Bad Girl Therapy (9 page)

Incredulous, he looked at her long and hard, his heart racing as fast as his mind. “Why didn’t you ask me, Haley?”

“Because you wouldn’t have let me.”

“Damn right I wouldn’t have.”

Haley turned to her dad. “See?”

Her dad smiled and simply said, “I see.” And with that, he and his wife, along with Mark Peterson, excused themselves, leaving Haley and Cole alone.

He gently cupped her face, a barrage of emotions squeezing his chest. “Haley, sweetheart, I can’t let you do this for me?”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“Your promotion—”

“That’s why I met with Dr. Peterson. I wanted to explain the situation to him.”

He let out a long sigh, amazed by the thoughtful, caring, beautiful woman he’d fallen in love with. “I have a confession to make.”

Her body tightened, concern moving back into her face. “What?”

“When I first saw you sitting here with your folks and that guy, I thought…well, I thought now that my career is on the line that maybe I was no longer good enough for you.”

“You think I’m that shallow?”

“No, I don’t, which is why I’m a total asshole for letting that thought into my head.” He pulled her against him. “You’re the most giving, caring woman I’ve ever met, but I’ve spent my whole life wanting you and believing you were out of my league.”

“You…you spent your whole life wanting me?”

He threw his head back and shook it. “God, girl, you have no idea. I’ve been in love with you since high school.”

Her eyes widened with surprise and happiness. “I thought you never bothered with me back in the day because athletes didn’t associate with good girls on student council.”

“No, sweetheart. I thought you were out of my league.” He winked and added, “Besides, you’re not that good of a girl anyway.” When she gave a sheepish grin, he drove his thumb into his chest. “And I might be an athlete with a successful career, but I’m really just a poor boy beneath the jersey. That’s the guy I want you to like.”

Emotions moved over her eyes. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you money doesn’t buy love?” She gave a humorless laugh. “Just look at my parents.” Then she got quiet, thoughtful for a moment, and her voice was soft when she said, “I’m helping you because your job is important to you, you have a family counting on you. I’m not doing it because I need you to be some soccer star in order to be good enough for me. The truth is, Cole, you’re unlike any other man I’ve ever met, and maybe that’s because you really are that poor boy beneath the jersey. But it’s that boy who is sweet, sincere, attentive and so damn sexy he makes me wild.” She grinned and added, “I don’t care if you wear a jersey or work in the mill with your dad. I love you for who you are.” She tapped his chest. “In here.”

“You love me?”

She shook her head and laughed. “You didn’t happen to also injure your brain the last time you played, did you?”

Cole laughed out loud and, discretion aside, planted a warm, loving kiss on her mouth. “Speaking of playing, that reminds me.”

“Of what?”

“Well, I never did thank you for getting me off the hook with Drake Drummond and freeing up my long weekend.”

“Oh right. What did you have in mind?”

Her pulled her impossibly tighter, his heart pounding with the love he felt for her. “Let’s just say it involves a game of snakes and ladders and a movie camera.”

He felt a tremor of longing move through her before she said, “As delicious as that sounds, we have to get serious about your therapy. I plan on working you hard for the next month.”

“Fine, in the days you can work me as hard as you like and I’ll follow your therapy, but at night you’re all mine, and that’s when I plan to work
you
hard and give you a little of my own…
therapy
.”

She planted a needy kiss on his mouth, and as her heat reached out to him she said, “I like the way you think, Cole.”

He grinned and said, “And I love that you’re naughty beneath the nice.” With that he grabbed her hand and they both walked out of the club together to begin the first day of the rest of their lives.

About the Author

A multi-published author in the romance genre, Cathryn Fox is a wife, mom, sister, daughter and friend. She loves dogs, sunny weather, anything chocolate (she never says no to a brownie), pizza and red wine. She has two teenagers who keep her busy with their never-ending activities, and a husband who is convinced he can turn her into a mixed-martial-arts fan. Cathryn can never find balance in her life, is always trying to find time to go to the gym, can never keep up with emails, Facebook or Twitter, and tries to write page-turning books that her readers will love.

A Maritimer and former financial officer, Cathryn has lived all over Canada but has finally settled down in her childhood hometown with her family.

To learn more about Cathryn please visit
www.cathrynfox.com
.

You can find her on Facebook.
www.facebook.com/cathryn.fox.5

Twitter
@writercatfox

Or come chat with her at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/wicked_writers/

Look for these titles by Cathryn Fox

Now Available:

Blood Ties

One on One

Dance of the Dragon

Pleasure Inn

All Tied Up

All Worked Up

All Lit Up

Boys of Beachville

Good at Being Bad

A Lick of Flame

Whispering Cove

Wet

Brazen

A woman on fire with desire. A man with the right equipment to fan the flames.

Brazen

© 2012 Cathryn Fox

Whispering Cove, Book 6

Josie Wells’s libido is in an uproar. Her psychic promised she’d meet Mr. Right—two months ago. Her good-girl image is wearing thin, and when she gets the chance to have a little fun with town bad boy Adam Collins, she decides to go for it. The notorious playboy will be perfect for some no-strings play time until the real thing comes along.

Knowing he goes for the brazen type, Josie pours on the heat to seduce him at the town’s Festival. The kiss they share touches off an explosion of passion she never saw coming.

Adam’s always been crazy about Josie, but he’s never been willing to expose such a nice girl to the Collins Curse. She deserves the big house with the white picket fence—with a man who doesn’t have failed relationships written all over his family tree.

As their brief affair starts to become something more—and the town psychic predicts that Josie is destined to be his—Adam dares to hope there’s a chance. But then he learns a secret that makes him question what’s real…and what isn’t.

 
Warning: Contains hot sex against a fire truck, a sexy firefighter who’s willing to do what it takes, and enough orgasmic explosions to rock your world!
 

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Brazen:

“What the hell was that?” Trent asked when Katy and Josie were out of earshot.

“What the hell was what?”

“Oh, come on, Adam,” Trent said, grinning like the crazy son of a bitch he really was. “I thought I was going to have to hose you two down.”

When the festival’s chairman came up from behind, Adam grabbed the box of money and handed it to him, apologizing that he didn’t have a dollar count. Then he snatched his windbreaker off the back of his chair, tossed it over his shoulder and started making his way toward Town Square.

Knowing he was unable to keep anything from Trent, he cast him a sideways glance and said, “She really was coming on kind of strong, wasn’t she? What do you make of that?”

Trent rolled his eyes. “Geez, I wonder.”

Adam took a minute to chew on Trent’s response. Was it possible that sweet little Josie wanted him as much as he wanted her? She knew his reputation as a playboy, so why was a nice respectable girl like her, a girl who’d openly admitted to wanting love, marriage and children, suddenly paying him so much attention? What the hell had gotten into her?

They rounded the corner and spotted a crowd surrounding the fire truck parked in the center of Town Square. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? Come on, Adam, you both clearly want each other. What’s stopping you?”

“You know what’s stopping me.” Wanting to change the subject, Adam nodded toward the truck and asked, “What exactly is it we’re supposed to be doing anyway?”

“Adam…” Trent began, refusing to let the matter drop.

But Adam just shook his head and said, “You know I can’t, Trent. Not with her. Not with Josie.”

Before Trent could respond, their captain Doug Simms called out to them and waved them over.

“Get yourselves suited up,” he said when they approached, and that’s when Adam noticed his colleagues. All three were shirtless and wearing only their pants and suspenders. Confused, Adam wasn’t quite sure what the demonstration entailed or why they were doing it after dark. Most fire-fighting displays were done for the children and there wasn’t a child in sight at this late hour.

After removing his own shirt and pulling on his pants, the captain lined them up. Adam looked into the crowd, and noted the excitement in the air. As his captain read off names, and five women came forward, one of them being Josie, he turned to Trent. “What the hell is going on?”

Trent grinned and let his glance race over his wife Katy as she stepped up to him. “I guess we’ll find out soon enough.”

As Doug began to pair them up, and he found himself face-to-face with Josie, he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that nothing good could come from this. He glanced to his left and spotted Josie’s friend’s Vic and Tabby cheering her on.

He gestured with a nod as understanding hit. “I take it they put you up to this?”

“Yeah,” she said, looking innocent and sheepish once again, and he also wondered if they were also the ones who put her up to the kissing booth.

“Okay, when I sound the fire alarm, you begin to undress,” Doug continued. “With the help of your partners, of course. The first one to get out of their gear wins dinner for two at the Seafarer.”

Okay, that seemed simple enough. Perhaps this wouldn’t be too bad after all.

“But there’s a catch,” Doug went on to explain. “Neither one of you can use your hands.” When he added, “Bodies only,” cheers erupted from the crowd.

Sweet mother of God!

Adam had no idea what he’d done to deserve this kind of torture. He did a quick tally of the day’s events—first Madame M said he was going to fall in love with Josie, then the two shared a smoking-hot kiss that had him wanting to forget his vow to stay away from her, and now she was about to use that sexy body of hers and nothing else to help him undress. Adam had a sneaking suspicion that the fate gods were conspiring against him, trying to complicate his mission to keep his distance from the one woman who got to him in a way no other woman ever had. As he envisioned her wiggling that tight little ass of hers against him, his cock thickened and he groaned out loud.

Adam swallowed hard as Josie looked at the competition. She had a mischievous grin on her face when she turned back to him and said, “I think we can beat them.” Her tone was light, playful, but he didn’t miss the desire smoldering in the depth of her pretty baby blues when they met his. Nor did he miss the tremble that moved through her body as the crowd gathered in for a better look. Tonight he was seeing another side to sweet Josie Wells, and if Adam had to guess, he’d say this public display of intimacy was a turn-on for her.

The second the alarm sounded, Josie stepped up to him, and the closeness of her body nearly had him shooting off in his pants, with the whole goddamn town watching. Fuck. Adam rolled his shoulder and tried to loosen the strap on his suspenders, but his efforts proved futile. When Josie twisted her head to glance at their competition, Adam followed her gaze in time to see Katy using her mouth to remove Trent’s suspenders.

Josie turned her attention back to him and said, “Maybe I should try that.”

Before he could respond, she put her mouth close to his neck. Her breath felt so fucking erotic on his flesh as she gripped the strap with her teeth and began to slip it over his shoulder, that he damn near dropped to the ground and dragged her along with him.

She wiggled against him and suddenly Adam couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think with any clarity, because the way she was undressing him with her mouth had to be the sexiest thing he’d ever seen. With his own mouth agape, he stood there staring at her as she went to work on removing the next strap. Once complete, she stood back and her sensuous lips puckered as she gave consideration to his pants.

He quickly moved his hips in an attempt to shimmy them down his legs before she got too close again, but in a brazen move she pressed against him, stomach to stomach, hip to hip, pussy to cock.