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  Text copyright ©2018 by the Author.

  This work was made possible by a special license through the Kindle Worlds publishing program and has not necessarily been reviewed by Aurora Rose Reynolds. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original Happily Ever Alpha remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Aurora Rose Reynolds, or their affiliates or licensors.

  For more information on Kindle Worlds: http://www.amazon.com/kindleworlds

  Until Sunrise

  By Sarah O’Rourke

  Dedication

  We dedicate this book to the amazing and fabulous Aurora Rose Reynolds. Thank you so much for allowing us to play in your fantastic sandbox!

  We simply adore you!

  Love,

  The Crazies of Sarah O’Rourke

  Letter from Aurora Rose Reynolds

  Dear Readers,

  Welcome to the Happily Ever Alpha Kindle World.

  I personally chose each author participating in the Happily Ever Alpha Kindle World because I love their books and the way they tell a story. That said, this book is entirely the work of the author who wrote it, and I didn’t have any part in the process of writing the story.

  Enjoy the BOOM!

  xoxo

  Aurora Rose Reynolds

  Happily Ever Alpha Kindle Worlds Titles

  Until You're Mine by Jenika Snow

  Until More by S. Van Horne

  Until Nox by Layla Frost

  Until We Meet Again by K.D. Robichaux

  Until Avery by Brynne Asher

  Until Arsen by K.L. Donn

  Until Leo by Rochelle Paige

  Until The Summer by Elle Jefferson

  Until Kayla by CC Monroe

  Until You by Samantha Lind

  Until Sunrise by Sarah O'Rourke

  Until Brandon by Natasha Madison

  Until I Saw You by Jordan Marie

  Until Mallory by Ella Fox

  Until Tom by Mary B. Moore

  Until Susan by C.P. Smith

  Table of Contents

  Letter from Aurora Rose Reynolds

  Happily Ever Alpha Kindle Worlds Titles

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Epilogue

  More by Sarah O’Rourke

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Michelle

  I once read somewhere that the definition of insanity is when some hapless fool (i.e. me) continues performing the same action over and over a-frickin’-gain. (For the purpose of this internal monologue, let’s say that said fool’s action is accepting yet another in a long line of blind dates.) AND to complete the definition, that same fool would be expecting the outcome won’t turn to utter shit every stinking time. (In my case, this means I play the eternal optimist and hope that I won’t be left holding the check at the end of the night or get stood up altogether.)

  Well, after tonight’s blind date from hell, I can tell you the definition is pretty much on the money. See, my name is Michelle Buchanan, and I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet that I’m a certifiable whacko. (That is, if the Urban Dictionary can be relied upon to provide an accurate definition.) In all fairness, I guess tonight’s most recent illustration of my self-diagnosed mental instability is my own flippin’ fault. I got confused and swiped right when I definitely should have gone left. That frickin’ Tinder dating app is a black hole that sucks innocent folks into its vortex before you even realize what’s happening! They pull lonely women in with all those profiles of hunky guys doing cute shit like holding puppies in their muscled arms while dreamily staring into space. THEN they throw an oddball into the mix—a guy that’s not a dreamboat, but not an ogre either—just an average, everyday guy that really doesn’t do much for your libido one way or the other. The problem is that you’ve gotten so accustomed to swiping right on those hunky men’s profiles, that swiping in the opposite direction never occurs to you.

  Then, before you realize what’s happened, you’ve agreed to go on a blind date with some guy named Alan Sandfeldt.

  Looking down at the screen of my phone, I frowned as I scanned my prospective date’s bio for the third time since arriving at the steakhouse where we’d chosen to meet for dinner. Nervously crossing and uncrossing my legs, I shifted uncomfortably on my upholstered chair. According to Tinder, Alan was a five foot, eleven inch, 180-pound self-employed insurance broker who enjoyed cooking and hiking when he wasn’t working. His profile picture showed a clean-shaven man with a round face, washed out blue eyes, slightly hooked nose, and lips that were a tad on the thin side. He had dirty blonde hair and a small scar over his right eye. He was good looking in that corn-fed, all-American kind of way, but you were never gonna see him on the cover of GQ or Men’s Health[AO1]. He wasn’t unappealing, but nothing about him made my heart skip a beat, either. At this stage in the game, though, my heart didn’t need to be involved. In fact, I’d prefer it stay out of this evening completely. As it was, I just needed Alan to be a nice enough guy that I could convince myself to lose my V-card with him.

  It wasn’t like I was looking for some kind of prince to save me from my life. As Ashlyn Mayson, my best friend since our sophomore year of high school, had reminded me on more than one occasion, neither one of us needed a Prince Charming. We were both strong, smart, capable women who could take care of ourselves. That didn’t mean we didn’t have needs, though. At our age, going to bed alone and lonely every night was getting old fast. We both just needed to find decent enough starter guys—ones that hopefully weren’t hideous to look at and knew how to start our lady engines. Unfortunately for Ash, the fact that my gal pal was all sorts of hung up on her boss, aka Dillon the Dick, was severely messing with her lady motor. She’d never admit it, but that engine had more than likely stalled for any man but her new employer.

  Truthfully, in the race to lose our innocence, I was maybe a little more determined to get rid of mine than my bestie was. Probably because she not-so-secretly hoped to one day find a great love like her parents, Cash and Lilly, shared. Ashlyn’s mom and dad were crazy about each other and always had been as far as I could remember. I knew that her mom and dad had fought through some fairly major obstacles to be together, but in the end, for them, at least, love had conquered all. Lilly and Cash had married and raised Ashlyn and her brother, Jax, to believe that there was a pure, all-consuming love out there waiting for them, too. It would be their own personal BOOM (as they liked to call the unique connection every Mayson seemed to share with their significant other.) So far, Jax had found his and settled down with his new wife, Ellie. They had a cute kid and a house here in town. Ashlyn, however, was still on the hunt for her soulmate. Like me, she had kissed more than her fair share of frogs in the pursuit of that elusive BOOM.

  As for me, I wasn’t a Mayson by blood, but according to Ashlyn’s family, I’d been claimed into their large, extended tribe. Sadly, though, there’d been no BOOM for me, either, and I suspected there never would be. I couldn’t even find a decent guy to spend an evening with, let alone one I could imagine committing myself to for a lifetime. It was a sorry truth that dating today was like playing charades blindfolded; there was a whole lot of painful stumbling and fumbling around for those of us still out there in the trenches.

  Sad to say, I wasn’t quite as sold on the idea of finding a happily-ever-after with someone as my girl Ashlyn was. My own father had left my mom when I wasn’t much more than a toddler and subsequently turned her into a bitter, workaholic shrew I barely remaine
d on speaking terms with. I’d been mostly raised by a grandmother who’d died when I was a freshman in college. She’d been a good woman who loved me in her own way, but since my good-for-nothing grandpa had deserted her, too, while Reagan had still been in office, I’d grown up hearing from both my mother and grandmother how men were fickle pains-in-the-ass who’d promise you heaven, but deliver you to hell. I learned very early that it would be stupid to depend on a guy for anything except a heartache. Nice, right? Anyway, suffice it to say that I wasn’t looking for forever—only for a friendly fellow to relieve the burden my virginity had become.

  In high school, I’d waited to have sex because I still halfway held out hope that one day I’d find a man that was able to prove some relationships were worth the risk of heartbreak. In college, I was too busy trying to graduate early to contemplate pursuing a guy… even if it was just a chase that lasted a night. After graduation, I’d been consumed with building my career. Now, I was 25 and had a successful career in real estate, owned my own home, and had some money in the bank. What I still didn’t have—what I had never had yet—was a man to warm my bed. Even for one stinkin’ night. The only thing that kept me from getting hysterical about this was the fact that Ashlyn was in the same boat, too. If something didn’t change very soon, I was afraid the two of us girls were gonna end up going down in history as the Oldest Living Southern Virgins in Tennessee. The only upside I could see to that was that one day maybe we could write a book about our trials and tribulations. Hells bells, if the oldest living Confederate widow could make some coin off her calamities, we could do it, too, right?

  Interrupted from planning the mental outline of what was sure to be a bestseller, I snatched up my buzzing phone and was relieved to see Ashlyn’s smiling face looking back at me. Sweeping my finger across the screen, I murmured an unhappy, “Hey, woman. Remind me again why we keep trying to find a decent man out here in the dating wilds of Tennessee?”

  “Well, hello to you, too, sunshine. I guess that answers my question about how things are going. I was calling to see if you needed me to have a flat tire or dying cat to get you out of your date. I guess this guy isn’t exactly V-card worthy, huh?” Ashlyn asked, her usually bright voice a shade duller than it typically[AO2] was.

  Snorting, I rolled my eyes. “No bailout needed yet. He hasn’t even bothered to show up,” I grumbled, drumming my fingers nervously against the tablecloth as I pursed my lips and looked around the busy restaurant. Since the menu was a bit on the pricy side, I’d only ever been to Maybelle’s Steakhouse a couple of times, but I loved the food. The restaurant had been here for years and was a popular date spot, proven by the nearby packed tables.

  “How late is this douche?” Ashlyn asked, sounding peeved. My bestie hated it when people were late.

  Glancing at my watch, I frowned. “A half hour.”

  “What a douche.”

  Sighing as I fiddled with the silverware, I nodded. “Yeah, looks that way. I’m giving him another fifteen minutes to show, and then I’m out.”

  “I’m sorry, babe. I really thought if we widened our dating pool by joining some dating apps that one of us might luck up and find Mr. Right.”

  I scoffed at that. “Ash, I don’t need Mr. Right. Mr. Right-For-Now will do just fine. Otherwise, I’m gonna find one of those virgin auctions we’re always reading about in our books and put myself up on the block,” I threatened, smoothing my fingers against an imaginary wrinkle in the tablecloth.

  Ashlyn laughed. “Okay, let’s not be hasty. I don’t think things are that desperate yet, are they?”

  “Ashlyn, I think my lady bits are getting rusty. I swear to God, I think I heard my vagina creak when I put on my pantyhose tonight!”

  “I sympathize, girl! Look at it this way, at least you weren’t forced to work with Dillon the Dick all day long while his horrible wife-to-be flounced around the office. It’s getting bad, Chelle. I imagined strangling him with the suction hose at least three times today after the asshat tried to send me home to change my dress this morning. He said it was too short. It hung to my damn knees!”

  “You’re joking,” I accused, shaking my head as I began to tap my foot against the carpet as I looked around to see if my date had arrived yet and just hadn’t seen me. Of course he was nowhere to be found.

  “I so miss my old boss. I wish I’d had the money to buy the dental practice myself. Now, I’m stuck working for a flippin’ jerk that thinks he has the right to tell me what I can wear.”

  Shaking my head, I fingered my wineglass of water and silently commiserated with my friend. She was in a tough spot. “With just a few more years of experience, you’ll be able to go to a bank and get a loan to build your own practice, Ash. Just hang tough.”

  “You, too, sweets! Make sure you call me later and let me know how tonight ends up going,”

  Exhaling heavily, I clenched my teeth. “By the looks of it, this night’s pretty much landed in the crapper, Ash, but I’ll definitely call you tomorrow.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Ashlyn agreed. “Bye, babe.”

  “Bye,” I mumbled as the line went dead. Quickly double checking to see if I’d somehow missed a text from my wayward date, I bit back a curse when I didn’t find anything. “What a fucking prick,” I growled under my breath as I dropped the phone back to the table.

  “Such a surprisingly naughty mouth on such a breathtaking woman. I wonder what other surprises you might have in store for me tonight, gorgeous.”

  Freezing as that deeply amused, resonant voice seemed to flow right through me, warming parts of me I hadn’t known were cold, I spun in my seat to find the sexiest man I’d ever seen in my life standing behind me. Towering over me, he had to be several inches over six feet. Built like an NFL linebacker, his expensive suit clung to him like a second skin. I guessed he was probably in his early to mid-thirties, and had inky black hair, a straight aristocratic nose, a set of eyes that gleamed like twin chips of onyx, and a neatly trimmed beard that looked like it would be downy soft to the touch. Oh my God, this guy was clearly movie-star handsome. I couldn’t for the life of me imagine what he’d be doing in our relatively small town. “E-excuse me?” I stuttered huskily, reaching up to tuck my hair behind my ear as I fidgeted in my chair.

  Smiling lazily, the sexy man slid a full wineglass in front of me as he took the seat to my left, dropping his own heavy tumbler of what appeared to be scotch to the table with a soft clink. “It ought to be a crime for a woman as lovely as you to sit here all alone. I decided to bring you a nice glass of Chablis and keep you company.”

  Blinking at his bold presumption, my wide eyes went from him to the wine he’d delivered to me back to him again before shaking my head and gently pushing the crystal goblet back toward him. “I’m sorry, I don’t accept drinks from strange men that invite themselves to sit at my table. Besides, I’m more of a Bordeaux girl anyway,” I added with a stiff shrug, smiling tightly at him as I toyed with the starched napkin in my lap.

  “Smart and beautiful,” he murmured, his eyes tracking my anxious fingers’ movements. “You’re the total package, aren’t you, hummingbird?”

  I felt a blush hit my cheeks at his flirtatious praise. “I…you… who are you and why’d you call me hummingbird?” I finally managed to ask.

  The sinfully attractive man grinned at me, his smile almost blindingly perfect as he flashed me his straight white teeth. Holding his hand out toward me, he introduced himself. “I’m Luka Templeton, and I called you hummingbird because I’ve been watching you since you got here. You haven’t stopped fidgeting since you arrived.”

  “Well, that’s not creepy at all,” I replied sarcastically, reaching for my small clutch as I pushed my chair back, prepared to bolt. I jumped slightly when Luka’s warm hand reached out to stay me.

  “Settle down. I’m harmless, I promise. You’re entirely safe with me,” he remarked with a smile that I was sure had melted more than one girl’s heart—or panties.

&
nbsp; “Yeah, I’m pretty sure that’s what the Big Bad Wolf said to Little Red Riding Hood right before he tried to rip her head off,” I retorted with an arched brow.

  Luka laughed as he lifted a hand and waved for a waiter. “You are precious,” he chuckled before turning his attention to the server now standing beside our table. “Please bring Miss…” He looked at me purposefully.

  Meeting his twinkling eyes, I slowly dropped my clutch back on the table. I supposed if I knew his name, he should at least know mine. “Buchanan. Michelle Buchanan. My friends call me Chelle or Chells.”

  Leaning toward me, Luka’s lips curved into a faint smile. “I prefer hummingbird, but alright.” Turning to nod toward the patiently waiting server, he ordered, “Kevin, would you please bring my new friend, Michelle, a glass of our finest Bordeaux and take this glass of Chablis back to the bar?” He nodded toward the wine I’d declined.

  “Right away, Mr. Templeton,” the younger man agreed, quickly sweeping up the untouched glass of wine before walking toward the bar.

  “They know you here,” I murmured, watching the young man scamper off so quickly I was surprised he didn’t sprout wings and fly.

  “They should,” he informed me with a careless shrug of his broad shoulders. “I own the place.”

  Canting my head to the side, my lips curled mischievously. “Funny, you don’t look like a Maybelle. Let me guess. Sex change?” I questioned with feigned curiosity as I propped my chin on my fist and stared at him with avid intent.

  Luka’s eyebrows lifted in surprise at my quick wit. “Nope. I can assure you my dick is the real deal. I can show you if you’d like,” he offered, his eyes dancing merrily as he watched my jaw drop.

  “Uh…No. I’ll take your word for it,” I relented quickly, feeling my face heat yet again as I reached up to nervously fiddle with my gold cross necklace.

  “Feel free to change your mind at any time, hummingbird,” he murmured, winking at me as the waiter returned with my favorite wine. “Seriously though, I inherited Maybelle’s a few months back when my grandmother died.”