us.