Free Love Match by Regina Carlysle

Chapter One
     
    To: [email protected]
    From: [email protected]
    I can’t tell you how excited I am to see you’ve signed up
for our class reunion at good old Western Indiana U! It’s hard to believe that
it has been ten years since graduation and I hate that I’ve lost track of my
roomies from those days. That big old rambling Victorian next to ‘hottie house’
is still standing and I’m happy to say, I bought it. It’s been so much fun
fixing it up! Expensive but FUN. LOL. Anyway, with the reunion and all, I’ve
been wondering if you’d like to stay here with me. I’ve invited the others too
so it could be a blast to hang out and catch up. Texas seems so far away from
here, Chloe, and I’ve missed your smiling face! Please say you’ll bunk here.
Pretty please?
    Love,
    Lindy
    * * * * *
    Chloe shifted the strap of her purse more firmly on her
shoulder as she pushed the blue plastic cart across the supermarket parking
lot. She hadn’t shopped here since her college years and that was a long time
ago. Still, some things never changed. People were warm and friendly here, even
though she was a stranger in these parts now. Such was small-town life and,
considering she still lived in a fairly small town, she understood the dynamic.
She’d just driven into town in her compact rental car and was on her way to
Lindy’s house to get the party started when she decided to stop here. Showing
up empty-handed wasn’t her style. It wasn’t fair for her hostess to have to
furnish snacks, so Chloe stocked up on chips, dips, peanuts and plenty of soft
drinks.
    She’d snapped up a couple of nice bottles of wine too. What
the hell. How often did the group of them get together anyhow?
    Smiling, she rolled the basket up to the trunk and popped
the lid. She’d just reached for a couple of sacks when a large, warm hand
settled on her elbow.
    “Hey, sweetheart. Let me help.”
    Gasping, she jerked upright and found herself staring into a
pair of sexy, chocolate-brown, very familiar eyes. The paper sack dropped from
nerveless fingers and her hands flew over her mouth. Delight sped through her
system, heating her blood and making her heart race in a frantic pitter-pat.
    Michael “Ace” Banner stood grinning oh so seductively, his
white teeth flashing as the sunlight caught and held in his dark, closely
cropped hair.
    “Ace! Oh my God. Oh honey.” Unable to stop the forward
motion, she launched herself into his big, strong arms and squealed like a
middle schooler when he swung her up high against his chest and buried his face
in her hair. Lord have mercy. They’d been such an item throughout college.
“It’s been ten years. Can you believe it?”
    Ace laughed and set her back on her feet. Standing there
looking like sex on a stick with those long, strong legs encased in worn denim,
he sent sparks of memory zipping through her head…and elsewhere. Tall,
broad-shouldered and strong with lean muscle, he’d been her ideal of hotness ,
and when he wasn’t traveling with WIU’s tennis team, they’d been together both
on campus and off. In bed and out. In those days, love had held her in its soft
grip and Ace had been the center of her world.
    Yep. A long time ago.
    He settled his hand on her shoulder and negligently massaged
the spot, sending the other hand into the hair at his temple. Chloe noticed it
was lightly flecked with gray.
    Ace shook his head. “Hell yeah, I can believe it’s ten
years. Lately I’ve been feeling every one of those years too.”
    She sent her gaze over him and tried not to drool. Oh yes,
the years had been more than kind to Ace Banner. The worn black Grateful Dead
tee shirt he wore molded to the muscular mounds of his chest, and his jeans
were faded in the front, cupping his cock like a pair of loving hands.
    Um. Yum.
    “Doesn’t look like it to me,” she managed as the wind caught
her hair and whipped it into her eyes. Shoving it back with restless fingers,
she wondered what this man she’d