Dream Lover Read online

  Dream Lover

  A Lover Boys Novel

  Aubrey Wright

  Copyright © 2019

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Mature audience only, 18+.

  Cover Design by Cover Couture

  www.bookcovercouture.com

  Cover photo by Michelle Lancaster

  www.michellelancaster.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Epilogue

  Boss with Benefits

  Best Man with Benefits Sneak Peek

  Introduction

  The prick actually left me at the altar.

  I was devastated when my fiancé dumped me.

  Even though the cosplay theme wasn’t exactly my dream wedding.

  Even though my married name would have been Pepper Salt.

  Even though I had a vague sense I was settling.

  Jilted is jilted.

  And when the news is delivered by an Ewok? Even worse.

  My life was a shitshow, and I needed a distraction.

  I wasn’t expecting it to be THE Noah Mack.

  Former lead singer of the Lover Boys and the star of my teenage fantasies.

  Dripping with raw, unbridled sexuality.

  Hell, he’s the star of my adult fantasies!

  Suddenly, he’s pulling me up on stage,

  inviting me back to his dressing room,

  showing up at my office with that hard body and that cocky smile.

  My wildest dreams are coming true.

  But there’s more to Noah Mack than shredded abs and a gorgeous face.

  My spidey senses are telling me beware.

  But my heart is saying fu@k yeah!

  Hotter-than-hell rock star meets sexy nerd next door in this scorching romance with a dash of humor from Amazon bestselling romance author, Aubrey Wright.

  1

  PEPPER

  We all have our wedding fantasies, right? I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell spent more than a few hours—hell, probably a few days’ worth of hours (OK, weeks, months)—dreaming about that perfect day. I was a kid, of course, so all the fantasies ended up being some dreamy haze of white lace and champagne and, hell, why not a few horses while I was at it?

  As I got older, of course, the dreams took on a little more of a realistic tone. The gorgeous castle where the wedding would take place—floating in a perfect blue sky, naturally—was replaced by an elegant church. The lovely, white, silk dress that seemed to flow for miles in my wake in my dreams was swapped out for something a little more subdued and, well, actually based in reality.

  But, of course, one thing never changed—I’d be getting married to my dream man, surrounded by my friends and family and all the rest, ready to start my new life with a guy who I loved dearly.

  In all my fantasies, however, there was one thing I never imagined. One particular guest that I never made room for in my daydreamed guest list. The one attendee who was, at that moment, looming over me, his coal-black eyes set among a face covered in wild, chocolate-brown hair.

  Chewbacca.

  And not only that, Chewbacca dressed in a tux which, surprisingly, fit him pretty damn well.

  “Mffmhmmm?” he said.

  “Um, sorry,” I said. “I don’t speak Wookie.”

  He shrugged his shoulders in a frustrated manner that was, I had to admit, a little out of character. Less like a fearsome, powerful Wookie and more like an oversized teenage brat.

  “Mffmmhmm!” he said. “Mmmfmm! Frmhf.”

  I decided that was just about enough.

  “Cory,” I said. “As much as I admire your dedication to authenticity, you’re going to have to take that thing off if you want me to hear a single word you’re saying.”

  He turned his head away for a moment, as if trying to weigh the pros and cons of breaking character. Finally, Cory reached up with his big furry hands and pulled off the mask, revealing a pudgy face, his typically shaggy, unkempt hair plastered to his sweaty forehead, his face red. He took a few deep breaths, as if he’d just stepped out of a sauna and needed desperately to get some nonstagnant air into his lungs.

  “Sorry,” he said between pants. “The costume.”

  “I get it,” I said. “That thing’s got to be like an oven. An oven covered in fur, if that’s even a real thing.”

  “You think this is fur?” he asked, tugging at a handful of brown on his forearm. “I don’t even know what this is. Hell, I’m staying away from the candles because I’m pretty sure whatever this costume is made out of would go up like tissue paper if a fire even came near it.”

  I glanced over his shoulder at the scene behind him. It was total costume-clad insanity. The wedding guests were all in cosplay mode, dressed as their favorite fantasy and sci-fi characters. A techno remix of what sounded like the Battlestar Galactic theme—the new one, not the impossibly corny old one—played over the PA system. It had to have been one of the nerdiest parties I’d ever seen in my life.

  But it wasn’t just a party. It was a wedding. It was my wedding. All done up to the specifications of my husband-to-be, with very little input from the bride, that being me.

  A slender figure sidled up to me, one I recognized right away, even out of the corner of my eye, as Shania Weeks—social worker, blonde bombshell, one of my best friends, and, very importantly today, one of my bridesmaids. She wore a long, elegant gown, her blonde hair wrapped around the back of her head in a thick braid that framed her pert, pretty features like a halo.

  “Cory,” she said, folding her arms underneath her boobs and cocking her hips to the side. “This better be good. We’re in the middle of getting this gorgeous girl ready, and I’m pretty sure it’s bad luck for you to even be in her presence.”

  I couldn’t help but grin. Sticking up for myself had never been a problem, but Shania, the most recent addition to my tight little friend group, had always made sure problems were stamped out before they had a chance to begin.

  “Yeah,” I said, realizing that she’d taken the words right out of my ruby-red-lipstick-painted mouth. “What she said.”

  Cory’s face was already red from the costume, but Shania’s no-bullshit tone managed to put an even deeper shade of blush into those cherub cheeks of his.

  “I know, I know,” he said. “But I was just wondering if any of you had seen George.”

  “George?” asked Shania. “As in, George Salt? As in, the groom?”

  I winced, just like I always did, at the mention of my fiancé’s last name. Sure, I was thrilled as all get-out about the idea of finally being married after thirty-two long years, but taking his last name was something that elicited a, uh, different reaction
.

  Not that there was anything wrong with the name in and of itself, more that once this whole geekstravaganza of a wedding was all said and done, I would be known, till death do us part, as Mrs. Pepper Salt.

  “Yeah,” said Cory, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his carpet-like wrist. “Haven’t seen him anywhere. Thought he might be hanging out with you guys.”

  “Grooms don’t ‘hang out’ with the bridesmaids before a wedding, George,” said Shania. “That’s basically cursing the wedding.”

  He put his furry paws in the air in a “hey, ease up!” sort of gesture.

  “Just making sure everything’s cool,” he said. “I mean, it’s kind of weird that the groom’s MIA, right? I’m seriously asking—I’ve never done one of these things before.”

  “You haven’t seen him?” I asked. “Are you sure he’s not just in the crowd somewhere? I mean, this is a cosplay-themed wedding, after all.”

  A cosplay-themed wedding where I became Mrs. Pepper Salt. Add this looming Chewie in front of me to the list of “things I never thought would apply to my wedding day.” Don’t get me wrong—I love geek stuff. Put me on a pub quiz team and I’ll zip down through the sci-fi category like a Star Trek Runabout flitting between laser fire during a battle in the Dominion war.

  Granted, that was all mostly a holdover from high school, and since then I liked to think that I’d made the transition from “painfully, hopelessly nerdy” to “charmingly adorkable.” George on the other hand, not so much. When he and I happened to come into one another’s lives more than ten years since we’d last seen each other in high school, I realized right away that while I might’ve changed, he still flew his geek flag high.

  And it was endearing. Mostly. Sort of.

  “George isn’t wearing a mask,” said Cory. “He’s dressed up like Indiana Jones, remember?”

  That he was. I’d seen the costume. Many, many times. He’d even tried to wear it to bed a few times. And I don’t mean he wanted to sleep in it. I mean the other kind of “wearing it to bed.” “Tried” being the operative word.

  “And you still don’t see him out there?” I asked.

  “Nope,” said Cory. “Was just starting to think it was kind of, I don’t know, weird.”

  “It’s fine,” said Shania, placing her hand on the door to the dressing room. “We’re having the wedding at one of the biggest comic conventions in the city—not surprising he’s wandered off somewhere. Now, Cory, why don’t you get back to the wedding and stop giving the gorgeous bride-to-be here more things to worry about?”

  Cory looked more than a little embarrassed, but that expression quickly faded away when he seemed to remember at that moment that he was talking to Shania, the woman he’d been trying, quite unsuccessfully I might add, to get into bed for the last year.

  “Sure, sure,” he said. “I’ll leave you ladies to it. By the way, Shania, I love your Zelda cosplay—it, uh, does impress-me-much.”

  Oh no—this poor bastard just made a Shania Twain joke.

  “Ha ha!” barked Shania. “Never heard one of those before. You know, I was going to gently shut the door, but now—”

  With that, she slammed the door shut, the big Chewbacca-with-a-human-head replaced by solid wood.

  “Good lord,” said Shania.

  “Hey,” I said, giving her purple-and-gold-accented Legend of Zelda dress a quick up-and-down. “He’s right about your cosplay—you look like a million bucks.”

  “A million rupees,” she said with a smirk.

  I laughed. “Good catch.”

  “You guys done over there?” asked Sam, my maid of honor.

  She was dressed head to toe in a skintight white, pink, and blue jumpsuit—her take on D.Va from Overwatch. It was an accurate take, which meant it left very little to the imagination. But hey, she had the slender, toned body for it. Long brown hair and cute little swatches of pink paint under her eyes completed the look.

  “What was that all about, anyway?” asked Katy, the third bridesmaid.

  Katy was a buddy back from college, the first friend I’d made when I’d arrived, alone and totally out of my depth. Both of us had been painfully new to LA, and we’ve stuck together through thick and thin. And unlike some of the other guests here, Katy was all about the cosplay.

  In fact, she wasn’t just any cosplayer—she was an Instagram sensation with a follower count near a million. Not a comic convention in the city was complete without her showing up decked out in whatever costume she’d been hard at work on. And today was no exception. Her Black Widow was perfect, down to the last details. And her movie star va-va-voom good looks made me think ScarJo might need to start watching her back.

  “Cory,” said Shania. “Asking about George.”

  “What about George?” asked Sam as she plopped into one of the nearby overstuffed chairs.

  “Said he hadn’t seen him,” I said.

  “Before hitting on me and totally striking out, that is,” said Shania with a smirk.

  I laughed. “Yeah,” I said. “Before that.”

  “Hmm,” said Katy, whipping out her phone and swiping away.

  I stepped in front of the mirror, giving my gown a final once-over. It wasn’t any specific cosplay theme—I wanted to have a little bit of say in this whole process, after all. But it was tight and short, the flared shoulders giving it a spaceshipy look. And the girls had done an insanely good job on my look. My jet-black, shoulder-length hair was done up in a fashionable swoop, and the blue around my eyes gave me a cool, futuristic look.

  “Have you checked George’s Instagram yet?” asked Katy, her eyes on her phone.

  “Nope,” I said, taking one more look at myself. “Got other things on my mind than social media right now.”

  Like trying to forget about the fact that my name was going to be Pepper Salt, for one. And trying to ignore the fact that as much as I didn’t want to admit it, somewhere in the back of my mind was the unignorable notion that I was settling, that I was marrying George because he was there, and he’d asked, and because I was scared as hell of being alone.

  Not that I wasn’t excited about it all. I loved George, sure, dork though he might’ve been. He was sweet—sometimes too sweet, perhaps—and had a good job as a senior systems administrator for a local engineering company. And I was getting married! Like, really, freaking getting married. Sure, the cosplay thing was a little much, but it was fun.

  “Why?” asked Sam. “What’s up with his Instagram?”

  “Nothing,” said Katy. “But, um, his most recent upload was taken an hour ago. And here, at the convention.”

  “What’s weird about that?” I asked. “I mean, it’s where the wedding is happening.”

  Shania, evidently picking up on the fact that Katy was thinking something and not saying it, swooped over and snatched the phone out of Katy’s hand.

  “Who’s the chick?”

  “Huh?” I asked. I broke away from the mirror and hurried to her side. On the screen was Katy’s Instagram, username @balthasardidnothingwrong—a reference I’d never really understood. Sure enough, there was the man himself, dressed up like a not-quite-as-hot Harrison Ford and standing among the geeky chaos of the convention.

  And right next to him was a girl who barely looked out of high school, in the face anyway. The rest of her was all big boobs and wide hips packed into the costume of a character I recognized from Street Fighter but didn’t know the name of—one of the most scantily dressed ones, of course. George’s arm was around her waist in a way that looked way too close and comfy for a man who was about to tie the knot. And the girl was leaning into him, a dreamy look in her eyes.

  I had no idea what was going on, but I didn’t like it. On top of the picture, neither the caption nor the handful of tags made any kind of reference to a wedding. Minor detail.

  “Holy shit,” said Sam. “Is that really her?”

  “What?” I asked.

  I jockeyed for a spot amon
g my friends and craned my neck for a better look.

  “You know who that is?” I asked.

  “Sure do,” said Sam.

  She took her own phone from where it was on the nearby dresser and went to work.

  “Enji Gray,” she said. “She’s kind of a legend in the cosplay scene. Follower count that makes me look like nothing.”

  Sam held out her phone and I took it. With total intensity, I swiped through the girl’s photos, taking in shot after shot of the girl in nothing but the skimpiest of the skimpy cosplay outfits, not a single one of them leaving anything to the imagination.

  “Holy boobs,” I said.

  I swiped through the pictures, all of the chick posing at different conventions in different costumes. I wasn’t sure what some of them were, but the common thread was, well, very little thread. Everything she wore managed to put her barely legal boobs on full display.

  After swiping back a little more, I stopped on a photo that made me nearly drop the damn phone.

  It was George, sitting a table with little miss Enji, dated a couple of months ago. The background behind them was no other than Paris freaking France, the city of lights and the city of whatever it was going on between my fiancé and some smiling pair of boobs with legs.

  “What the hell?” asked Katy. “They know each other?”

  “The date,” I said, still trying to wrap my head around what I was seeing. “It’s when he said he had a business trip to Austin.”