Bear It All

His date—he couldn’t bear to think of him as only a hook-up—arrived on the pool deck moments after Travis ordered his second mojito. The man’s unbound, sandy blond hair fell almost halfway down his back, just begging for Travis to run his fingers through it. Even as all the tanned beach studs frolicked with their bikini-clad girlfriends and kids splashed about, John still managed to turn heads. Then again, not every day did someone tower over the crowd with six-foot-five inches of ripped, hair-covered muscles.

Travis swallowed back the drool when John gripped the back collar of his T-shirt with one hand and pulled it off before heading for the shallow end of the pool.

“Hey, get a load of Chewbacca,” a girl nearby whispered. “Ever heard of a back wax?”

Travis shot the two girls a look as they fell into fits of hysterical giggles. He curled his lip in disgust, suppressing the urge to snarl at them. Bimbos. What the hell did they know about real men? Real men knew how to fix things. They drank beer and ate meat and potatoes—not salads and tofu. Big, masculine men could hold a guy up and fuck him against a wall so effortlessly Travis didn’t have to worry about being dropped.

And most of all: Real men had hair.

Lots and lots of delicious body hair.

Well, except for Travis. As smooth and lean as the guys the giggling bimbos probably liked, perhaps his own lack of a pelt triggered his irrepressible fascination with hairy men. Of course, losing his virginity to a big ol’ bear probably hadn’t hurt.

Sultry memories of his summer working on a farm came back to him, stirring feelings of warmth and tenderness. No one had suspected Mr. Thompson was gay, but Travis had noticed the appreciative looks, felt the heat of his gaze. The nights they’d been together, he’d been so gentle, teaching Travis how sex was supposed to be, kind and wonderful. Intimate. But Thompson had been separated from his wife and so deep in the closet the affair ended almost before it began. To this day, no one had ever made Travis feel as safe and cherished. And he’d been looking.

My God, had he been looking.

Who knew his deepest fantasy only waited a few emails away?

While embarrassing to pay for sex, he’d planned this vacation as a way of celebrating the end to a stressful year studying for and completing the Ohio Bar Exam. And if one bought a gift for himself, he might as well guarantee he got exactly what he wanted, right?

When he first ran across Destiny Ink, he’d assumed it serviced hard-up fat guys who lived in their mom’s basements. But upon further investigation, he’d discovered it was the break he’d been looking for. Destiny Ink claimed to be a matchmaking enterprise—Travis had checked into the legalities and read his contract carefully—and they promised the fantasy. After he paid the fee, the agency rep Lady Phoebe had emailed Travis to ask him what he was looking for. It had been like filling out the custom order form for a new car.

But a whole lot more fun.

Tall and hairy were a must. Sweet, handsome. Older than him by at least ten years. A smart man, if he could have one. But he’d be cool with pretty and dumb too. He’d been anxious to find out what kind of guy his one-night stand might be since he’d signed up for this adventure.

From what he could tell so far, his date looked perfect.