Chapter: FourCARTERThat was quite the show.I almost want to applaud Carmen for her spectacular Broadway performance.Vex elbows me in the side like I’m suddenly the enemy. “What the fuck?” he hisses in my ear. “How much have you had to drink? Put the blackboard down.”Vex can’t tell me what to do. He’s not in the police force anymore, even though he still acts like it from time to time.“I know her,” I murmur under my breath.“Keep your voice down.” I return my gaze to the auctioneer and give him my best smile. I dread to think what I look like right now. It probably looks like I’m constipated.The auctioneer reads the number aloud and I confirm.What else was I supposed to do? Let Conrad O’Neill, the devil in disguise, have his way forever with the girl I got to know first?She shouldn’t be here.Why the fuck is she here?“Are you gonna tell us how you know her?” Vex asks.I go back to staring at her on stage and hoping this isn’t karma.The night I spent with her is symbolic. I don’t expect the
Last Updated: 2026-02-24
Chapter: ThreeCARMEN“Four hundred dollars?” Sadie holds the cash in her hand like it still belongs to me. “I can’t take this much.”“It’s not a tip. I need you to stay the night.”They’re very dramatic. Eight inches to be exact.There was a time before Otis when I was on the Strip six days a week, shaking my ass and going home with strangers.It’s a good thing I saved these babies for a rainy day.I frown. Is Sadie a mind reader as well as my go-to nanny? “What do you mean?”“Stripping.”I laugh, ready to shake my head and tell her she’s got it all wrong.“Desperate times call for desperate measures.”“But it’s dangerous, Carmen. What if you get hurt?”“Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing, and it’s just for one night. Besides, I used to do it all the time.”“Totally, when I was around your age. Twenty-one and free.” I stop myself before I sell a profession I actually have no experience in. “But I don’t recommend it. You’ll end up on the lap of a Chanel-wearing monster who claims to be a man. And th
Last Updated: 2026-02-24
Chapter: TwoOtis’s hair blows in the wind like silk as he runs around the yard, all thirty square feet of it. For now, he’s still at the age where he’s grateful for everything.But that won’t last forever.I was gonna call Conrad last night, but I don’t want to make out like I’m desperate. Even though I am.It’s the definition of desperation.To pay nanny fees, I’m gonna have to forfeit a few nonessentials on the grocery list until further notice, including butter.After finishing the toast, I drink a gallon of water to cure my dry mouth, and take out the card again.Barbed fucking wire.Not like I should be surprised. The neighbors are nuts and hate kids with a passion. To them, Otis is a dog they don’t want anywhere near their property.“What’s that, Mommy?” Otis leans over my shoulder and tries to read the card.“Nothing, baby. Just work stuff.”I slip it back into my pocket before his next question is about the silhouette of a busty woman displayed on the card.Of course, I have Otis, but a t
Last Updated: 2026-02-24
Chapter: One1CARMENNormally after working lateat the grocery store, I leave with a coffee so I’m awake for the drive back.But tonight I won’t be doing that, because I drop the coffee when I jump out of my skin.I’ll get back to him later. Right now, I’m feeling too distraught about the spilled coffee to register the voice. Iced lattes cost a fortune these days.And it’s this fucker’s fault for creeping up on me.I tear myself away from the coffee before I get too attached. This man owes me six bucks for making me drop the one thing I can’t drive home late at night without.“I get it. Now you’re too scared to show yourself, seeing as you’ve made a cranky woman drop her coffee. You owe me.”“A person who gets angry over losing a few bucks is a person who is broke,” says the voice, with an Irish lilt.“Excuse me?”But I am carrying a weapon—steel-toe boots are deadly if you can kick a person’s face hard enough.“Kindly fuck off and leave me alone.”“You might want to use your manners.” A dark fig
Last Updated: 2026-02-24
Chapter: FiveCharlotteThere I was, fully naked in the arms of the hottest guy I’d ever seen, and he was adorably shocked by my request to suck him off.“Oh, that’s what strikes you speechless,” I teased him. “Not me stripping naked less than an hour after we met?”“I—”I slipped my arm around his neck and pulled him down. When he went in for a kiss, I dodged him, bringing my lips close to his ear. “No, the thing that shocks you is learning that I want you to come in my mouth and let me gulp down every drop.”A shiver went through him.“I don’t know if you can handle me,” I went on, and ran the tip of my tongue over the curve of his ear. “You were so sure of yourself before.”“You’re treading dangerous ground,” he warned, leaning back. “Or water, more aptly. But I’ve done things you couldn’t imagine in your wildest fantasies.”“My fantasies are pretty wild,” I countered, all the while thinking, show me. Show me all those dirty things you’ve done. Do them to me.He slowly backed me toward the edge
Last Updated: 2026-02-24
Chapter: FourMatthewWho the fuck is this woman?I could barely remember how to use the key card when we reached the door to the presidential suite. Which I now had to rename. It would probably up honeymoon bookings; nobody wanted to think of Woodrow Wilson on the most romantic trip of their lives.The more immediate issue was that my best friend’s little sister was brutally hot and incredibly fun, and she was about to be in my hotel room.The lights came on automatically when I opened the door, and Charlotte nodded with a grudging smile. “That’s pretty impressive.”“Wait until you see the rest of the place.” I couldn’t keep my eyes off her as she walked in. “Hourglass figure” didn’t come close to describing what was going on under her tiny shorts and distractingly thin tank top.The air-conditioning in the building enhanced the look.And she was Scott’s sister. Regardless of Scott’s insistence that he was only worried for my fragile emotional state—which wasn’t the glass castle of pain he envisio
Last Updated: 2026-02-24
Chapter: ThreeCharlottteThe resort was absolutely ridiculous. There was no other way to describe it. We pulled through the tall wrought iron gates at midnight, and everything inside the stucco perimeter fence was hopping.“I thought this was a quiet seaside vacation spot,” Mom said nervously as she peered out the window of the giant SUV that had picked us up.A deep bass throb vibrated the air around the car as we pulled up to the reception building. When an attendant opened our door, the distorted voice of an overly enthusiastic DJ was shouting, “If you’re having a good time, get those hands up!” to a cascade of cheers.“What the hell is that?” Mom asked the man who’d opened her door.The guy was probably around my age, but he didn’t waver when confronted by Mom’s I’d-like-to-speak-a-manager tone. Instead, he smiled broadly and said, “Wild Side Wednesday, ma’am. Trust me, you can’t hear it from the residence side of the resort.”Mom’s “hmm” made it clear she was not convinced.“So, this is Scott’
Last Updated: 2026-02-24
Chapter: TwoMatthewIt wasn’t every day that I got a chance to surprise my best friend, especially since our jobs had basically kept us in different countries ever since college. We’d gotten together every chance we could, but for the past decade it had been a once-per-year affair. And now that he was about to get married and start a family, that number would likely be reduced.Wearing my driver’s hat and standing in the baggage area of Hilton Head Island Airport, I felt a pang of anticipated loneliness at the thought. Scott getting married shouldn’t have bothered me as much as it did.I flexed my left hand, where I could still feel the phantom weight of my recently discarded ring, pulled my chauffer’s cap lower on my brow, and held up the sign I’d scrawled with a black permanent marker on the ride over. There was a surge of people into the baggage claim area, and I spotted Scott’s familiar blond head bobbing among the rest. As my bewildered friend staggered in my vague direction, I called out, “
Last Updated: 2026-02-24
Chapter: OneCharlotteTo take the pink bikini or not to take the pink bikini…“You’re taking the pink bikini, right?”I turned my dropped-jaw expression on my best friend. “Are you reading my mind?”Sarrah shrugged, looking as effortlessly cool as ever as she lounged on the sofa that provided a line of demarcation between my bedroom area and my living room area. She tossed her glossy black ringlets, and the beads of her dangly boho earrings clicked together. “I’m just here to play costume designer.”“I’m packing for my brother’s wedding. Not playing Madison Square Garden.” I turned back to the mound of clothing on my bed. I didn’t need a costume designer, but I definitely needed someone who could stop me from trying to take every item of clothing I owned along for my brother’s destination wedding.Sarrah sighed her patented fed-up-with-Charlotte’s-bullshit sigh. “Packing for your brother’s wedding at a tropical resort—”“It’s in South Carolina.”“Packing for your brother’s wedding at a resort whe
Last Updated: 2026-02-24
LOGIN
