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CHAPTER ONE
From the Twitter account of
@BlindDateBitch:
#NewRule: For a matchmaker with the
mostest, ensure they have fully operational
#gaydar. 100% NONNEGOTIABLE. If it’s
faulty…DUMP THEM!
‘You’re absolutely positive you’re
gay?’
Tally Gladstone battled with a whine of
dismay as her latest blind date’s brilliant blue
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eyes twinkled with mischief and her brain—
and several other key parts of her anatomy—
knotted with frustration.
‘Totally, 100 per cent positive. Sorry.’
‘Seriously?’ The whine won.
It cannot be true. Not again.
In one tiny corner of Tally’s mind, it
registered that Sam Grady’s revelation was
going to make great fodder tomorrow morning
when Blind Date Bitch reported back to her
five hundred thousand followers about her
latest disaster date. But for once she had
actually been more excited about the date itself
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than what she was going to tweet about it. Plus
her appalling luck and her consequent online
success was getting to be beyond a joke. She’d
set up @BlindDateBitch as an anonymous ego
boost to support her through the early stages of
her search for a superstud—not to shatter her
ego entirely with a never-ending running
commentary on her failure to get laid.
‘No equivocation whatsoever?’ Tally
soldiered on, drowning out the clatter and hum
of the Kensington bar on a busy Friday night.
Sam’s diamond-bright gaze dipped to
her cleavage, temptingly displayed in her best
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LBD. It remained there for several pregnant
seconds, while Tally’s lungs seized to a halt—
and she crossed her fingers under the bar.
Could a really good pair of double Ds
turn a gay man straight—even a little bit?
Surely it was a possibility. She had
exceptionally nice tits—and her push-up bra
helped turn them into the eighth wonder of the
world.
‘Your rack is very aesthetically
pleasing.’ His burning gaze lifted back to her
now burning face. ‘I could write a song to
those puppies. But would they give me a
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boner?’ He shook his head, his sheepish
expression not doing a thing for her blush.
‘Doubtful.’
‘Oh, fuck it. I give up.’ Tally took a
long swallow of her strawberry daiquiri. ‘I’m
going to kill Melody. I can’t believe she set me
up with a gay guy again. I’m beginning to think
she’s doing it deliberately.’
Melody was her best friend. But how
could anyone be so totally rubbish in the
matchmaker stakes?
‘How many times has this happened?’
Sam asked, his husky voice still sending
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annoying shivers up her spine—which were
now, she reminded herself, completely beside
the point.
Get a grip spine. Project Get Laid Some
Time This Millennium is not happening tonight.
She drank in one last long forlorn look
at Sam. He’d seemed like such a fabulous
prospect earlier in the evening when Melody
had introduced them. Attentive, gorgeous blue
eyes, ripped abs from what she could tell
beneath his T-shirt, solvent—according to
Melody—a delicious aroma of laundry
detergent and clean male enveloping her when
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they’d got stranded together at the bar, and a
great conversationalist. And not noticeably
camp.
Maybe his job as a graphic designer
should have been a hint—and the fact that his
gaze hadn’t strayed to her cleavage once during
the entire evening—but seriously, after two
solid years without a sexual encounter of any
description that didn’t involve batteries, she
needed a much bigger hint than that… A
pulsing neon sign on his forehead with Boys
Only written in large flaming-pink letters, for
example.
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Tally huffed, holding up three fingers.
‘Three dates. Three gay blokes. In the space of
a month. That’s a 100 per cent record.’
Sam choked out a laugh. ‘Well, her
gaydar’s off, that’s for sure.’ He rested a warm
palm on Tally’s shoulder. ‘Hey, look, I’m
sorry, Tally. You’re great and I’ve had a fun
time. I didn’t know Melody was trying to hook
us up. I thought she knew which way I roll. I
sure as hell don’t keep it a secret.’
‘That’s okay,’ Tally murmured, feeling
more humiliated by the second. ‘Not a
problem. Although I’d suggest you use a
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different cologne when chatting to women.
Because the one you use now is sending out all
the wrong signals—pheromone-wise.’
One dark brow hiked up his forehead.
‘But I don’t use cologne.’
‘Precisely. Something flowery and
exotic with Hawaiian undertones would be
much more appropriate. Might give a girl a
clue. You know. To your sexual preferences.’
He laughed again—and her humiliation
and annoyance eased. He really was a lovely
guy. And it was hardly his fault he was
extremely hot, yet played for the other team—
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nor was it his fault that Melody was to
matchmaking what her eight-year-old cousin
was to mature and sensible behaviour.
Basically, a disaster waiting to happen. Plus,
she’d probably get another thousand followers
after this fuck-up—not that it felt like much of
a consolation anymore.
‘How about I make it up to you?’ he
said in his deep American accent. ‘Maybe I
could set you up with someone. I know a lot of
guys.’
‘Straight guys?’ Tally heard the
eagerness in her voice. But sod it, she was
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desperate here. And extremely turned on with
nowhere to go but back to her lonely bed and
the company of Victor, her vibrator. The sad
fact that she’d given the bloody thing a name
was all that needed to be said on that score.
‘Yeah, straight. I guarantee it,’ he said.
‘Because unlike Melody, my gaydar is never
wrong.’ The twinkle of mischief returned.
‘Either that or I’ve hit on them myself and
discovered how they roll the hard way. No joke
intended.’
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Tally snorted out a laugh, stupidly
pleased this man had suffered a similar fate to
her. Misery, say hello to company.
‘What are your other criteria?’ Sam
asked. ‘Then we can narrow the field.’
‘You have a field of straight guys to
choose from?’
‘Uh-huh.’ Sam nodded.
Good lord, who knew? Gay men really could
make the perfect matchmakers for sex-starved
straight women. This was not just a myth
propagated by chick flicks co-starring Rupert
Everett.
Continue reading
10 RULES TO SEX UP A BLIND DATE
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Cosmo Red Hot Reads from Harlequin
ISBN-13: 978-14603-3772-1
10 Rules to Sex Up a Blind Date
Copyright © 2014 by Heidi Rice
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