The Remingtons_Blush of Love Read online

  Text copyright ©2017 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 Melissa Foster. All characters, scenes, events, plots and related elements appearing in the original The Remingtons remain the exclusive copyrighted and/or trademarked property of Melissa Foster, or their affiliates or licensors.

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

  The Remingtons: Blush of Love

  A Kindle World Novella based on Melissa Foster’s Remington Series

  Written by

  Rachelle Ayala

  Description

  Talented video game designer Safire Chu is gun-shy when it comes to dating real men, especially since she spends all her time shooting at their avatars.

  Football player Gunner Gibson is nothing but trouble, according to the Remingtons—especially since he tried to use Siena Remington to clean up his bad boy image.

  Now, Gunner wants to cheat on an online video game, so he asks Safire to a New Year’s Eve party while his publicist hacks into the game database through Safire’s computer.

  A bit of champagne and the countdown to the ball drop loosens Safire’s inhibitions. When her company’s newest secret game is pirated, Safire wonders if the man she’s fallen for at first blush is not all he seems.

  Featuring: Gunner Gibson from Melissa Foster’s Flames of Love

  Dedication

  Melissa Foster, thanks for letting me play in your world. You’re an awesome mentor and friend.

  >>><<<

  Table of Contents

  Description

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  LOVE THE REMINGTONS?

  Also by Rachelle Ayala

  Chapter One

  No way. It can’t be. The Gunner Gibson?

  Safire Chu blinked and blinked, but the man standing at her apartment door seemed like the real thing—three dimensional, oozing with charm and was that a whiff of cologne? Three-dimensional avatars, well, actually 3D projected on 2D screens, didn’t smell like sex and spice and woods and oh gosh, they didn’t stand at her door with a bouquet of red roses.

  “You must have the wrong apartment.” Safire found her voice which managed to eek from her throat.

  “You are Miss Safire Chu, aren’t you?” the man god in front of her insisted.

  “Uh, sure, if you say so.” She fumbled with her tongue as her brain busily catalogued his dark, smooth hair, his chiseled angular face, his lady-killer eyes, and all of the features she’d need for her latest superhero video game avatar.

  Yes, she was a video game designer, and she could use real models to fill out the wireframes she created—ones to represent Army rangers, Navy SEALs, interplanetary warriors, and, now that she thought about it, football players.

  “May I come in?” He angled himself as if he were about to barge through a line of defensive backs.

  “Sure, uh, yes, I mean, the place is a mess. I’ll get out of your way.” She stepped back and let the star football player into her tiny one-bedroom apartment, although she had no clue why he was standing in front of her with a dozen roses.

  “For you, Miss Chu,” Gunner said, presenting the red roses. Once inside her tiny, cramped apartment, he appeared so large he practically filled the entire room.

  She couldn’t figure out where to turn or what to do as she hastily stumbled into the kitchenette and rummaged in her cabinets for a vase.

  Wait. Wasn’t that awfully rude to turn her back on him? She had a visitor, and shouldn’t she offer him something to eat or drink? Where were her manners?

  Safire looked down at her fluffy bunny slippers and her sweat pants. Oh goodness. She was a mess. She’d been up coding all morning and she was still in her pajamas. What time was it already? Four in the afternoon?

  “Mister, er, Gibson, I don’t know why you’re here, and I can’t find a vase. Would you like something to drink? Eat? Smoke? Oh, wait, I don’t smoke. How about some treats? Pocky sticks? I have chocolate, strawberry, and matcha flavored. Or tea? Oolong black or jasmine green?”

  “Whoa, there, slow down.” Gunner laughed, and his smooth, deep voice was like long stringy molasses and dark whiskey.

  Safire swallowed the drool collecting under her tongue and froze, staring at his godly presence as he surveyed her messy and unlivable apartment.

  “Why are you here?” They were the only words she could utter.

  He swiped a large hand through his brown hair and grinned, melting her on the spot like an overheated wax candle. If she could capture that look for her latest superhero in Zombie Warlord, she’d knock the game off its charts. Who wouldn’t want a guy like that leading a team of zombie hunters?

  He placed the bouquet of long stemmed roses in her ice-cold hands. “I’m your date to Dex Remington’s New Year’s Eve Extravaganza at Nightcaps.”

  “You are? I didn’t know I was going.” With you.

  “You’re definitely going.” Gunner flexed his biceps, well-visible under his tight, very tight, black T-shirt.

  She slowly shut her mouth, the one that had been gaping wide open and scrambled in her tight quarters for a vase. She had to have one, but it wasn’t as if men sent her flowers all the time. The last time was three years back when she was newly out of graduate school. She’d landed a job at Thrive Entertainment, New York City’s leading video game company, and Dex Remington, the president and CEO had personally sent her flowers—tulips, she remembered, multiple colored tulips in every hue from brilliant orange to sooty pink to deep red.

  “I haven’t been thinking about the party because of all the deadlines at work. I’m not sure I can make it. I have so much to do …” She bit her tongue over the torrent of words spilling from her lips. This was Gunner Gibson, pro football player, and he wasn’t interested in her deadlines or any other lines.

  “You have to go,” Gunner said firmly. “You won Game Designer of The Year, and I’m your date.”

  “You? Did Dex arrange this?” Safire hadn’t been on a date for well over a year. Her last “sort of” boyfriend had been an Army Ranger who’d wooed her while on his two-week leave. He was Dex’s friend growing up, and he’d dumped her for a blonde. Nope, she was definitely outclassed when it came to dating. Better for her to stick with Mitch and Regina, Dex’s cronies and his first two employees. They’d always gone stag to every party, although if she had any intuition at all, she could have sworn the two of them had a thing going—well, in the virtual world, at least, if not the physical.

  Gunner’s grin grew almost as wide as his broad shoulders. “No one arranged it. I’m hoping you’ll accept my sincere desire to take you to the Thrive New Year’s Eve Extravaganza. I’m a real fan of that last game you designed, Planet Wargames. I’m a level fifty-eight Stormtrooper.”

  “You are?” Safire’s tongue found it hard to articulate. “I didn’t know pro football players had the time to play. Didn’t it take you hundreds of thousands of hours to level up?”

  He quirked an arrogant smirk at her and all but rolled his eyes. “We have our minions—you know those dregs
who hang out at our mansions?”

  “Uh, well, no, I’ve never had any minions,” Safire admitted. “So, why are you here?”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know the secret code to jump into the treasure store with unlimited coin, would you?”

  Of course, she knew all the codes. Heck, she’d planted all the Easter eggs, backdoors, and testing levels herself, but her company made money not from people playing for hours on end, but on those who made in game purchases for goodies like extra ammo, lives, healing potions, high power weapons and scopes.

  “No such luck, Mr. Gibson.” Safire narrowed her already narrow eyes. She might have been star-struck with him, the Gunner Gibson in her apartment, but when it came to her work and her company’s secrets, she was as impregnable as a nun wearing a chastity belt armed with hand grenades. Okay, so the video gamer part of her had to add the grenades, but suffice it to say, Mr. Gunner Gibson wasn’t getting past her, red roses or no roses.

  “No harm asking.” He spread his hands in an amiable fashion and grabbed a juice pitcher from her cabinet. As if he owned her place, he filled it with water, unwrapped the roses and arranged them in her stainless steel pitcher.

  Did anyone even invite him in?

  Safire was way too mousy to throw him out. Besides, he made a great character study. Who knew he had a dimple under his right eye? Or a scar that might have marred his jaw if it hadn’t served to make him more rugged than she’d imagined. As for his nose, it looked like it could have been broken a time or two.

  The artist in her raked her eyes over his hot, well-endowed physique, noting the large hands with the splayed fingers, strongly veined forearms, corded muscles and thick neck, not to mention the V shape of his shoulders down to a narrow waist.

  Cataloging the lower half of his body would have to wait because Gunner was done arranging the flowers, although one stem had broken and another was flopping listlessly over the lip of the pitcher.

  He placed the pitcher on her kitchen table near her open laptop, and his roving eyes centered on her screen. She got the distinct impression he’d be more interested in her code than if she’d done a complete strip tease, from her oversized T-shirt to her sweat pants and finishing with kicking her bunny slippers in his face.

  “Ahem.” Safire cleared her throat loudly. “Are we done here? Because Mr. Gibson, I really need to get back to my debugging work. I’m under a tight deadline.”

  “So am I.” He cracked his knuckles one by one in that annoying fashion that made her cringe. “I’ll pick you up at ten, day after tomorrow. Dress to impress.”

  “Excuse me?” Safire marched up to him, her hands on her hips, and craned her neck up, up, up. “What makes you think I don’t already have a date?”

  “Trust me. You’ll want my help.” He tipped her chin up to the point the back of her neck cricked. “I have it on good authority that your ex, Finn Meriwether, will be there partying with his surfer lady, and when the ball drops at midnight, you’ll want a guy like me locking onto your lips.”

  “Who put you up to this?” Safire pressed her hands over his chest both to keep him at bay and to retain some semblance of balance. Too bad he flexed his pecs and the heat of his body burned almost the entire way through her palms. Okay, she could study his musculature to make her animations more realistic, and the way heat radiated from his hard muscles, she could also use him as a personal space heater. In fact, her tiny apartment felt positively balmy since he’d barged in. But barged in, he did, and it was time for him to leave.

  “What makes you think someone had to put me up to this?” Gunner rubbed the soft spot under her chin. “Your profile’s public at your company’s website, and you weren’t too hard to find. I happen to be free New Year’s Eve, and I’d like nothing better than to take you on a date.”

  Just staring into his dark blue eyes had Safire already melting like Laffy Taffy. Goodness knew he was gorgeous, and huge, and men of his star caliber just didn’t knock on doors of lonely video game designers, especially when she was so close to a deadline, but then, maybe she had fans, too, and he was one of them. Maybe in his eyes, she was a woman of star caliber. Planet Wargames was one of the hottest massive multiplayer shooter games on the planet, and it was her brainchild.

  “Great, I’d love to.” She reluctantly pushed herself away from him, both to regain her dignity and to keep from embarrassing herself. She was a video game celebrity, and she shouldn’t walk around star struck just because the real Gunner Gibson was inside her apartment. “Since you know where I live, I’ll see you New Year’s Eve.”

  Chapter Two

  “You owe me,” Gunner said to his publicist, Clarissa Chu, as he pulled on his winter coat and wrapped a scarf around his neck. He’d gone back to her apartment which was in the same building as her sister Safire’s to give his report. “She agreed to the date.”

  “Not so fast.” Clarissa poked a finger over his belly button. Hadn’t he told her he hated her touching him as if he were some prize bull at a county fair? But then, after the fallout with his old publicist over dating plastic goody-two-shoe models, he wasn’t about to complain about one who could overlook his badass side.

  Gunner steeled himself for the enhanced list of demands or excuses, whichever worked to her favor.

  “I have a few guesses about the passwords, but I need access to her laptop,” Clarissa said. “Which means you have to keep her busy at the party while I hack into it.”

  “You promised me the password and the high-level access. I need the account enhanced by eleven fifty-nine New Year’s Eve, or it’s no good.”

  “I know that, but the password’s no good unless the access comes from her physical machine.” Clarissa crossed her arms, jutting her lower lip. “What time did you say you were picking her up?”

  “Ten, like we agreed. Should I go by earlier? Maybe take her to dinner?”

  “No, it’ll make her suspicious and she might take her laptop, defeating the purpose. Two hours is plenty of time to fill up your weapons cache, level you up to chief of staff, and replenish your bank vault.”

  “Don’t forget the presidential pardon and the DNA enhanced blood supply. At chief of staff level, I need to be able to heal my minions instantly. There’s also the secret level, and the Illuminati boss to fight, and you have to beat all the other players to the prize.”

  “I know what you need.” Clarissa angled her eyebrows down in a deep frown. “Now, tell me, how’d it go? Did she suspect anything?”

  “Nothing at all. She was dumbstruck by my charm. The roses were also a good touch of realism. She couldn’t believe I was asking her out on a date, but I dropped that last part about her being a super star in the gaming world. I’ve got this, Clarissa. Trust me.”

  “You do realize that’s my sister you’re taking out.” Clarissa’s scowl deepened if that was at all possible. “If it weren’t for the fact that certain changes can only be made from her computer, I wouldn’t be risking this. You better be on your best behavior. Remember, you’re only her fake date. No touching, no kissing, and you better bring her home no later than an hour after midnight. I should have covered my tracks by then.”

  “You bet.” Gunner buttoned his coat and grabbed his hat. “You make sure the account’s activated before I bring her home.”

  “I’ll text you if I need you to delay. But no funny business. My sister’s not your type anyway. She’s shy, socially inept, clingy, and high strung.”

  “With a sister like you, who needs enemies?” Gunner opened the door to let himself out.

  “I’m only doing this to get you out of that hole you put us in.” Clarissa pointed her finger at him.

  He hated that. Being scolded like a child. Who did she think she was? Didn’t she work for him?

  Oh, right. After he fired his old publicist, and word had gotten around town about him being hard to work with and unreliable, he’d had to settle for this female shark—one who’d stop at nothing to get him the advertising deals
that would parlay his football career into a nice nest egg for the rest of his life—if he didn’t screw this up.

  He let himself out of her midtown apartment building in a recently gentrified area of Manhattan that had left its grittier roots behind in favor of new media businesses and upscale retail developments to compliment the existing theatres, clubs, and ethnic restaurants.

  The light dusting of snow made the area feel fresh and clean, and he couldn’t help but glance up at the nameless windows of the brownstone building, each unit small and cramped, yet demanding rents that could pay for a family home elsewhere.

  Going on a date with Safire wasn’t going to be a problem at all. She was petite, cute, and stylish with her enchanting Asian eyes and the silky black hair that swept over one side of her porcelain face, giving her an air of mystery and seduction.

  In fact, he was going to enjoy it—even more since the snobby Remington gang would be at the party in full force. He’d heard from more than one acquaintance about how the Remington brothers had ganged up against him for daring to take their baby sister, Siena Remington, out on two photo-op dates. They acted as if he were the equivalent of Typhoid Mary and the black death all rolled up in a smallpox infected blanket.

  They came from money, of course, and had zero understanding of how hard it was for a guy raised by a single mother to put himself through school and play pro football. Heck, he was higher educated than that muscle-headed firefighter Siena ended up with—one who posed for sexy calendars and danced around in bunker pants for horny middle-aged women during charity events.

  Gunner straightened the lapels of his respectable Burberry coat and huffed. He might have been raised in a trailer park, but he had every right to be at the Thrive New Year’s Eve Extravaganza, and none of the Remingtons had better tell him off for not being good enough to hang in their rarified circles.