Though I loved California, I really was beginning to hate LA. The money was great here, but what it took to live here, to deal with these people—it was almost too much sometimes. And the money was only good . . . until it wasn’t. I’d just spent most of my savings on a new engine for the Jeep, and I was temporarily light in the cash-flow department.

All those clients, all those dependable dollars, gone in the span of one phone call. My stomach knotted at the thought of having to rebuild my business. A bubble of worry floated up as I mentally ran through my client list, wondering who might be able to use me on a more full-time basis.

Then my phone beeped with another text. Oh, God. Was someone else getting in on the butter gang bang?

I’ll be back in town the middle of next week. Let me know if you’re up for some company.

Thank God, it wasn’t culinary related. Although there was that one time with a jar of peanut butter . . . never mind that. I sighed as I let myself into my apartment. Mitchell was my . . . hmm. Not my boyfriend, that’s for sure. He was my . . . plaything. My latest in a string of men whom I enjoyed for the sexing, not for the vexing. Emotionally invested? No. Interested in long walks on the beach and a partner for life? I’ll pass. Sweaty, writhing, panting bodies a phone call away with a minimum of fuss and muss? Now you’re talking.

No how was your day, dear? No hey, Roxie, we’ll get through this hard time. The kind of hard time he’d bring would be me bent over the easy chair, one of his hands full of my hair and the other hand full of my . . . Too bad he wasn’t here tonight— I could use something to take the edge off. My brain was churning, my career was potentially imploding, and there was a guilt trip barreling west from Bailey Falls, New York.

I needed peace. I needed quiet. My eyes scanned my apartment—which I couldn’t afford unless I got every single one of my clients back—and settled on the Patrón. Besides peace and quiet, I needed a lime. . . .

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© ALYSSA MICHELLE 2013

Christina Lauren is the combined pen name of longtime writing partners/besties/soulmates and brain-twins Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings, the New York Times, USA Today, and #1 international bestselling authors of the Beautiful Bastard and Wild Seasons series, Sublime, and The House. You can find them online at christinalaurenbooks.com, Facebook.com/ChristinaLaurenBooks, or at @ChristinaLauren on Twitter.

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Books by CHRISTINA LAUREN

WILD SEASONS

Sweet Filthy Boy

Dirty Rowdy Thing

Dark Wild Night

Wicked Sexy Liar

THE BEAUTIFUL SERIES

Beautiful Bastard

Beautiful Stranger

Beautiful Bitch

Beautiful Bombshell

Beautiful Player

Beautiful Beginning

Beautiful Beloved

Beautiful Secret

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Christina Hobbs and Lauren Billings

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First Gallery Books trade paperback edition September 2015

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Cover photograph by © Stefano Cavoretto/Shutterstock

Razor Fish logo design by Heather Carrier

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file.

ISBN 978-1-4767-7794-8

ISBN 978-1-4767-7795-5 (ebook)

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Acknowledgments

Nuts Excerpt

About Christina Lauren