Page 1 of His Own Heaven

Chapter One

“Charlie, what the fuck are we doing here?”

Tobias Bennett’s twin didn’t spare him a glance as he continued filling out the form on the clipboard in his hands. “Speed dating,” he said, as if the answer were obvious.

With so many bodies crammed inside, the heat in the pub was stifling. Toby popped another button open at his throat and drew in a steadying breath. He hated crowds with a passion. “I thought speed dating went the way of the dinosaurs. Isn’t everything online now?”

“It’s making a comeback,” said the kid behind the bar with the overly coiffed hair and excessively groomed beard. Making a show of whatever strange concoction he was pouring into a martini glass, he added, “People have finally figured out they’re less likely to get catfished in person.”

Toby stared blankly at the hipster. “Catfished?”

“Fake online profiles luring people into fake online relationships for the purpose of defrauding them,” Charlie said matter-of-factly, handing him the pen.

“How do you know?”

“I know things,” his brother said, defensively. “Sign here.”

Toby frowned at the clipboard. “What am I signing?”

Charlie, always the more dramatic of the pair, groaned like he was the most put-upon man in human existence. “Just sign it.”

With a raised brow and a resigned sigh, Toby scribbled his name on the bottom of the form and handed the clipboard to the kid behind the bar.

“Okay, since you’re first-timers, I’ll give you a quick rundown of the rules. One, there is a two-drink limit. If you drink more than two drinks, you will not be allowed to continue. Two, men stay in one place and the ladies come to you. Each ‘date’,” the kid said, using honest-to-God air quotes, “lasts five minutes. At the end of five minutes, a bell will chime, and the ladies move on to the next ‘date’. If you hit it off with someone and wish to continue talking, you can either exchange numbers and hook up later, or you can leave the dating pool. If you choose to leave the dating pool, you will not be allowed back in for the rest of the night. Three, harassment of any kind will not be tolerated. Got it?”

Toby and Charlie exchanged a look. “I think we got it,” Charlie replied, grinning like an idiot.

“Excellent. Can I get you guys a drink?”

“We don’t drink,” they said together, then walked towards the back of the pub.

“Check out the honeys,” Charlie whispered, a noticeable bounce in his step.

Toby cocked one brow, his gaze sliding sideways to stare at his brother. “What is with you tonight?”

“Besides the fact I can’t remember the last time I had sex?” At Toby’s continuing stare, he said, “What? I’ve been busy.”

“And I haven’t? I’ve been working seven days a week since Rebecca quit.”

“Yeah, but you don’t take it home with you, do you? I feel like all I do these days is work,” he said, noticeably irritated. “And when I’m not working, I have the girls. So excuse me for being a responsible parent by not having sex with random women when I’m looking after my impressionable teenage daughters.”

Sighing quietly, Toby said, “Fine. I’ll endure an evening of torture so you can get laid.”

Charlie flashed him one of his signature grins, the one that made women trip over their panties and fall at his feet. “You never know, little bro. You might get lucky too. It’s not like you couldn’t use a good fuck. You’ve been twitchy all week.”

Toby snorted.Twitchy.That was an understatement if ever he’d heard one. He’d jerked off so many times in the past week he was amazed his dick hadn’t fallen off. And since the woman he was lusting after was off limits, maybe finding a partner for the night wasn’t such a bad idea.Fuck.

At the very least, he could use a distraction from the fantasies that had played on an endless loop in his mind’s eye since Monday afternoon.

But then he scanned the group of women milling about at the rear of the pub and nixed the idea immediately. Some of them looked like contenders—tall women with shapely backsides—until he glanced at their fancy footwear and calculated their actual heights. Without their shoes, he guessed most of them would be lucky if they were anything more than five feet and maybe five inches tall.

In other words, they were small.

And he knew from experience that even if these women found him attractive enough to go home with, he still wasn’t getting laid. Standing at six feet and eight inches in height and weighing in at 125 kilograms, most smaller women were too afraid to even flirt with him, let alone take their clothes off and let him fuck them.

Especially the way Toby liked to fuck.

Charlie reckoned it had more to do with his attitude than his altitude, but Toby had seen the fear in too many women’s eyes not to recognise it now.

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