by Murphy,Misti
“I think you’re crazy,” she whispers, playing with my hair. “I’m only twenty-three, and Sarah’s a handful. I don’t think I’m ready to think about a large family yet, Rush.”
I brush my lips from side to side over that ticklish spot as I peel her panties lower. “Then maybe we should start small. It’s been two years, little nun. We’ve adopted Sarah as our own. Perhaps it’s time to make this thing between us official.”
“What are you saying?” She lets her knees drop to the side as her voice gets husky.
“Maybe it’s time we get married.” I gaze up at her so she can see that I’m not making some random small chitchat. I’m not me without her. And it’s time the world knew that. Exclusive interview, including glossy wedding photos and all.
“I thought we were done with weddings? I thought we wouldn’t go to another until it was Mia or Sarah’s turn.” She smiles, her eyes huge and bright.
“Yes, I did say that.” Two years ago during the crazy season of Hadley weddings, before I worked out she was my girl, and that I’d feel this strongly about her, I’d probably said it a time or two. “But I also told you not to get attached and look at how that turned out. Besides, I don’t think I can wait twenty years to marry you.”
“Okay.” She gulps, then nods frantically. “I’d like that.”
“You’d like that?” I grin as I settle over her. “Is that all?”
Winding her arms around my neck, she kisses me hungrily. “I’d love that.”
So this is it. The best feeling in the whole world. The one thing I never knew I wanted, but was worth far more than everything I worked to achieve. This lightness inside me, this warmth flooding my chest.
It’s the most satisfying magic in the universe.
The End
If you enjoyed this book and you want to know what’s coming next, sign up to my mailing list where you’ll find the latest updates, discounts, and access to advance review copies.
Click here or use this link to subscribe: http://eepurl.com/UrSU1
Read on for a preview of Anti-Cupid.
Anti-Cupid Preview
Prologue
Beck
Wine slaps the side of my glass, tumbling over the edge and down my fingers, along the inside of my wrist as he backs me into the wall. His mouth curves like a woman in orgasm, his blue eyes are heavy lidded, the pupils blown. He brings his face closer to mine.
My pulse races and I drag him against me. Hard muscles and heat are packed into a nice pair of worn jeans and a linen shirt. One of his legs slides between mine. The denim is a rasp of fine sandpaper on my skin that has my mind full of another type of friction I’m desperate for.
“Do you come here often, Beck?” He has this voice, kind of rough with deep sensuality, and it wraps itself around my core as his dark stubbled jaw tickles my cheek.
The guy, his name is Nox, or Ox, or something like that puts his mouth to my ear. His breath flutters on my skin, his lips a caress, and my brain is on overload with the sensations running rampant inside me.
“No.” Turning my face, I seek out his mouth. I want his kiss almost as much as I want to get my hand in his pants.
Grasping my hips, he shifts me more firmly against him. Those soft jeans don’t hide the hardness underneath them. It prods my thigh and liquid fire pools in my panties.
“Come home with me?” There’s a soft groan, barely audible above the din from the happy hour crew in this uptown bar.
The scent of orange blossoms and spice makes my mouth water. “Stop talking and kiss me.”
One of his hands slaps the faux log wall behind me as he pitches his whole body to mine. The rubbing of linen against the silk of my dress makes my nipples ache and pucker. His mouth travels from my ear, along my jaw to nibble on my bottom lip. The kiss starts out slow and cool, then amps up as he slides his tongue against mine. I whimper when he digs into my mouth. It’s hot and heady, and I crave more. My fingers bite into the flesh of his shoulder, my leg slides higher on his, opening me up for more of the delicious pleasure that makes this about being as close to another person as possible. Inside them even.
Okay, hold up.
Pause there.
He’s gorgeous, right? I mean sure, who knows if he has a personality. He could be the most boring sod on earth, or he could be one of those guys whose only commitment is to how many women he can bang in any given week. But those blue eyes, that perfect set of abs —I got my hands on them a few minutes ago, so sue me. Like you wouldn’t have done the same. Anyway, all that and his demanding touch, plus the rather sizable bulge he’s toting is definitely worth swooning over.
See this right here? This is the problem with relationships. You meet someone, you’re attracted to them. Your body gets flooded with all these awesome hormones. Everything about the other person is amazing. That’s love, right?
Nope. Wrong. That’s lust. That’s your body’s reaction to pheromones, and if you’ve ever taken a biology class you know those pesky little chemicals are there for one reason and one reason only. To populate the world with good genetic material. It’s not about connection. It’s not some mystic neon sign telling you you’ve found Mr. Right. There is no happily ever after here.
Love is another beast entirely, and even if you do find it there is no guarantee it will last. Sure, thinking the sun shines out of your boyfriend’s ass probably helps. I mean, if you can overlook the other person’s failings then that has to make developing real, deep emotions easier, but what happens when the chemical high wears off?
We fight it. We’ve been programmed to believe love is the stronger connection. We’re not talking family and friends here, people. Sure you’ve spent most of your childhood with the same group of homo sapiens. You’ve put up with them, been put up with, and at the end of the day there’s not much that will change that. We’re talking about romantic love, the happily ever after, body on body, let’s get married and make babies type love.
I’m sorry to be the one to break up your Disney princess fantasy, but love like that doesn’t exist. We don’t get to spend the rest of our lives with one person. The sex won’t always be fantastic. And the cute way they have of talking in their sleep is going to get old real fast.
Honestly, the chances of finding that special someone, that other half of our whole, the one who completes us for the rest of our lives isn’t in our favor.
I read some study that determined that three million first dates happen each day. That’s three million chances on any one day that any woman might be lucky enough to come face to face with the love of her life. Three million chances, can you imagine? And yet something like seventy percent of couples break up within the first year. Sure, after that the chances of calling it quits go down. For the couples still together after five years the percentage drops to twenty. Good odds, you’d think, but that’s still one in five.
One in five.
And that’s not including those relationships that wouldn’t survive if they were honest with each other. Twenty-two percent of the world’s population has cheated on the person they supposedly love. Only eight percent will admit it, though.
And these are the statistics. If only eight percent will admit it to their partner, how many won’t admit it to those running the analysis report? That number has to be higher, don’t you think?
But sometimes, very rarely, we do manage to find that person who we can stand for the next fifty or sixty years. Only four out of five couples will come close, but the real number of those that make it… nobody knows.
Some of you won’t believe me. I bet right now you’re saying, But my man would never cheat on me. He wouldn’t lie to me about anything. He’s the man of my dreams, and I just know that we’re going to be together for the rest of our lives.
Well, maybe that’s true. And maybe it isn’t.
Some of you are thinking, Maybe this chick has a point. So what do you do if you’re starting to get that sinking feeling in your gut that your man isn’t
all you thought he was? What if you’re thinking, I see your point, and I’m concerned that I’m destined for heartbreak?
You call me of course. The Anti-Cupid. I’ll help you discover whether your relationship is built for a lifetime, or if it’s time to get out.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have quite the sexy man to grope in an unabashed public manner.
Chapter One
Beck
Some days just plain suck. Mondays, Friday the thirteenths, Valentine’s Day, and then there are other days, like this one, where I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.
I cannot believe I’m doing this.
This is insane. Possibly the craziest thing my best friend has ever talked me into. Nuts. A certifiable act of insanity.
I inhale, exhale. I could run. I could catch a plane to the other side of the planet. Maybe I could hide in the forest until this whole thing blows over.
“Are you ready?” Liv nudges me in the guts with her elbow.
“No.” My insides are all churned up. No butterflies to go with my racing pulse, only sheer dread and a late afternoon hangover building from our earlier sojourn to the bar.
After I’d shown Olivia the damning footage of her fiancé, Lucas, cheating on her this morning, tequila had seemed like the logical next step. Stumbling over that video had been awful for me, a train wreck of porn I couldn’t look away from. Having to tell Olivia on her wedding day was worse, but nothing compared to how hard it must have been for her to find out the man she loved, the man she planned to marry wasn’t who she thought he was. Still, there wasn’t enough alcohol to make her bright idea of marrying me off for the fun of it a good idea. “I’m not doing this. I-I can’t do this.”
“Of course you can.” She smiles as she takes a step forward.
Exotic calla lilies are clenched so tight in my hand, I can feel the moisture of their crushed stems. My head is throbbing, partly from the tequila shots, partly because my jaw is clenched so tightly it pops every time I move it. Why couldn’t she have made me bungee jump off the Navajo Bridge, or go over Niagara Falls in a barrel? Anything would be preferable to this.
“Please, Livi, call it off.” My voice is high pitched, crackling. I’m not sure it belongs to me. “You know I would do anything for you, but this is madness.”
She glances back at me over her bare shoulder, the figure hugging aubergine satin dress clinging to her curves. “Come on, Becka, it’s not the end of the world. I’m not asking you to fall in love with him.”
Her dress was meant to be mine. Instead I’m wearing her Vera Wang wedding dress. It’s beautiful, but so heavy and tight I can barely move without fracturing my ribcage. “No, you’re asking me to marry a complete stranger.” I grasp her arm, and she yelps. “You know how I feel about marriage.”
“Oh please.” She rolls her eyes while she pries my fingers off her arm. White circles cover her skin where I held on too tight. “This is going to be good for you. You’re always sticking your nose into everyone else’s relationships, but you’ve never had one. Never dated a guy at all. It’s time you experience a little of what you’re so determined is all facts and numbers.”
“That’s because I know better. And this is going too far.” I’m aware I’m practically begging. I’d get down on my knees and ruin this perfect one off designer gown if I thought it would help, but Liv has that look on her face she gets when she’s set on something. “You can’t expect me to do this.”
The light, sweet sounds of a string quartet filter into our little alcove from across the lawn. “It’s time to walk, Beck.”
“No,” I squeak. My heart is beating a million miles an hour. Sweat trickles down the nape of my neck and between my cleavage. “I’m not doing this. You can’t make me.”
“Actually.” She grins. “I can. I could tell everyone who you really are.”
“You wouldn’t.” I slap her arm with the lilies, and petals flutter to the floor. I’m ninety-nine point nine percent certain she’d never do it, but still, my life would be over if anyone found out. “You’re supposed to be my best friend.”
She yanks the poor, abused flowers from my grasp and pushes her own bouquet into my hand. “And sometimes you have to trust that your best friend knows better than you. This is going to be eye-opening.”
More like horrifying, awful, the worst possible situation I could ever find myself in. “It’s mortifying.”
“You owe me,” she says. “For all the times I’ve let you dig around in my love life. And of course for that night I saved your sorry butt.”
Of course she’d dredge up that night now. Of course she would. She wouldn’t share my secrets after all the time she helped me keep them, would she? I take a deep breath and try to calm down. This isn’t a big deal. It’s fake, a sham. Just enough sucky relationship, unhappy ending bullshit to say I’ve been there, done that, isn’t it? She’s not going to expect me to pretend like it’s real or anything. Olivia wouldn’t do that to me, would she? “It’s just one night, right?”
We hadn’t talked about the details of her marrying me off when she’d decided on this crazy idea. Well, actually, she’d considered wedding the bartender, but I couldn’t let my best friend make such a stupid mistake. Not after I had the awful pleasure of being the one to break up her relationship by showing her that video.
I still get a shiver down my spine, all that slurping and grunting bouncing around in my head every time I think of it. It should have been enough to turn her off relationships all together. Instead she started making doe eyes at the guy pouring our shots and then decided she should probably marry him. Because marrying a complete stranger like Jack the bartender couldn’t be any worse than tying herself down to someone she thought she knew. Somehow Olivia is great at compartmentalizing crappy emotional refuse related to her money, and Lucas had definitely been slotted neatly into the gold digging asshole with a penchant for sucking dick category.
But why? Why did it have to come back to me? If only I had kept my mouth shut when she asked the cute bartender to marry her.
“Right,” she agrees as she hastily fusses with the train of my dress. Her mouth turns up at one corner, her hazel eyes sparkling.
My instincts spark. There’s more to this. I just know there is, but I don’t get to ask as she yanks me forward, pulling me onto the expansive emerald lawn where wedding guests are seated on rows of white wooden chairs decorated with silk and gauze bows.
They’re people I don’t know, mostly. Some I do. Guests who came to see Olivia get married and had to settle for this farce instead.
We step onto the cream colored silk runner. My stomach feels like it’s in my throat, and my nerves are stretched tight. I feel like my sanity might snap at any moment. This is a dream. It has to be. And not the happy bride can’t believe she’s marrying the love of her life type dream, but the kind of nightmare I’m going to wake up screaming from any moment now.
Ahead of us two men dressed in suits stand side by side. One of them is Jack —Olivia’s new friend. Though not that long ago she almost decked him when he told us his name, and she thought he was refusing to serve her tequila. He grins like a maniac, the two of them in cahoots. There’s a possibility that he might be suited to her with the way they both jumped at making me tie the knot with his brother.
Oh yeah. Olivia asked Jack if he knew anyone who’d be willing to marry me and he offered up a family member without a second of consideration. On second thought maybe letting him and Liv get married wasn’t the worst case scenario.
Beside Jack is the devil himself. Okay, he might not be the devil, he might be a perfectly nice man, but as far as I’m concerned he’s standing there waiting to welcome me through the gates of hell. My groom. Handpicked by my about to be ex best friend.
“I think I might hate you,” I whisper at her as I try to keep my gaze steady on his, despite the fact I can barely manage to see straight. I have to remember to breathe, have to remember this isn’t permanent. Hell, somethin
g like half of marriages aren’t.
Half. Even if this was real we’d be practically doomed.
“No you don’t. You’re only saying that because you think I’ll let you get out of it.” She glances at me. “Don’t make this a bigger deal than it has to be.”
It’s just one crazy afternoon. It’s not real.
As still as a statue, my groom clasps his hands in front of him. The bumps of his knuckles are starting to go white. The tuxedo he’s wearing was supposed to be Lucas’s. I can tell because it’s a touch too small for him. He’s tall, and the jacket is taut across his shoulders.
“Fine, I could never hate you, but can I pretend I don’t think we can be friends anymore?” I grind out between my teeth. We will always be friends. She and I have always done idiotic things together. It’s just this time she’s taking it too far.
“Smile,” she says. “This is the best day of your life.”
“The worst.” I grimace. As we make our way down the aisle, the groom continues to stare at me. He has friendly eyes, a remarkable blue that is soft and electric at the same time. But the throbbing at his jaw, his overworked sandy hair tells me he’s not as composed as he’s pretending to be. Does he hate this as much as I do? Does he pity me for letting Olivia drag me into this?
“Look at him, Becka.” She smiles and tightens her hold on my elbow. “His name is Lennox Casey. He’s twenty-six years old. Owns his own business. A studio. I think he used to be in a band. Not a garage band, but a proper one. Like, he was a rockstar.”
“What did you do to make him agree to this?” I trip over my feet. Luckily the full satin skirt on this dress makes me look like I’m gliding.
She hauls me the final few steps. “I’ll tell you later.”
Then she shoves me at him. I barely have time to squawk, and the weight of my outfit has me losing my balance.
