No Strings Attached

Jack was into bimbos: women with large breasts, small brains and the inability to converse on any subject not having to do with fashion. He was also into noncommitment, so his bimbos—uh, girl-friends—fit the bill perfectly.

“Why are you home so early? Was the sex that lousy?”

His eyes filled with amusement, but he didn’t respond. Instead, he ruffled his dark brown hair and grinned.

“It’s Sunday, in case you’ve forgotten,” she went on. “I don’t have to work if I don’t want to. This article isn’t due till next week, so leave me alone.”

Pulling a bag of bagels from behind his back, he dangled it in front of her, like the devil tempting Eve with that damn apple. The aroma of freshly baked goods surrounded Samantha, making her stomach grumble and Jack grin.

She was a sucker for bagels, donuts, pies, cakes and most unhealthy foods, despite her claim of eating only organic products. Sugar was her downfall. Chocolate was…well, chocolate was chocolate.

In addition to her freelance writing jobs, she’d been working part-time at the Starbucks around the corner, sucking down mocha lattes by the gallon and literally devouring the store’s profits.

“You still have a deadline to meet. But I’m going to be magnanimous and let you take a break to eat your breakfast first.”

Making a face, Samantha headed for the kitchen, Jack following right behind. “Are these bagels organic? You know I only eat organically grown food.”

Disbelief edged his laughter. “That’s a crock and you know it. I know for a fact that you ate four Snickers bars yesterday. I found the wrappers in the garbage. How you stay so slim is a mystery.”

Suffering from a serious chocolate addiction for which there was no cure—at least none Samantha wanted to try—and hating being called on it, she felt heat rise to her cheeks. “I have a very high metabolism. And why were you looking through the garbage? What kind of sicko rifles through the trash?” She’d purposely hidden the wrappers at the bottom, hoping he wouldn’t find them.

“The kind who’s looking for a receipt. And to answer your other question, sex with Bunny was great. It’s her constant talking I can’t take.”

“You can’t have everything, Jack,” Samantha said, slapping cream cheese on an onion bagel and handing it to him. “No wonder you aren’t married. You’re too damn picky.”

“Like you should talk? Christ! You find fault with every guy you date. Chuck Simmons was a nice guy, very down-to-earth, and he was crazy about you. And you still dumped him.”

“Chuck had body odor. Maybe you didn’t notice it, but in the heat of passion it became unbearable.” Samantha could stomach many things, but B.O. wasn’t one of them. Having her head cradled in Chuck Simmons’s armpit had been the equivalent of having a skunk go off in her face.

Jack laughed again. “Maybe you should have worn a surgical mask, or you could have asked poor Chuck to take a shower.”

“Quit being stupid! Chuck did shower. It’s just that he has some kind of glandular problem, and—why the hell am I telling you this? It’s none of your business.”

“Because I’m your best friend and you tell me everything.”

It was true. Samantha knew about the women he slept with; Jack knew when her period was due. Living together was rather like being married, only without all the emotional upheavals that accompanied a marriage certificate.

The perks without the pukes, as Jack so eloquently put it.

“Sometimes it’s embarrassing to discuss my personal relationships with you, especially when you don’t share all the nitty-gritty about your love life.” Not that she’d had that many. Meeting good men in New York City was like waiting for your ship to come in. Unfortunately, hers was in dry dock at the moment.

Biting into his bagel, Jack replied around a mouthful of cream cheese, “I don’t have a love life. I have a sex life.” He gulped his coffee before continuing. “There’s a huge difference. And I like it that way. Most women bore me—they talk a lot and say nothing.”

“That’s because you have the attention span of Morris here.” With a lift of her head, she indicated the ceramic frog. “Maybe someday when you grow up, you’ll learn to appreciate the intricacies of the female mind and date someone who has a brain bigger than her boobs.”

Jack threw back his head and laughed, and the booming sound reverberated off the walls of Samantha’s heart. There was something about Jack’s laughter that made her feel all warm and cozy inside, not to mention that his dimples were adorable.

“Christ! No wonder you scare off all the men you date.”

“I do not!” But Samantha knew that was a lie. She tended to speak before thinking, to share her opinion about every little thing, and most of the men she dated hated that, especially if her opinions were of the negative variety, which they usually were.

Was it her fault she was picky and sought perfection? If she settled, she’d end up with someone like…well, Chuck. And she had no intention of settling.

Honesty, Samantha had found out the hard way, was not an admirable trait in a woman, since men’s egos tended to be bigger than their…

Brains!

Well, except for Jack’s. She’d seen his brain by accident once when he was coming out of the bathroom and she was going in. They had collided, causing him to drop his towel, and she’d gotten a good glimpse of a very impressive—

No wonder he was so smart.

“If you didn’t have to have everything so perfect, you’d be a lot happier. And by the way, I didn’t appreciate your lining my underwear drawer with lilac-scented paper,” he said, wrinkling his nose in disgust. “I smell like a hooker!”

“You’re just ungrateful. A man secure in his masculinity wouldn’t be bothered by a womanly fragrance. And besides, I thought the scent was nice. I’m sure Bunny loved it.”

Jack sighed and shook his head. “You make things too complicated. Just go with the flow, like I do.”

Samantha rolled her eyes, her mouth dropping open in disbelief. “Now who’s lying? You hate your job, even though you make gobs of money, and you date women who are dumber than rocks. What’s that say about you?”

She waved him off with a flick of her wrist. “Go away and leave me alone. I have work to do.”

“Aha! So you finally admit it.”

Samantha’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not sure why we’re friends, Jack Turner. We have nothing in common. And you are extremely annoying.”

Grinning widely, Jack tweaked her nose. “If I thought you meant that I’d pack up and leave. Oh wait! I own this apartment, so I guess I can’t. Now then, your nasty mood means you’re either PMSing or your book got rejected again. Which one is it?”

It was very disconcerting living with someone who knew you better than you knew yourself, Samantha thought. She hated to admit to Jack that she had failed again in her attempt to get published.

She wanted to pull her weight financially and contribute more to their living arrangement. Although she did most of the cooking, cleaning and errand running, Jack paid the majority of the bills. It was the way he wanted it, and she couldn’t afford to change things too drastically, at the moment. But some day she’d be making lots of money—at least, that was the goal.

“Why do all those stupid publishing people hate my book? It’s better than a lot of stuff out there. You liked it. Why don’t they?” Dropping onto the sofa, she heaved a dispirited sigh.

Samantha had aspirations of becoming the next Nora Roberts or Nora Ephron. But instead she was Nora Nobody, unpublished novelist at large. Maybe she needed a new pen name.

“Maybe I’m just not good enough. I should have stayed in Rhinebeck and worked on the family farm like my dad wanted me to.” Her parents would have loved nothing better than to keep her close at hand. Though Sam had appreciated their well-meaning advice, it had eventually become smothering and she’d needed to escape to live life on her own terms.

Taking a seat beside Samantha, Jack took her hand. “You know you are. Hell, you were always the smartest kid in class, acing all the tests, showing up the rest of us.”

Like that mattered, when my boobs were smaller than Suzy’s!

“I liked what I read, but the book’s not finished,” he continued. “You might have a better shot at selling it if you’d finish the damn thing. You’ve been working on it for years. You could have written the friggin’ history of the world by now.”

Samantha finally smiled. “The World According to Samantha. I like that.”

He patted her knee. “Don’t give up. There are still plenty of publishers out there you haven’t tried yet.”

“I’m on a first-name basis with many of their assistants. How pathetic is that?”