Chapter 1

Hazel

“Here come the strippers!” Carly, the bride, clapped her hands and jostled around in her seat, almost dislodging the glittery wings we’d attached to the back of her ‘Til Death Do Us Shot t-shirt before the bachelorette party.

The grand doors to the resort hall swung inward and the song Macho Man pumped through the speakers overhead. Men in all shapes and sizes, some genuinely attractive, entered, wearing fancy suits and cheesy grins.

They formed a line at the front, already tapping their feet to the rhythm.

I groaned and sank down in my seat. “No, no, no,” I whispered.

Can you say, awkward?

“Lighten up, gorgeous,” Carly said and pinched my nose. “You’re going to love it. Come on! It’s Hawaii. You’ve got to live a little. Shake the dust off your thong.”

“I love that you think I’m wearing a thong,” I replied and twinkled a smile in her direction.

This was her weekend, after all, and I wanted all the happiness in the world for her.

It was just that chiseled guys in speedos and bow ties weren’t my thing.

Sure, I liked hot guys – who didn’t, am I right? – and some would say this was the perfect way to get over an ex, but the idea of a dude waggling his junk inches from my nose didn’t do it for me.

Particularly after having my heart dragged across the jagged rocks out on the beach.

Tha-thump, tha-thump, flat line. Sleep tight, Hazel.

What kind of asshole dumped a girl in Hawaii, right before a wedding, which, ahem, may I add, we were both attending?

My ex-boyfriend, Jacob, that was who.

“I have literally never been this excited,” Carly said and lifted her mimosa. She slurped on the end of the straw and left a magenta lipstick stain behind. She tossed her long blond locks, then nudged my arm. Alcohol splashed onto my jeans, right at the crotch.

Perfection. Of course, that would happen to me.

Carly sloped her arm around my neck and hugged me close. “Drink it, don’t spill it! You need to loosen up, Hazey, darling. Things are about to get wild.” She wriggled her penciled eyebrows at me.

“If I didn’t love you so much, I’d shake you,” I said.

She threw back her head and laughed, then broke into song. “Macho, macho, man!”

The other bridesmaids sang along with her, hopping to their feet and stomping around, wiggling their hips. The strippers, dear god help me, ripped off their pants as one and revealed glitzy thongs underneath.

Hey, at least they’re not wearing speedos. Or strategically placed leis.

Thank heavens, Carly hadn’t asked me to take photos of tonight’s event.

“Get up!” Carly shrieked.

I rose to my feet, painfully aware of the stain on my jeans, and the logo on my shirt, Bad and Boozy Bridesmaid, and attempted an unenthused shimmy.

The men approached, removing their shirts, one button at a time, still grinning and humping the air in front of them. My cheeks heated, and the inside of the hall, down lights, parquet flooring and all, swam around me.

Can’t do this. Not after what happened. I sucked in a breath and let it out again. No, Hazel, get it together! This isn’t about you or your shitty ex-relationship. This is Carly’s weekend.

But it was all too much. Every single dude wore Jacob’s grin – the expression which said, “Sorry, not sorry I’m dumping you.”

I swayed and bit my lip, then spotted Carly’s empty mimosa glass. I snatched it up. “Anyone need another drink?!” I yelled.

The other bridesmaids hooted and thrust empty glasses in my direction. I swiped a silver tray off the little round table we’d been sitting at and loaded them up, along with my own. “Be right back, ladies. Have fun!”

None of them heard me, and it was a damn good thing, since I had slurred half of the words out of sheer panic.

I scurried between the tables and toward the bar at the other end of the room, gaze fixed on the bartender there – a young weasel-looking dude in a dress shirt and tie. I clattered the tray onto the bar top and exhaled a long, thin stream of relief.

Christ, this was nightmarish.

Why? Why couldn’t I keep it together? Or rather, why hadn’t Jacob broken up with me before we’d flown all the way out here?

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried stilling my mind.

“It’s okay,” I muttered under my breath.

“I’d say it’s more than okay, bad and boozy bridesmaid.” The deep rumble came from my right and set all the nerves I possessed tingling. And not the bad ones either.

I cracked one eyelid and then the other, shifted my gaze from the empty lipstick-stained glasses, to the man who leaned on the bar at my side.

His ocean-blue eyes sparkled beneath the bar’s down light, which also cast a shadow on one side of his face, right in the crook of his nose, which had been broken at some point if the kink in the bridge was anything to go by. Lips, not too full, just right – hmm, just like Goldilocks’ bed – curled back over perfectly white teeth.

And the jaw line. Oh, man. The guy could’ve chopped down trees with it.

The suit that clung to his muscular frame was all clean lines, stark black, and accented by a tie.

Heat shuttled through me and I blinked. “Huh?” Super, super eloquent first word there, Hazel.

“Bad and boozy,” he said, nodding to the title on my shirt, then flicked his gaze to the women shrieking and dancing around with the strippers by the tables. “You’re not bad and boozy? Because if not, that’s false advertising.”

I opened and shut my mouth again. And that heat focused solely on my cheeks. “I’m neither bad nor boozy,” I squeaked. Was this guy a stripper? He had to be, dressed like that – the suit looked almost exactly the same. Granted, I wasn’t an expert in all things sartorial but –

Okay, definitely rambling in my head. And rambling means panicking.

“Neither bad nor boozy,” the hubba-hubba hunk replied and took my hand. He turned it over and ran his thumb over my wrist. “I like that. I like good girls.”

My jaw dropped again, and shivers tingled through me followed by a hot burn in my core. I wrenched my arm from his grip, immediately. “I just came for drinks,” I said. “That’s all.”

“So, you can get boozy?” he asked.

“What does it matter? I don’t even – look, shouldn’t you be out there, doing your thing?” Where had that damn bartender gone? This was the last place I needed to be: turning into a molten mess over some superhot stripper dude at the bar.

Minutes ago, I’d been on the verge of passing out, thanks to a shattered heart. It simply wasn’t conceivable that some guy could stroke my wrist like I was an oversized cat and smooth away my sorrow.

“You don’t like the show,” he said.

I snapped around again, stiffening. “What? No. It’s – look, it’s great. I just – I’m sure you’re very skilled, but I’m not into this type of thing.”

He brushed hair from my collar bone and set off another marathon of shivers. It was such a casual move, so natural, and at the same time… so damn possessive. “What is your type of thing?”

I gulped.

The song overhead changed to one more sultry and smooth with a deeper bass line. The thump matched the beat and flutter of my heart.

“I like taking photos,” I said, because it was the first thing that popped to my mind and the last thing he probably wanted to hear.

He ran his fingers across my collar bone, leaned in, and pressed his cheek to mine. “I like the way you move.”

I stumbled back a step – irony! “Okay, well, okay. That’s nice. I’m Hazel, by the way. Not that you needed to know that, or asked or anything. I’d better get back to my friends.”

The swarthy treat of a man lifted a scotch glass from the bar top and swirled the amber liquid within it. “Out there? Are you sure?”

“Ye-no,” I replied.

“Makes sense.”

“I mean, yeah, I’m sure.” God, I was never usually this… dumb? I’d lost all my words thanks to him, and it was a feeling to which I definitely wasn’t accustomed.

My ex had been sexy but nothing that’d induced brain mulch.

This guy, the Nameless Stripper, made the muscles in my stomach clench like an iron fist. He lifted the tumbler and tipped it toward me. “Enjoy your evening, Hazel.”

I licked my lips, turned, and hurried back to the table, where Carly held a fistful of one dollar bills.

“Who’s next?!” she yelled and waved them around. “Momma’s got a fist full of dolla biiiiiillls!”

I reached the table, then stalled and palmed my forehead. I’d forgotten the drinks! I spun back toward the bar, nervous mode activate, then stalled mid-step.

The bar stools were empty. The ‘I’ll fuck you with a look’ guy had disappeared, and so had my tray of empty drinks. “What the –?”

“Ma’am?” Two fingers tapped my shoulder, and I turned, yet again, this time to meet a waiter, holding a silver tray of mimosas. “Your drinks, ma’am. Compliments of the gentleman at the bar.”