Beauty & the Geek: Rocket to Love Read online

  Mocha Memoirs Press Presents

  Beauty & the Geek:

  Rocket

  To

  Love

  RaeLynn

  Blue

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright© 2011 RaeLynn Blue

  ISBN: 978-0-9831934-8-7

  Editor: Lacy Hill

  Cover Artist: Nancy Grayson Donahue

  Proofreader: Novellette Whyte

  Published by Mocha Memoirs Press, LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews. Due to copyright laws you cannot trade, sell or give any e-books away.

  Dedication

  For my special geek…quietly.

  Other Works by RaeLynn Blue

  Operative Attraction

  Naughty Nanny Series: Accidentally in Love

  Hot Summer Shimmer

  Lasso a Lover

  Schooled

  The Concierge

  Thy Neighbor’s Wife

  Somethin’ Cookin’: Thelma’s Eatery

  Somethin’ Cookin’: Cook’s Choice

  Somethin’ Cookin’

  Chapter One

  “So, do you think Jean-Luc Picard is a better Starfleet captain than Captain Kirk?” asked Race Wilson. “Wookie, I’m talking to you!”

  Ben Wook Sun looked up at his friend and shook his head gently. Race’s stringy, sandy-brown hair played with his eyes and spilled inside his round, gold-toned glasses. He patted his chest where his pocket protector kept all of his pens—each a different color—in perfect alignment. Ben liked Race, but honestly, the man spent too much time hanging out in the comic book section at the bookstores. Graphic novels rocked out, but Ben liked to do Sudoku puzzles more.

  Not that Ben needed any comic book reading to answer this question. They should all be this easy.

  “Picard. Smart. Well-read, and every bit a fighter as Kirk. He could beat the old let’s-beat-the-shit-out-of-everyone, Kirk, any time.”

  “That’s bull and you know it. When you’re in a jam, you’re up against the wall, who are you going to want at your back? A learned scholar or a bruiser like Kirk?”

  “And how many of those fights did Spock have to use his logic and great knowledge to save Kirk’s ever-loving ass? Huh?” Ben held up one finger on his right and a fist on his other.Ben, one. Race. Zippo.

  Race wouldn’t let it go. “Don’t muddy the waters. Educated or experienced fighter? Pick.”

  Ben pushed his ebony, square-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Therein lies the problem, Racer. We’re not fighters, we’re rocket scientists.”

  “Yeah!” roared about six fellow scientists lining the bar in the middle of the hotel’s urban, slick restaurant. They’d all had too much to drink and way too much idle time. Every time that happened, the conversations dissolved into the validity of Star Trek™ technology and story arcs.

  Always.

  Race chuckled, managing to spew some of his beer out of his mouth while doing it. Ben hurried and swallowed his tequila before he, too, lost it. Goodness, he knew he stood at the bar, and he remembered deciding to come here, but some of the day’s earlier activities sunk into a haze. How long and how many beers had he downed before switching to t-shots? Well, that he didn’t know. Aerospace engineering, he knew like the back of his hand. Ever since he’d witnessed a space shuttle launch at the age of ten, he’d wanted to be an astronaut, follow his Star Trek® fandom into the stars.

  That so would’ve been the life.

  Life didn’t always follow the script he wrote, so here he was.

  Ben sighed and adjusted his glasses. That hadn’t been his destiny. Blaming his DNA and his poor eyesight he’d inherited from his mother hadn’t been an option. His parents didn’t stand for wallowing in self-pity. Half Korean and half African-American, Ben Wook Sun didn’t have an option of being a slacker or backing off of a challenging situation. Rather than sulk, he studied and found that he was very good with his hands. He spent endless weekends holed up in his room gluing together rocket parts and models, memorizing them. He could build and do math. Really. Really. Well.

  “Ah, Wookie,” yelled Mr. Anderson, so loud the bartender winced. “Have you heard this one?”

  Ben didn’t bother answering his supervisor. If he’d said no, Anderson would tell the joke anyway. For a man who had a brilliant mind, his boss chose to fill it with silly rocket scientist jokes. Ben had no idea why.

  “A future rocket scientist, this one. So, a man is asked by his friend, ‘What does your son want to be when he grows up?’ The man replies, ‘He wants to be a garbage collector.’ His friend says, ‘That’s a strange ambition.’ The father responds, ‘Yes, but he thinks garbage men only work on Tuesdays.’”

  Anderson roared. Laughed so hard he grabbed his overlapping belly, which shook like, well, Ben canceled that train of thought at once.

  “Good one, Anderson!” Ben shouted back and rolled his eyes. He tapped the rim of his shot glass. “One more, please.”

  The bartender nodded. He refilled Ben’s tequila and sloshed it a bit.

  “Hey!” shouted Race.

  The bartender, a big beefy man with a lot of facial hair growled at Race. “Shut that hole, nerd.”

  “Yeah, well, your momma!” Race shouted back.

  “Race!” Ben snatched the wiry scientist by the collar and out of the bartender’s face. He said to the hunk of ancient human DNA serving drinks. “Ignore him. He’s had a lot to drink.”

  “I could’ve handled it,” slurred Race, hiccupping to punctuate the sentence. Unfocused eyes roamed all over the place.

  “I think you need to be cut off. You’ve had way too much,” Ben said.

  “Whoa!” Race ignored Ben’s advice and fell to the floor, banging into a few of the other scientists. They yelled at him, but quickly went back to chatting about whatever suited their fancies. Race clamored, clumsily rising to a standing position.

  With eyes wide, Race said to Ben. “Did you see them?”

  Ben followed Race’s blatant stare to a trio of women who strolled into the restaurant. The scent of floral and expensive perfumes still lingered on the otherwise stale air. Sun-kissed skin, strappy sandals, and long cinnamon-toned legs dressed in brightly colored sundresses. Goodness, he loved summer. Oversized sunglasses pushed into shiny, full hair completed what Ben could only describe as beauty dipped in sunlight.

  No wonder Race fell over.

  “I do now,” Ben said and reached over to close Race’s gaping mouth. “Good call.”

  “Damn. That’s one hot rocket, huh? I’d like to launch her blasters,” Race commented.

  “Which one?”

  “The one in blue,” Race said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Wookie, those women are gorgeous, like that Beyoncé. African-American women are so gorgeous. Stunning. The one in the pretty blue, she could launch my rocket.”

  “Kill the rocket jokes,” Ben said, hearing Race’s slur on the s.

  Ben saw her. The average pronoun couldn’t even begin to convey the extraordinary woman in red. He wiped his hands across his khakis. Red had been a good choice because she was a firecracker. Cinnamon brushed legs went on forever. Ben’s heart actually skipped a beat. Then another. Could be the tequila.

  The woman’s ka-pow landed a huge wallop on him.

  “Wow,�
�� Race said again.

  “Those kinds of women are all about money,” Ben countered.

  Race shrugged. “We got money, well, except for Thomas, but his ex-wife took half.”

  Ben tossed back the dark amber liquid. The shock of the burn acted like lightning. More awake, he tried to blink back the weary vision. No doubt. He’d had way too much to drink. Probably shouldn’t have started with beer. No. He should’ve stuck to beer.

  “Yeah, we have money, but women like them don’t date guys like us.”

  “We’re not some other species, though that didn’t hurt Captain Kirk’s chances at all,” Race countered.

  Ben nodded.

  He could do complex equations in his head, but he’d never understand why woman wanted dumb mates. All brawn, but no brains. Ben shook his head.

  “Brad Pitt we aren’t, Race.”

  Race’s expression fell. “Yeah.”

  Their moods sobered, Ben pushed back from the bar, rotating the stool around and putting his back to the bartender.

  “Look, I’m going to hit the sack. I’ve got that panel at 8 a.m. on Astrodynamics.”

  Race’s unfocused eyes met his, but then slid back to the women sitting in a booth. Only the tops of their heads could be seen from his position now, but one of the women, dressed in a scarlet red dress, held his attention. Even if the only thing he could see was the top of her curly ponytail.

  “Yeah, sure! I’m on the same one, so call me to wake me up,” Race said, or that’s what Ben thought he said. “Will you, Wookie?”

  “I’m not your mother. Get a wakeup call.”

  With that, Ben clapped Race on the shoulder, threw a fifty on the bar, nodded to the bartender to keep the change, and headed out of the restaurant and out of the thundering noise of the television; the shrieks of drunken laughter, and the roars of multiple conversations. The world spun sluggishly. Steadying himself by using the wooden stools and his co-workers’ shoulders, Ben made his way toward the exit. Race had been pulled into the circle of remaining associates at the bar. Ben heard him lamenting the loss of an old computer, a Commodore 64, his mom threw out two decades ago. Frowning at the lot of them, Ben realized no one would be at his panel. They’d all be hung over.

  He smirked.

  That was if he made it.

  Most of his coworkers could talk about any aspects of rocket science in their sleep. World experts, most of his friends had a life of lecture, academia, and books. Few married. When they did, Thomas happened. A woman would divorce him because she couldn’t compete with being married to one of the world’s smartest men. At 36, Ben had a lot of life left. Sure, not all the scientists were male. Quite a few of the most brilliant minds on the planet were women. So, he had his flings, but those faded fast, dissolved by the acidic strength of competition. He didn’t date other scientists any more.

  “Hey, Wookie!” Race shouted.

  Ben turned and the step that should’ve been there suddenly wasn’t, and he fell. His glasses clattered against the tile and out of reach. Everything blurred without his glasses and all he could make out of the fuzzy blobs were shades of scarlet and nutmeg.

  Then, a heavenly voice, tinted with a sexy husk, asked, “Did that guy just call you a wookiee?”

  Chapter Two

  Jewel Isles gawked at the man scattered in a human pile of clumsiness and noted he didn’t look anything like a fuzzy wookiee. She didn’t advertise her knowledge of Star Wars™ to her girls, but she did think it humorous that someone thought this non-hairy, but really cute, man resembled Chewie from the popular iconic series. His narrow eyes squinted into thin slivers, disappearing into his face as he searched about for his glasses. She reached down to get them for him, but she nearly stepped on him. He patted blindly about the floor for his glasses. Once his hands landed on them, he hurried and put them on. Then, he looked up at her. Ebony hair, cut with longer bangs and shorter sides, framed a square forehead and smooth caramel-brown skin. He looked Asian, but with a very good tan.

  “Why is your friend calling you a wookiee?” she asked, laughing as the man got to his feet. “You don’t look anything like Chewie.”

  His eyes widened, and he stopped brushing dust and debris from his slacks. “Chewie?”

  Jewel scowled and gritted her teeth. She got this kind of reception occasionally from men. Just because she liked handbags and shoes didn’t mean she didn’t know anything else. The look of disbelief on the man’s face annoyed her and she fluffed her feathers a bit.

  She hitched her chin higher. “Oh, you didn’t think a woman like me would know anything about Chewie and wookiees?”

  “No,” he said too quickly. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to crash into you there. The step just disappeared.”

  Jewel smiled, softly, her initial annoyance somehow vanished in light of the man’s apology. “Yeah, you’re surprised. You’re not a good liar.”

  He grinned at that. “No, not at all. Most people know Luke, Leia, and Darth Vader, but Chewie is just the thing that can’t talk.”

  “Chewie can talk. Hans understood him,” she responded.

  “He did,” the man said, grinning outright now. “R2-D2 and C-3PO did too.”

  “The galaxy’s a big place. Universal translators aren’t all they’re cracked up to be,” she said.

  He laughed. “No. That’s one of those things that bothered me about Star Trek™.”

  Quirky, the stranger tickled her. She stood by him, and watched him. He wore a crisp, ivory button-down shirt and khakis. A nice leather belt circled a tapered waist. Wearing what appeared to be expensive, soft shoes, he still stood taller than her five feet nine inches. She had to look up into his face. Tall, his hair held hints of thickness, and more curls than she expected.

  “No harm, no foul. Nice to meet you,” she said.

  She headed in the direction of the table where her friends, Nadia and Mikki sat, already scanning the menus for their choices. Mikki sat with her back straight, her curvy body clothed in a canary yellow sundress. She wore her hair up in a stylish, messy updo. A thick, chunky, yellow diamond necklace graced her neck and matching teardrop earrings glittered from her ears. Across the round table from her, Nadia sat in reserved quiet. She wore her hair down and a Carolina blue, knee-length dress. From her wrists a new diamond tennis bracelet—a gift from her boyfriend—caught the overhead lights. Dozens of shopping bags piled around the legs of the chairs looked like tall plastic, paper, and slick glossy grass.

  “Be careful going back up the stairs,” she said, smiling broadly and feeling the heat on her cheeks at his stare. He hadn’t moved.

  “You want to join me for a cup of coffee?” he asked. “There’s a café next door.”

  Jewel hesitated. She glanced back at Mikki and Nadia. Jewel sighed. She couldn’t ditch them to have coffee with a complete stranger. No matter how incredibly cute the man was, she didn’t know him, and honestly, she couldn’t leave her girls like that.

  “Rain check?” she asked, smiling politely.

  She looked back to him and noticed his shoulders sagged a bit. This pleased her—not his disappointment—but that his disappointment meant he wanted to actually have that coffee with her. He wasn’t just being polite. Talking Star Wars™ and other nerdy stuff with her girls wasn’t an option. They’d just spent an entire afternoon shopping at the shoe and purse expo at the hotel next door. So, they’d discuss what they purchased and the coordinating outfits.

  “Yes, absolutely,” he said. “I’m sorry again for falling on you.”

  “Oh, my rain check? When can I use it?”

  A slow grin emerged on his face. His eyes captured hers and her heart leapt like a dog leaping for a bone. She watched him drink her in, his eyes skating lightly down her body like invisible fingers. Her nipples tightened at the heat in his gaze. Even his glasses couldn’t shield some of his unchecked desire.

  And like a light to a wick, Jewel’s longing caught fire.

  “Yes, let’s meet at t
en, tomorrow. Does that work for you? The coffee shop next door?” he asked, his voice thick and a tad deeper. He smiled, and when he did, the nerdyness became more pronounced. Funny thing for Jewel, she liked him more. The husk of heat in his tone made her all tingly inside.

  With that, he headed, carefully, slowly, one step at a time, up the stairs. Jewel watched him, taking in his firm and sexy ass. It seemed nutty that such a cute bottom belonged to such a geeky man. Caught in the potential, imagining the feel of his strong bottom in the palms of her two hands, she simply sighed. The khakis skimmed hardened thighs, and beneath the boring clothes, she knew a fine body existed. She sighed, and once he disappeared out of sight, returned to her girls.

  “There you are,” Mikki said, scooting her chair over to allow room for Jewel to sit at the table. The round table held three glasses of water and two wineglasses filled with chardonnay. “I didn’t order your drink, but I gotcha water, no lemon.”

  “Thanks,” Jewel said, sinking into the chair.

  Nadia peeked over her menu and then lowered it. “What’s wrong? You look upset.”

  Jewel moved a stray hair from her forehead and out of her eyes. “It’s nothing. So, what sounds good?”

  Nadia frowned. “Don’t do us like that J. You spent too much today didn’t you?”

  Mikki giggled. “God, I did.”

  Jewel grinned. She loved them, but damn they could read her like an open book. “I met someone.”

  They exchanged looks. Then, they broke into snickering laughter. Nadia actually held her side, and Mikki put her head down on her elbow on the table, both were shaking with laughter. The waiter’s harsh clearing of his throat made them all look up.

  “You ladies ready to order?” he asked soberly.

  Mikki wiped her eyes with her fingertips and swallowed her giggles.

  “Yes, I’d like the fried chicken salad with ranch on the side.”