Secret Seductress (What's Her Secret?) by Geraldine O'Hara

Chapter One
    I was known as the mad bird, the one all the blokes in the pub went to for relationship advice or asked if I’d like to join them for a beer when all their mates were busy. None of them had ever shown an interest in me in any way other than us being friends. It would be the story of my life, I thought, being left on the dusty shelf while everyone else paired off, married with loads of kids. I was happy enough, but there was that little thing inside me that whispered about cozy nights in with the man of my dreams—him bringing wine in a large goblet, which he would pour into my navel then suck it up.
    Or was that dream only unique to me? Did anyone else dream the same thing?
    I couldn’t be sure, but from where I was sitting—far-left corner of The Rusty Nail, best buddy Jen next to me and half a bottle of voddy scampering through my veins like a nutty dog in a meadow—the man of my dreams wasn’t here.
    Well, he was …it was just that he didn’t know it. And, let’s face it, he wasn’t going to want me, Mad Mandy, all ladette, a woman who could drink most of the men under the table. God, what had I allowed myself to become?
    Leon, the man I’d lusted after for six whole months, was standing by the bar swigging from his bottle of Beck’s. His lips around the top of that bottle had me wishing they were firmly clamped around my clit, giving it a good old tug and making me all squirmy with pleasure. I got that feeling down below that makes you want to clench, but the desire romping about in my nethers clearly didn’t fancy buggering off any time soon.
    The other lads, Gary and Marshall, were fucking about twanging the hem of Leon’s white T-shirt. God knew what they were talking and laughing about, or why they were doing what they were, but I wished I was over there, part of the gang, just so I could twang that hem myself and maybe get a sly feel of his skin while I was at it.
    “He is so lush, isn’t he?” Jen asked.
    “Who?” I hoped she wasn’t referring to my Leon. She’d have no trouble snagging him, brunette beauty that she was, and I wouldn’t begrudge her an ounce of happiness, but… Oh, sod it. I did begrudge her. She could be happy so long as it wasn’t with him.
    “Gary,” she said, sighing then sipping her vodka and lime. “He’s so bloody lovely.”
    “Not my type,” I said, ogling the strip of Leon’s belly being exposed by Harry. “I prefer Leon. But sadly, he doesn’t prefer me.”
    “How come you’ve never told me you liked him before?”
    “No point,” I said.
    I took a big gulp of my drink and stared so hard at Leon I narrowed my eyes, trying to spot whether he had an outie or innie as a belly button. His thick hair peeked out from his waistband then fanned upwards and hid that bit of information from view, so I’d have to content myself with imagining.
    “Outie or innie?” I said, glancing across at Jen.
    The men—or Gary, to be exact—held her spellbound. “What?”
    “Leon. Outie or innie?”
    “I can’t say I’ve ever wondered,” she said. “But if we go over there, maybe you can find out.” Instead of standing and doing just that, she remained in her seat, raised her glass to her pink-painted, cupid’s-bow lips and had another sip.
    “Better not,” I said. “Looks like they’re not interested in us joining them. Seems it’s a lad’s night out to me.”
    “Bit of a bummer, that,” she said.
    “Hmm.”
    I continued to watch them, transfixed by every scrap of skin that was being flaunted, slurping it all up and filing it in my head. The blokes were getting bolder, raising the hem higher, and Leon didn’t seem to give much of a shit. He wasn’t an exhibitionist, but he wasn’t shy either. I reckoned his take on it would be that if people wanted to look, why shouldn’t they? He had an air about him that might make the ladies think he was a player, a rough-looking player at that, with his permanent stubble, every-which-way hair and