“JUDAS PRIEST!” I howl at the top of my lungs until my throat burns from the effort. The tiny dots on the ceiling spin like stars as the pain envelops me, bone deep.

“Cheese and rice!” Lex shrills so loud my eardrums sear, threatening to bleed, and oddly it distracts from the bodily devastation occurring to me at the moment.

“You heartless witch!” I howl over at her. Lex lies next to me on a massage table, much like my own, in the buff and beautifully bronzed, her wild red hair spraying around her head as if she were electrocuted. She’s an exotic beauty, but at this moment her beauty betrays her and clues the rest of the world in on her insanity as well. “Let’s do some female bonding, my ass!” And, oh my sweet goodness, does my ass ever sting like a mother.

The beady-eyed clinician staring at me from between my legs gives the glimmer of a wicked grin. “On three,” she trills. “Three.” She pulls the cotton strip off my pink parts, and it feels as if a demon from the pit of hell just breathed the fire of a thousand suns onto my poor vagina.

“GOD ALMIGHTY IN HEAVEN! Please strike this woman to my right with a very lively, very white-hot bolt of lightning!” My voice penetrates the walls so thoroughly the windows shake from the effort.

Lex perks up on her elbows to garner a better look in my direction. “Did you just cast a pox on me?”

Without missing a beat, the evil clinician darts to Lex and rips her tender bits to pieces as well, and this time it’s Lex moaning like a dying animal.

“Damn right, I cast a pox on you, and a hex, and whatever the hell else the universe allows. You, my friend—no—my ex-friend, will have hell to pay once we leave this dungeon of darkness.”

Lex chortles at the thought as the clinician tends to our raw undercarriages and quickly soothes us with warm oil and heated towels.

“Dear God,” I pant as I fall back onto the poor excuse for a spa bed and contemplate all of the bad decisions I’ve made thus far in my twenty-seven years. And, believe you me, bar none befriending this she-devil at my side is by far the worst of the worst. “Most mean girls traditionally give me the side-eye and the occasional finger. You really know how to go the whole nine hairless yards.”

“Oh, quit your bitchin’.”

I suck in a quick breath as I roll onto my side to get a better look at her, and a dirty bomb goes off on that landing strip I just scalped. UGH!

Honest to God, if a single pubic hair ever grows back, it will be a miracle worthy to report to the Vatican.

“Excuse me.” I take a moment to appropriately stare her down. “Did you—the queen of all things prissy and proper, just let an expletive fly?” I’ve lived with Lex long enough to know she’s allergic to colorful language. Lex Ximena Maxfield is a mean girl to be reckoned with. And honestly, it’s why I like her best. She’s not my typical kind of girlfriend. We met quite accidentally through my best friend, Harlow—Low, once they haphazardly befriended one another. Whether Lex wants to admit it or not, most things in her life unravel haphazardly. And sadly that, right there, is something we have in common.

“Listen, Raven”—she rolls over casually and winces as the bite of pain sinks in, and don’t think the sarcastic inflection over my name wasn’t noticed either—“the real reason I pulled you out of that pizza box fort you built in my living room, out of those two-week jammies that had adhered to your body—”

“Oh, come on. I hit Hallowed Grounds every single day for coffee, and you know it!” I might have been wearing the aforementioned jammies, but that’s not any of her beeswax.

She scoffs. “Whatever. The bottom line is both Strudel and I have decided it’s time for you to go.”

The world stops a moment. Her words sting just as efficiently as that slap Hilda dealt my pretty pink parts every three seconds for a hellish five minutes.

“Go? Does that mean what I think it means?” My mind reels. I knew as soon as Lex started dating—became engaged to Axel Collins, that my days as her cozy little roomie were numbered, but deep down I envisioned her moving in with Axel, and me having her place all to myself for a while—read forever.

She blinks those wildly long lashes my way. “If you think it means I’ve already packed your belongings and set them in the trunk of your car—then yes, it means what you think it means.”

“You what?” I squawk so loud my voice comes back as an echo.

“Relax,” she hisses, waving me down as if trying to curb my panicked enthusiasm. And am I ever enthused in a very bad way. “I took the time to gather your toiletries. And I also did you a solid by washing that snake-like creature comprised of fruity colored thongs you let breed all over the floor. My God, it’s like playing a game of Candyland just trying to go to the kitchen.” She falls back and tosses her arms up over her eyes with exasperation.

Her words sink in, and that panic she incited just bolstered itself into hysterically dangerous levels.

“But where will I go? What will I do?”

“Gee, I don’t know…” Her voice drips with that sarcastic charm I once thought was oh-so-cute, but now I see it for what it really is—wicked. “But I’m sure between your billionaire mother and billionaire brothers, you’ll come up with a penthouse or two. I’ve already put my place on the market, so don’t boo-hoo to me about moving. You’re not the only one doing the real estate shuffle.”

“On the market?” A dull moan comes from the pit of my stomach as a sharp bite of nausea rolls through me. “Oh my God, this is real. This is happening. I’ve got my MBA from one of the top business schools in the country, and I’m officially homeless.”

“Please, you were homeless just a few months ago before you stormed into my living room. It’s practically a tradition with you by now.”

“You know what else is a tradition? Me seeking revenge on women who choose to take out their anger on my nether regions.”

No sooner do I sit back up on my elbows than Hilda stomps back in slapping on a pair of latex gloves, the look of vengeance on her face as well.

“Oh, thank God,” I say as she whips the towel off my lady parts, and what feels like an arctic breeze takes over. She parts my legs at the knees and pushes them back to my chest. I swear on all things holy, I have never been so roughed up by another human being. A vision of Brody Wolf doing that exact same action, with those bedroom eyes, that perfect dark hair runs through my mind, and my sweet spot bounces with pleasure.

Did I just? Dear God—I did.

I glare over at Lexy, my new archenemy, for putting me in a position where I O in front of a perfect stranger.

Lex giggles as if she heard me, and I gift her the finger.

“Okay!” Hilda barks with glee, and I recognize that evil look in her eye. “On three!”

“Oh no, no, no!” I shake my hand at her spastically, trying to stop this runaway pubic train before it leaves the painful wax station. “We’re done, remember?” Just my luck to have a clinician with short-term memory loss.

A disturbingly warm feeling melts over the no-fly zone as she slathers something over it.

“Oh God!” I bark as I back up, far the hell away from Hilda and that giant cotton swab in her hand. “Somebody call the police! Call Adult Protective Services! She just sealed my asshole shut!”

Lex tips her head back, laughing like a loon. And I watch, stunned, as Hilda goes over and does the exact same thing to Little Miss Priss. Next time someone says she’s got a stick up her butt, I’ll think of how literal it really is in this moment.

A sudden burst of fire hits my newly sealed off bottom, followed by a bizarre cooling sensation. It amplifies in acres, and soon I’m screaming at the top of my lungs and Hilda is spraying me down with a water bottle she was sipping from just a half hour earlier.

“Holy hell! Lex! What have you done to me?”

“Enough!” Lex thunders so loud I stop all movement, and my lungs refuse their next breath. “I pitched in for the anal bleaching. You now have an immaculately clean, pretty little bung hole.” Her lips pull into a line. “You’re welcome.”

“Oh, geez.” I fall back over the table and let out a horrible groan.

On second thought, maybe a little distance from this maniac isn’t the worst thing in the world.

I’ll simply…

I’ll get into my car and I’ll…

I’m sure my…

Crap. I am all out of money, single friends, and options.

One thing that isn’t an option at all is the aforementioned billionaire family. We’re a far cry from billionaires, and Lord knows my mother won’t give me a dime.

Nope.

All out of options, pubic hair, and color where the sun don’t shine.

Something tells me I am in for a real shit ride.

The Sloppy Pelican stands like a beacon of light in an otherwise dismal night as I barrel on in to the bar-slash-eatery my brother, Levi, owns with two of his friends, Axel Collins and Brody Wolf. Levi met Ax in college, but we’ve known Brody all our lives. Brody was as much a fixture at our house as was our beloved Golden Retriever, Goldie. Yes, we weren’t winning any awards in the creativity department with that moniker, but Goldie, along with Brody, made for some pretty good memories.

The Sloppy Pelican used to be an old miner themed restaurant, complete with wooden barrels strewn about filled with peanuts—thus the husks littering the floor, something my brother and his cohorts insist the patrons partake in. If you ask me, it’s a hygienic nightmare, but I digress. From the rustic wooden floors, to the reclaimed wood on the wall, not to mention the oversized Mason jars they utilize for glassware, it’s still pretty much a miner’s delight in here. For the first several months, The Pelican was dead weight, but after Lex and Low revamped the menu, they managed to pull the boys out of the red. Figures. It took two women to save three financially drowning men.

The subtle scent of freshly husked peanuts and booze permeates the place along with something fresh from the grill. Tonight’s special no doubt.

I offer a self-satisfied smile as I take in the place. It’s brimming with bodies, both at the bar and seated at the multitude of tables. A live band is rocking hard in the corner, and in front of them a makeshift dance floor is being put to good use. It’s a concept my brother and his cohorts totally snagged from the Black Bear Saloon, the university bar down in front of Whitney Briggs University, but hey, if it works, it works.

Brody waves from the bar before taking an order, and I head on over.

Brody Wolf has always had the ability to take my breath away, and tonight is no exception. I’m not only short one breath, but my go-to response whenever he’s around has always been blushing head to toe. And without the appropriate amount of hair where nature intended it to be at the apex of my thighs, I’m lit and tingling like a sparkler on the Fourth of July.

“I’m leaving my car in the lot,” the words speed out of me as I take in his warm cologne. Brody not only looks like a dream, but he holds the scent of one, too. “Don’t have it towed—I’ll be sleeping in it when I get back,” I say it all as if it were one long word as I take the last vacant stool in front of him. Brody is tall, broad shoulders, muscular to a fault, biceps you want to sit on, a face that makes everyone with functioning ovaries look twice before demanding they sigh in his presence. Beachy blond waves, deep year-round tan, eyes that glow a combination of hazel and green. Check, check, check. Brody has had my heart and my panties melting for as long as I can remember. But he’s always been out of my league, too old, too forbidden, too taken, and now, too much of a petri dish for brand new diseases. And no offense to Brody, but he’s chained to a bar. The men I’ve dated in the past were all wolves as well, but they called Wall Street home.

My stomach sours at the thought, and I push all anxiety it brings with it right out of my head.

He slides a Shirley Temple my way, and I slide it right back. “Add some vodka this time.”

He frowns my way, and two tiny dimples insert on either side of his cheeks. Brody’s family and ours have always been close. His sister, Colby, is the wild child of the bunch. She just graduated high school, and rumor has it, she’s at the local community college wreaking havoc on all the poor professors who have to put up with her. His parents are still together, unlike mine. My father is actually deceased, but the way I blamed him for leaving us you would think he left my mother for another woman and not a coffin. I’m still pretty upset with him, and it’s been the better part of forever.

“What’s got your panties in a bunch?” He reluctantly slides the drink back my way, and judging by the sugary legs seeping from the cherry red grenadine, I can tell he’s fulfilled my vodka dreams.

“Funny you should ask.” I knock back half the drink and shudder as the burn runs clear down my esophagus. “Lex Maxfield to be exact. She had some female bonding trap laid out for me, and I fell into it hook, line, and vagina.”

Brody’s eyes widen with horror as I say it, and something about that small action has my stomach squeezing tight. My God, I hate how viscerally I respond to him. That dark scruff on his cheeks forces me to lean over and scratch it as if the liquor had already gone to my head.

He grunts as he catches my hand and kisses it. And I’m momentarily thrown off my game. Brody and I lob barbs at one another. That’s what we do. We don’t kiss. We don’t. Right?

He growls my way as I take my hand back. “Don’t use the V word in my presence. I’m practically your big brother.”

I swallow hard because now that I see how soft his scruff is, I think I found somewhere better to sit than on his biceps.

“Yeah, well, it’s true. Lex took me to a sadist who made me strip off my skivvies and spread ’em. She put molten hot wax on my junk, and I screamed for an hour straight.”

Brody belts out a laugh as if it were the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Was that you? I thought the fire alarm was going off.”

“Very funny,” I grunt.

The noise around us dies down a moment as the house band starts in on a new song, and I lift a finger because I happen to recognize this Neil Diamond cover, “Girl, You’ll be a Woman Soon”. My mother worshipped at Neil’s rhinestone feet. She said it was an obsession passed down to her by her own mother, and now here I am swooning over the lethargic rhythm.

“Hear that?” I let the first stanza finish, and Brody bounces with a nod, his dark brows lifting seductively, causing my stomach to bisect with heat.

“I hear.” He toasts me with his beer. “And, believe you me, I’ve said it to my fair share of girls.”

“You’re disgusting.” I pluck the cherry out of my drink and chuck it at him. “But tonight, that”—I point to the house band—“is my song. I’m headed to downtown Jepson to that sleazy nightclub they just opened in the basement of the Dungeon.” The Dungeon is a notorious strip club that Low and I may have visited a time or twelve during our stay at Whitney Briggs. Low was my roommate, and we grew closer than sisters during those four frat house riddled years. “And I am going to get toasted and show off my hairless kitten to the first frat boy I see,” I grunt into the words because I hate how much this is a reality for me.

“What?” He tips his head back as if I just had the power to knock him off his feet. “There are so many things wrong with what you just said, I don’t know where to begin.” His features harden, and I can’t help but find it vexingly sexy. “First, no bar. Second, no frat boy. Third, please don’t say hairless kitten to me ever again.” His eyes linger over mine a moment, and sparks jump from him to me. Or at least that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.

A part of me wants to unleash and tell Brody the real reason I’m so determined to drown my troubles tonight. For starters, I’m no longer employed. The Regency Agency, which I worked my fingers to the bone for, was nothing but a sham. Some good my MBA did me. For the most part, I didn’t do much more than fetch everyone else their lattes. But I push my once upon a cushy job out of my head for a moment. I don’t want to think about the fact I’m no longer employed, earning the big bucks to shuffle hot coffee, the fact I no longer have the ability to house myself in the Jepson penthouse, which I adored even if I had only set foot in it a total of three times. The agency kept me on the run like a fugitive. I even missed last Christmas with the family because I was in India shooting a lookbook for a teen heiress who bought herself a clothing line. Christmas. I missed my brothers, Levi and Chip, even if they were feuding at the time. Chip knocked up Meredith, Levi’s wife—yes, it was ugly. But now Levi is divorced and remarried to my bestie, Low, and nobody wants Meredith. Although baby Maxie is sure pretty cute—and she’s one of the chief reasons I’m back in Hollow Brook—there are other reasons, too, perhaps a little more chief, but I’m slow to admit it. I look over at Brody as he hustles up a few drinks and slides them over to his customers before coming back my way.

Brody closes his eyes an inordinate amount of time. “Please tell me you’re kidding.”

“I’m not kidding. Low is out of town. Lex is a demon. And I don’t have anyone to hang out with.” I force myself to knock back the rest of my drink and growl as the sting does its best to eat me alive. “As soon as my ride gets here, I’m headed to Jepson.” I pull out my phone, and Brody swats it down with his towel.

“Put that thing away. I happen to have the rest of the night off, and I’m headed to Jepson myself.”

A devious smile creeps up my cheek. “Liar.”

His brows twitch twice, and my hairless kitten twitches right along with them.

“You know me best.”

Brody Wolf smells like fresh-cut evergreen branches, mulled spices, testosterone and sex. All of my favorite scents rolled together—sans the sex part. I may have come close to showing off my kitten in the past, but the truth is, it’s a place where no man has dared to venture—yet. That’s what tonight was supposed to be about, cutting loose, popping cherries (not of the maraschino variety), and hopefully finding myself in an expensive hotel where I can spend the night on a feather bed and wake up to a five-star breakfast. Sure, the price tag for such luxury was hefty, considering I was willing to put up body parts on the chopping block, but hey, a girl has to do what she has to do to get a decent short stack. Kidding. Sort of.

Brody growls and grumbles all the way to Jepson while I blast the most annoying, sappy love songs I can find, roll down his windows, and scream into the virginal icy night. Fall is in full swing, and everywhere you look the world is dotted with pumpkins, with autumn leaves in a rainbow of citrus colors. It’s my favorite season, and now that Low is hitched to my brother, now that Lex set off a nuke over my pink parts, I’ll have to spend it all alone. I glance to Brody as the song warbles to an uncomfortable climax. It feels right listening to sappy love songs with Brody. As much as I do it to annoy him, it always feels right.

I switch the radio off just as we pull in front of the Dungeon and Brody starts to scour for a parking spot. “How does it feel to have both of your business partners falling on the sword of love?”

He grimaces as he backs his truck into an impossibly tight space. “That damn sword,” he grunts as he glides easily into position and kills the engine. “They can have it.” His eyes meet with mine as the street lamp above casts a heavenly glow over his features. Brody Wolf was kissed by the creator himself before he was sent to earth as God’s gift to women. For as long as I’ve known him, Brody has had at least three girls he was juggling at the same time. And much to my disappointment, I was never one of them. His eyes narrow in on mine. “No falling on the sword for me.” The moment grows serious as his gaze lingers over mine. “When I fall, it’s going to be on a bed of roses with a girl so beautiful we’ll redefine all of the negative connotations regarding falling in love— like that sword thing.” He shakes his head, dismayed, and my insides twist tight as he takes on a demonically sexy appeal. “Love shouldn’t have to hurt, Raven. Remember that.” He gives my hair a quick tug before getting out of the truck, but I’m slow to follow him. I’m still locked in the visual of falling onto a bed of roses with Brody—my long dark hair coiled around him like a leash. Now that’s one bed I wouldn’t let him out of.

I jump out, and we stare at this Vegas-like strip with its flashing lights, neon bulbs, throngs of drunk coeds screaming as they traffic along the busy sidewalks, and we both gasp as we spot the white chapel at the end of the street with its own blinking lights and neon sign that boasts of quickie weddings with a flashing image of the King of Rock himself gyrating above it like a ghost.

“Only an idiot would do that.” I’m quick to lay it out there in the event Brody ever gets waylaid by one of his buxom buddies and finds himself standing at the altar staring at Elvis.

“Dude”—Brody groans as if he might be sick—“as if downtown Jepson weren’t bad enough, we needed a strip? The chapel is the icing on the tacky cake. Stay away from that place, would you?”

“I should have gone into divorce law,” I growl as we cross the street. “I’d be raking in a fortune right about now.”

The Dungeon itself is pumping full of screaming women all begging for more from the gods on stage slowly shaking their banana hammocks as if offering up a snack, and I pause, taking in the scene while Brody slings an arm around my shoulders leading me quickly down the hall with an arrow pointing to the club.

“Sorry, girl, but I’d hate for you to scar yourself for life. I saw the way the one on the end was eyeing you.”

“Really?” I crane my neck in that direction. “Which end?”

“Never you mind.” He pulls us deeper as we descend the stairwell and the world opens up to thrashing hands and loud, deafening music that seems to have two frenetic beats. Girls in sequined bras and short skirts litter the place as if it were a dress code, and it takes me a moment to realize those are the waitresses. I’m quick to purchase the drink of the night, Between the Sheets—a rum and brandy delight that makes my head spin as soon as I down my first and quickly pick up a second.

“Slow down!” Brody shouts over the music, but I’m quick to gyrate my hips into his as I knock back the next one. Rum burns twice as nice as vodka, and right about now I’ve got quite the concoction brewing in my stomach. I pull Brody deeper into the crowd, and he resists.

“I’m starting to think this is a bad idea.” That boyishness I’ve always loved about him shines through, and I fight the urge to jump up on my toes and plant a kiss on his lips.

“I’m starting to think I should take your keys away so we can have some real fun.” I reach into his jeans and melt as my hand hits the warmth of the thin fabric next to his boxers. I pull the keys out and dangle them a moment before sinking them between the girls, deep in my bra for safekeeping. I shove my drink into his hand, and he offers up that lopsided grin that makes every last hairless part of me quiver.

That grin glides right off his face as quick as it came. “No. I’m not having any fun tonight, and neither are you.”

“Ha!” I bark right into his face before snatching my drink back and diving deeper into the club, swinging my hips in a thicket of bodies so close that I might accidentally turn in my V-card while stomping my heels tonight.

Brody Wolf isn’t up for having any fun with me. Same song, different day. It’s always been that way between us.

I let out a whoop before downing the rest of the nasty toxic brew in my hand.

And it will always be that way between us.

Brody and I will find ourselves in plenty of places as life plods along, but between the sheets most likely isn’t one of them. There’s no point in letting him in on the fact I didn’t get fired. I quit. I didn’t come back to Hollow Brook for my sweet niece. I came back for him.

Brody will never see me as anything but Levi and Chip’s little sister—worse than that—his little sister.

I snatch another drink from a sparkly boobed waitress and send it down the hatch.

Little does Brody know I fell on the sword of love a long, long time ago, and as evidenced by tonight—it ain’t no bed of roses.