There have been times in my life that I have not been proud of my actions. There have been times in my life that I have questioned what in the hell I was thinking. But that moment in the snow with Poppy wasn’t one of them.

The rational part of me suggested it should be. The irrational part of me suggested it was perfect and right—and that if I were at all honest, I would own up to the fact that it was a moment we had been barreling toward for a very long time.

Yes, I should have stopped with the kiss. But damn—Poppy’s kisses are addictive as hell. As soon as I had one hit, I knew there was no going back. And then things got difficult, and she agreed to help out—as a friend. I think we both know that wasn’t a friendly gesture, not on her part, not on mine. Not any of it. What I don’t get is, what’s with the wall? What is this invisible force that’s constantly trying to keep us from happening?

I get it, though. A long distance deal would be tough. Plus, this is new. We’ve gone from never speaking to one another to picking up right where we left off and then some. I take the blame for that. Once I noticed she was freezing me out after graduation, I should have stepped up and given her a call—encouraged her to come out for the holidays—especially those that my mother hosted. She missed all of those, and, in turn, missed out on her own family because of me. She wasn’t avoiding my mother. She was avoiding seeing my face at the table.

As far as I can recall, there were three major events that wedged a divide between us. The first and foremost damning would be our mothers. Their constant, incessant, nagging while trying to meld us together since birth had eroded the landscape for anything that could have ever been. They managed to cast a pall on our relationship before it ever had a chance to get started. The second—as ridiculous as it sounds—would be Poppy’s unrequited crush on Miles Frampton. It’s childish in hindsight, but having the hottest girl you know, the one you want to be with more than anyone else, tell you that she has it bad for the center on our mediocre basketball team was a blow that my fifteen-year-old ego couldn’t quite handle. And the third quake that took us down went down right after our senior year culminated. It involved an alcohol-soaked graduation party—one I don’t care to think about.

The Starry Nights Bar and Grill is locked and loaded with people tonight, elbow to elbow, standing room only—not unusual on a Friday night. Hunter says its runoff business from Denver. Mostly college kids looking for the appeal of a small town that’s miles away from their professors.

I belly up to the bar and find a free seat on the end. Hunter comes over with that shit-eating grin on his face because he’s raking it in this evening, and he knows it.

“What’s up, my man?” He slaps me five and pours me a beer without asking. “You do realize you’ve pissed off more than half my clientele.”

I glance around at the girls congregating in front of the live band as it bleeds out a sappy country song.

“It looks as if they’ve recovered.”

“That’s what you think. I’ve had Larissa coming around getting shit-faced, crying in her whiskey over the fact you chose L.A. Barbie over her. Not my words, dude.”

A dull laugh thumps through me. L.A. Barbie. Poppy certainly fits the bill, but she’s more of an Oak Grove beauty—an original at that. I’ve always appreciated the fact she didn’t try too hard, definitely not too big on the war paint. Poppy is more the girl next door. The girl who stole my heart.

“So, where are things with the two of you?” Hunter leans in with an earnestness and subtle inquisition that only a bartender can provide. Or in this case, my good friend going as far back as grade school can provide.

And just like that, he gets every last detail from me. All of it. The practical joke we’re trying to pull over on our mothers, that kiss at the dance, this afternoon in the snow with her hands down my pants.

“Shit.” Hunter looks horrified for me. “How did you leave off?”

“I took her back to her car, and I said thank you.”

“You said thank you?” He laughs as he picks up a beer bottle and knocks it back as if he needed a drink himself after hearing it. “Dude, you should have at least taken her to dinner tonight. That’s pretty cold.”

Just as I’m about to tell him that I threw out the offer, a familiar face pops up beside me—Conner.

Hunter and I defuse quickly.

“Don’t let me ruin your good time.” He points to my beer, and Hunter is quick to oblige. “Unless you’re laughing at my sister. Then I’m pretty damn glad to break up the party.”

“Nobody is laughing at her.” Hunter holds up his hands, looking guilty as sin.

“I like Poppy.” I look right at him when I say it, and a boiling rage begs to ignite. “You got a problem with that?”

Conner bucks with a silent laugh. “I guess I do.” The seat next to me opens up, and Conner takes it. “Dude, what are you doing with my sister? You don’t talk for years—and I know this because I speak to both of you on a regular basis, and suddenly you’re inseparable. I’m shocked she’s not here tonight. I saw her at the house. She said you took her out snowmobiling.”

That smirk on my face disappears real quick. “She say anything else?” I don’t bother with my next breath. A part of me needs to hear that she’s okay.

He stares out at the crowd a moment, but I know Conner well enough to realize he’s stalling. “I asked her what this was about, and she said she likes you. That she’s always liked you.”

She likes me. She also likes ice cream and puppies so that makes things clear as mud. I know that she’s bent on keeping our arrangement from her brother so that answer doesn’t surprise me.

Hunter pushes a beer toward Conner. “Where is she? She coming down tonight?”

“I don’t think so.” Conner nods a quick thanks for the drink. “She’s done for the day—PJs on, the whole nine yards. She said she might be catching a cold. She was kind of down. She’s probably missing home or something.”

Hunter glances my way like I might be responsible for the fact Poppy is feeling down. And I’m pretty sure I am.

After about ten minutes of switching gears and talking shop, I excuse myself for the night. I glance back just as I’m about to take off and find both Sadie Richards and Larissa double-teaming Conner. That happy-go-lucky look jumps right back on his face where it belongs. I care about Conner. Just like I care about Poppy. That’s why I’m headed off to do what I’m about to.

But instead of heading out the door, I head for the kitchen.

* * *

Considering it’s almost ten o’clock, I opt for texting Poppy rather than giving her sleeping parents a heart attack in what amounts to the middle of the night to them.

Downstairs. Let me in? Please. :)

I thought I’d better tag it with please and a happy face. I’m getting the feeling I’m on her shit list, and if I’m not, I probably should be.

A minute goes by, then two. A light switches on in the entry, and a face peers out from the blurry glass door before it swings open wide, revealing the most stunning woman on the planet.

“What are you doing here?” Poppy Montgomery stands there with her hair in a ponytail, pink fuzzy slippers—but those PJs, they’re white and silky, and right about now they’re daring my fingers to pet them. “And what is that in your hands?”

“Peace offering.” Shit. Could I think before I speak? “I mean, a get well gift, sort of. Chicken soup—fresh from Starry Nights. Hunter sends his love.” Great. Her buddy from the bar sends his love, but the man she helped out this afternoon can’t even get a proper hello in. “Hey, hello.” Crap. “I mean”—I scratch at the back of my head a moment—“would you mind if I come in?”

“Absolutely! Here, I’ll take this.” And just like that, everything feels normal between us.

“There’s a spoon in there for you,” I whisper. “I was going to bring it up to your room. Conner mentioned you felt like you were coming down with something.”

“Oh, right.” Her eyes enlarge for a moment. “Um, I was actually in my room. Lame, I know. But we can go into the kitchen if you want. Or I can take you up for the grand tour. I actually redid it just before I moved. It was my attempt to prove to my mother that I was a true adult.”

“How does one prove adulthood via rearranging room furniture?”

“You’re forgetting it’s my specialty,” she teases. “But in the event curiosity is about to bite your balls off, I framed a still shot of the stock market and hung it prominently above my bed.”

“A shot of Wall Street?” I’m not sure if I should be impressed or perplexed. I’m leaning toward the latter.

She shrugs a little and looks downright adorable in the process. “Of the stock feed. I took it with my phone and printed it out. It’s blurry, and silly, but in my defense, I had senior-itis that year and wasn’t thinking rationally. Anyway, she must have bought it because she commended me on all the mature changes I made. I kept the stuffies, though. If you say a word, you die.” She leads me upstairs—to the apparent “stuffie” haven—and I’m anxious to soak it all in.

I’ve been at the Montgomery’s more times than I can count, but the sacred upstairs has been pretty much off limits. After Conner moved out, there was no reason to venture on up. One summer during a barbeque, there was a line at the downstairs bathroom, and I volunteered to head upstairs. At that point, I hadn’t seen Poppy in years, and, of course, she wasn’t there. But I craved her. Instead of heading left to the bathroom, I made a right and bumped into Charlene who gently corrected my error before I could ever hit Poppy’s bedroom. It was a stupid idea to begin with. What was I going to do? Touch her things like a stalker? Hell, I probably was. I wanted to smell her—feel her if only through her pillowcase. I wanted to rub my face in her clothes and let my heart shatter thoroughly at the tragedy that had become of us.

The second floor of the Montgomery home is L-shaped with the master bedroom at the small base of the letter and three more bedrooms down the long stretch of the hallway. Conner’s room first, then Mack’s old room, then jackpot.

Poppy glances back at me with a mischievous look in her eyes before opening the door, and I feel like a kid being let loose in a chocolate factory for the very first time—think opening day at Willy Wonka’s, and I’m suddenly feeling a lot like Augustus Gloop. Only it isn’t chocolate I want to sink my teeth into. It’s Poppy. She’s so cute and innocent tonight, and that silk—I want to pull her in and never let go.

The room is still as pink as I remember—the old twin bed with a frilly lace canopy has been replaced with a bigger sleigh bed, and a large screen television sits mounted on the wall in front of it.

Poppy puts the soup down and hops onto the bed. An entire row of stuffed animals bounces up and down as if extending their own greeting. I sit down beside her and snatch up a bright green dragon.

“Remember that?” She scoots in as we lean against the headboard together.

“Hell yes, I remember this. I gave it to you. I wanted it for myself, and my mother said I was too old, but you had a birthday coming up and she said I could get it for you.”

“Uh-huh, and every time you came over, you made a beeline toward Freddy.” She takes him back and gives him a rocking hug. “Face it, you used me to get to my stuffed animals.”

“That’s because you had such a vast collection.”

“Impressive, isn’t it?” She kicks off her shoes, and I do the same. “So, what are we watching?” She turns on the TV, and an old Western blinks to life.

“This looks good to me.” I shove a small pink rabbit behind my head and use it as a pillow as I get nice and comfy.

“Are you kidding? It’s all blood and gore. And they’re always fighting in the desert. Just watching it makes me hot and sweaty.”

A chuckle runs through me as I wrap my arm around her and Poppy lands against my chest, her arms curled over me. “So, you’re saying a bunch of sweaty men get you hot and bothered?”

“Eww. Trust me, that’s the last thing they get me. But speaking of which.” She leans over the side of the bed and nearly falls to the floor, so I grab ahold of her waist and hoist her back up. “Thanks.” Her ponytail smacks her in the face, and my stomach cinches because everything about Poppy Montgomery is so damn cute. “I came home to find my battery-operated boyfriend waiting for me.” She pulls a ten-inch hot pink rubber dick out of a box and waves it in front of my face.

“Crap. Get that thing away from me, Pops.”

She bounces it off my lips a few times, and I gently take her by the hand and steady it in front of me so I can take a look at the damn thing.

“It has sparkles. Is that something girls are looking for in a penis these days?”

“The correct term is glitter. And I do believe it’s an official vampire penis.” She brings the plastic penis to her chest as if she were holding a flower. “Good question, though. I’ve never thought about what I look for in a penis. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever really got a good look at any of the penises I’ve encountered. It’s always dark and seedy, and over before I can get a good look at the perpetrator who impaled the lower forty-eight.”

“Very funny. And please”—I grind my palm into my eye—“let’s not discuss the perpetrators who have impaled your lower forty-eight. That’s disgusting. And about how many were there, anyway?” Yes, I want to know. And then I want to track them down and bludgeon them all to death with this sparkling piece of manhood.

Poppy belts out a laugh. “Take a wild guess. I’ll give you a hint. It’s more than one and less than a hundred. But after I confide this delicate information to you, I expect the same courtesy. I’d accuse you of losing count, but I happen to know you’re too anal and egotistical for that.”

“Touché.” I’ve got that number. But ever since Poppy rode back into town, I don’t feel like adding to it, except maybe by one. “Okay—twenty-seven.”

“What?” She picks up a giant white bear and knocks me over the head with it. “Is that the kind of a hussy you think I am? That’s not even a nice round number!”

“Okay, okay. Fifteen. Round enough for you?”

“Better. But still in Skanksville. Wow, it’s nice to know you think so highly of me.”

“I do think highly of you. That’s why I wish that number was less than zero.”

She sinks back down next to me, batting her forest of lashes my way. “You wish I was running in the negatives? Aw, that’s sweet.” She bites down on that devious smile and giggles to herself. “Don’t tell me you wish you could have added my hymen to your beaver pelt collection. I’m betting virgin trapping is one of your favorite sports.”

I close my eyes and bang my head lightly over the back of her headboard. “I don’t know where you get this stuff, Eight Ball.”

“It’s called reality, Gordo.” That smug grin slides off her face. “I wish you weren’t such a whore.” Her voice grows small as her nails scratch lightly over my chest. “You’re a good guy. You deserve a good girl and to be happy sans running the risk of creating an entirely new strain of venereal disease.” She looks up with those sad puppy dog eyes, and my heart wrenches. “You’ve slept with everyone, Jax.” The agony in her voice, that pained expression—I’ve never felt so ashamed of what I’ve done. “You slept with Larissa.” She picks up Freddy the dragon and smashes him into my chest.

“I’m sorry.” It comes out lower than a whisper, but I mean it.

“Did you ever—you know—fall in love with anyone?”

“Not any of those girls.” My heart thumps violently again and again as if I’m on the cusp of that very endeavor.

She nods up at me, her arm draping over my body like a shield, and it feels good like this with Poppy. “So you’re a serial fucker.” Her voice is low and threatens to break.

A dark laugh strums from me. “You know I can’t stand it when you’re vulgar.”

“You can’t stand how cute it is.” Her cool hand slips up my shirt, and I suck in a quick breath at how good it feels.

“You got me. I think you’re cute, Pops.”

She bites down on her cherry red lip once again, and I’m dying to do just that myself.

“You know—you may have screwed a lot of people, but you’ve never made love to any. In that respect, I guess we’re both virgins.”

I have no clue where this is going, but my dick just roused to see what the hell was going on.

“Do you love me, Jaxson?” Her dark ruby lips part in anticipation. Her eyes expand wide as lily pads, and my heart, my soul detonate all at once. “Not in the romantic sense, but you know, as a good friend. We’ve known each other since we were kids. We’re practically family in a non-incestual kind of way.”

“Kissing cousins?”

“Don’t get backwoods on me. You know what I mean.”

“Yes, I love you.” I trace out her features with the tip of my finger and soak in every dip and curve. “I’ve loved you since that first day I visited you in the hospital when you were born.”

Poppy trembles out a laugh. “You have no recollection of that, and you know it.”

“It’s true. I can feel it in my gut. I loved you then, and I’ll always love you.”

A thick silence fills the room as Poppy and I lock eyes. There’s something happening, a shift, a movement, the unleashing of a damn. Sometimes you just realize that the landscape of your life is changing, rearranging for the better, and for me—and hopefully for Poppy, this is that moment.

Wordlessly, I lift her chin and lower my lips to meet hers. We share a sensual kiss, slow and meaningful, as if we were writing a love letter to one another’s souls.

My hands find their way to her waist as I glide down the cool silk fabric splitting the difference between us. Poppy has the tiniest waist, the roundest ass—and I mean that in the best possible way—that I have ever seen in a pair of jeans or otherwise. But tonight, I wouldn’t mind a glimpse of the real deal, raw and in the buff. My fingers work the waistband of her pants before dipping down over her well-toned stomach. Poppy does her best to return the favor by pulling off my flannel, yanking off my T-shirt. She pulls back a moment and rakes her eyes along my chest, her fingers bumping over the ridges of my muscles.

“Wow, Stade, you are magnificent.” Her words come out breathy.

Just hearing her so hot and bothered gets me worked up. Here we are again, another hard situation presenting itself between friends. I openly frown at the thought. This is something more than that. I think we both realize it. We just don’t have it in us to admit it.

Carefully, I reach over and unbutton her blouse, pulling the smooth fabric off her shoulders as her beautiful, beautiful tits stare back at me. I have always wondered what they might look like. God knows I’ve seen them in every shape and size—but these belong to Poppy. Here they are, perfectly round, just heavy enough to give a natural shape, and those light pink nipples look like twin cherries sitting on a bed of whipped cream. I rub my thumb over one, and she shivers at my touch.

Poppy pulls me to my knees as we evict every last stich of clothing between us. She tugs that dragon over and sets it on her lap, blocking my view of the sweetest, hopefully wettest spot on Earth as she crosses her legs and I do the same. Here we are, seated across from one another cross-legged. I always knew if I ever slept with Poppy it would be different, and yet I had no idea.

“Take a good look, sweetheart.” A crooked grin rises up my cheek. “Do you see any sparkles?”

Poppy belts out a laugh, so hard and so long, a scowl quickly replaces that grin I’m sporting.

“Watch it. I’m starting to get offended.” I’m only partially teasing.

Her chest bucks, and those perfect tits bounce between us. “Jax.” She shakes her head, and her hands land over the base of my most prominent member. “I think what you have to offer trumps the sparkles on my battery-operated boyfriend any day of the week.” Her eyes linger over mine a moment. Here we are, her hands gripping my dick, my hard-on threatening to petrify rock solid, and my heart exploding in my chest like a Fourth of July spectacular. There are moments in your life that you ingrain into your memory, and this, albeit a slightly pornographic memory, will always be the one that reminds me of the fact I’m in love with this girl.

My eyes widen into hers, and my jaw goes slack. I’m in love with Poppy Montgomery. I’ve always loved her beyond the bounds of friendship and family.

Oh, shit. This is real. I love her. And I need to tell her.

A devious smile glides on her face. “Let me bestow a kiss to the king on his most treasured crown.” Poppy leans in, and a groan works its way up my throat in anticipation. I’m about to make love to Poppy Montgomery with the lights on, and I’m going to watch and memorize every damn minute.

The door to her room swings open, letting in an unwelcomed breeze, and Poppy and I freeze.

“Feeling better, honey?” Charlene takes one look at us, and her eyes expand the size of the sun. She slaps a hand over her chest and lets out a blood-curdling scream before spinning like a cyclone, shutting herself into the room, then screaming once again until she lands safely on the other side of the door.

Fuck.

I will never be able to look Charlene Montgomery in the eye again.

***To read on in NAUGHTY BY NATURE click here —> . Also available through Kindle Unlimited!