Shut Up and Kiss Me is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
A Loveswept Ebook Original
Copyright © 2016 by Jessica Lemmon
Excerpt from Max by Sawyer Bennett copyright © 2016 by Sawyer Bennett
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the LOVESWEPT colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
Ebook ISBN 9781101884713
Cover design: Diane Luger
Cover photograph: Nina Buday/Shutterstock
randomhousebooks.com
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Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Dedication
Acknowledgments
By Jessica Lemmon
About the Author
Excerpt from Max
Prologue
Cade
When I woke up in the hospital room, fuzzy from pain meds and disoriented, you’d think the first thing on my mind would be my memory of the accident. The exploding glass and the sound of my car, Blue, crumpling around me. Eerie silence and the feeling of blood oozing down my face.
You’d be wrong.
My first thought was on the blonde hovering over me. Her big blue eyes, her full mouth, and the look of concern on her face.
At first sight, Tasha Montgomery drowned out the pain cranking up inside me like too much bass on a speaker. I never wanted her to see me as weak, or some fragile being who needed taking care of. Hell, once upon a time I approached her with cocky confidence, hoping she’d say yes to my idiotic advances.
Nothing like a knock on the head to bring your former stupidity into focus.
Where once she’d avoided me because I was an asshole, now she doted because of the accident that had robbed me of my voice.
I couldn’t say I liked this any better.
Chapter 1
Tasha
I parked my BMW in the Wilson driveway, cutting the engine and sighing in resignation at the vision in front of me. The garage door was open and two tennis shoes poked out from beneath a pale blue vintage car.
The shoes belonged to my “patient,” Caden Wilson. Cade, as he was known to his friends. I called him Cade too, though I’m not exactly sure he considered me his friend. I wasn’t sure what we were.
I stepped out of my own vehicle, tugging down my short jean skirt as my sparkly flats hit the concrete driveway. The moment the snow had thawed, I was filled with gratitude that winter was over. Much as I love my boots, I’m a spring girl. New beginnings and fresh starts and all that.
I debated for a second before leaning back into the driver’s side and grabbing my backpack from the passenger seat. Cade hated this pack because it represented the work he had to do to regain his speech. I was here to help. I had a job to do. If he didn’t see it that way, it wasn’t my problem.
After his accident, I filled in as his physical therapist when he’d fired every other therapist who came his way. He hadn’t let me do much before and allowed me to do almost nothing now. His physical injuries were no longer an issue.
Cade’s problem was with his tongue.
I wasn’t a speech therapist, but Cade’s father didn’t care about titles. As long as Cade was willing to work with me, Paul Wilson wanted me around. Paul and I spent a lot of hours next to Cade’s hospital bed those first few days. I’d witnessed the accident that night, and every instinct told me that Cade needed a friend to wake up to. When most of his friends bailed, since street racing was illegal and an ambulance plus cops had been on the way, that left me as his only friend.
Paul was grateful I stuck around. He’d been my father’s accountant for years, so I’d seen him around even before our rendezvous at the hospital. Mine and Cade’s past wasn’t peachy, but knowing he was hurting, I couldn’t walk away.
So I didn’t.
I was also pulling an internship over at Ridgeway Rehabilitation Institute. I’d been there a few months and I enjoyed it. I was good at it according to my instructor, and I was working with patients who didn’t hate me, so that was a plus. By summer, I planned to start my career and obtain a PTA position.
Working with Cade was a blip on that otherwise wide-spanning radar. Soon I’d be on to bigger and better things. Or so I told myself.
I took a deep breath, about to announce my arrival, but then someone else did it for me.
“Hey, Tasha.” My best friend’s boyfriend, in all his tall, dark, suited beauty, appeared in the garage, bag on his shoulder.
Devlin Calvary. He was also Cade’s half brother, an unforeseen twist that had surprised them both.
Devlin adjusted the duffel bag on his shoulder. He was dressed for work in a suit, a blue tie arrowing down to an expensive leather belt. He was the owner of a high-end restaurant, which was why he dressed to impress. He might be wily, but since he’d fallen for my best friend, he’d become…well, not tamed. But there was a light air around him that hadn’t existed before they met. Since this past winter they’ve been inseparable, and Devlin had changed for the better. Rena was finally getting the happiness she deserved. They brought out the best in each other like couples were supposed to do.
Devlin kicked his brother’s shoe. “Therapist is here.”
Cade didn’t respond. That wasn’t unusual.
“You are a glutton for punishment, Montgomery,” Devlin said when he was standing in front of me. His mouth twisted into a smirk—the one my best friend Rena favored.
“Yeah, yeah.” His comment wasn’t venomous. He used to be a jerk. Now he was…different. Less intense. Getting used to him being cordial was an adjustment.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
Devlin had lived here with Cade and Paul when he was younger, and then he’d returned to help after Cade’s accident. Recently Devlin moved into Rena’s apartment. Their relationship had moved fast, I thought maybe too fast, but part of me conceded that a thick band of envy had clouded my judgment. I wasn’t proud of that ping of jealousy, but it didn’t mean it wasn’t there. At one point I’d held out hope that my ex, Tony, might pursue our future together.
Boy, was I wrong.
“This is the last of my stuff,” Dev said, thumb hooked under the strap on the bag hanging from his shoulder. “So…”
We glanced into the garage. Cade hadn’t moved from under the car, one leg straight out, the other foot on the ground where he’d crooked a knee.
“Enjoy your session with Mr. Sunshine.” Devlin’s full lips pulled into a smile.
Okay, he was a looker, I’d give him that. Rena and Devlin suited each other. She wasn’t anything like me. She was a bad girl who played good. I was the last of the good girls, a type A, perfectionist only child who knew her place—who measured her value by how much she could achieve.
“Gee, thanks,” I
answered, casting another look at Cade. The sound of a wrench cranking came from beneath the rust bucket he was under.
“Well.” Devlin pushed a hand through his medium-length black hair and flicked a glance at the upstairs window where Cade had spent nearly every waking and sleeping hour since his accident. “He’s outside, so there’s that.”
True. I wouldn’t have to climb the stairs to his dimly lit bedroom today.
“Good luck.” Devlin climbed into his SUV. I waved my thanks and watched as he backed out of the driveway.
Devlin and Cade had discovered last year that they were half brothers who shared a mother. I’d had to sit down and draw a flowchart to understand how that had happened. A lot of lies, as it turned out.
That development had intensified what Cade was going through. He’d learned his parentage was half fiction, and then he’d added in a car accident, injuring himself and taking him out of college. He hadn’t been the most pleasant person before the injuries. Now, even less, though at least he wasn’t slicing me with that sharp tongue of his. Some days I was surprised I was trying to help him regain his speech. Maybe this time around he’d use his powers for good rather than evil.
Remember when I mentioned I was a type A perfectionist? My drive to be praised and in general do my best was a fire I started, and one happily stoked by my father. Nothing pleased him, but that was another story. I went into my field because I genuinely wanted to help people. Cade had given up on himself and his future, and my walking away from him would almost guarantee his future would be one in his bedroom playing video games and grunting every so often.
Not that I’d actually been “helping” him lately. We’d pretty much retreated into our neutral corners over the last month. But he was outside. Major progress. I took a deep breath and forced a smile.
“Good afternoon!” I chirped. The wrench sound ceased for a few seconds before starting up again. “Are we doing your session in the garage today?” I spotted an open toolbox and a few grease-covered rags on the ground. “The change of scenery is nice.”
No comment from my captive audience. I sighed.
Most of the time I felt like I was failing miserably, but I continued to show up and try, try again. At first I’d told myself it was a favor for Paul, and then later I told myself it was my own never-say-die attitude, but now I knew why I continued showing up and pushing him.
I did it for Cade.
We were running out of time. Soon I wouldn’t have a choice of “should I or shouldn’t I.” Graduation would lead to a state board exam, which in turn would lead to a licensed full-time position. I’d be too busy to come over here and listen to myself talk.
I lifted one flat and kicked the sole of Cade’s shoe like Devlin had, backing up quickly when Cade pushed out from under the car on one of those low, wheeled carts mechanics use. The second his light brown eyes locked on mine, I froze.
He might be a royal pain in the ass, but it didn’t keep him from being the most gorgeous guy I had ever seen. I’d thought so since I first laid eyes on him at Ridgeway University. Despite our mutual dislike for each other, my appreciation of his fine-tuned biceps, tattoos cascading down one arm, and firm, wide shoulders hadn’t gone anywhere.
His lips compressed into a line as he stood, snatching up a rag and wiping his hands. He continued scowling at me. I think. My eyes had ventured away from his face to his biceps as they clenched beneath a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off.
“This is new,” I said. Meaning the car and the fact that he was standing outside. In the sunshine. “I thought you’d turned vampire. I’m surprised to find you out in the daylight.”
He grunted as he bent and put his tools away. That was his typical response. I tried not to admire the way his faded jeans clutched his backside, but failed. Cade had a nice ass.
When he stood, I averted my eyes from his well-built physique to his short, shaggy mass of sandy brown hair, and my heart stuttered in my chest.
Every inch of him was hot. From a pair of midlength sideburns to the holes in his ears where the piercings had closed because he no longer wore the studs. Tattoos snaked up his left arm, intricate designs, some colored, some not. An array of animals and symbols, metaphors for what I had never found out. Not that I had asked. There were lines we didn’t cross, and his tattoos were one of them.
When he smiled, a dimple dented one cheek, and if he really smiled, you could see rows of white teeth—not too white—he wasn’t battling a coffee addiction with Crest Whitestrips like me.
In the case of my wayward attraction to Cade, the culprit was my ex-boyfriend, Tony. If Tony hadn’t been such a dickhead, we could be looking for an apartment together and planning our engagement. He was going into sports medicine, I into physical therapy. We had similar upbringings. Similar goals. Similar interests. Well, save one. Tony Fry was most interested in seeing how many women he could date without the others finding out, and I was more of a one-guy type of girl.
That was where our paths had ultimately veered.
Cade crooked a finger, motioning for me to come closer. I took one cautious step. Then another. He smelled of motor oil, which wasn’t bad. Not on him. It mingled with the scent of his soap and gave him an earthy yet dangerous quality. Plus, Cade looked damn good with oil smeared on his shirt and across one cheek.
His eyes dashed to my lips, and back up, and then…
I was looking at his back as he walked away from me. Not into the entrance to the house on the right of the garage, but through a door on the left. Curious, I followed.
The door opened to a flight of stairs.
Okay.
One foot after the next, I followed him to the top, then peeked around the doorway. I blinked, stunned.
“Whoa.” I had no idea this room existed. The Wilson house was large, and I’d always assumed the windows over the garage were some sort of attic or storage space. Maybe they used to be, but now the space resembled an apartment. Not as big as mine, but much bigger than the bedroom Cade formerly occupied.
His bed stood in one corner, the mattress bare. A kitchenette was on the far wall, outfitted with a small sink, microwave, and refrigerator. Open boxes were stacked in the room, along every wall, and flanking an attached bathroom.
“Nice place,” I commented, meaning it. An improvement from sleeping across the hall from his father.
Cade brushed by me and walked into the kitchenette, then stood with the refrigerator door open and took a few slugs out of an orange juice carton. My eyes flickered over one rounded muscular shoulder and down the curve of thick biceps, then got lost in the maze of ink swirling over his flesh.
His hair was damp with sweat, one droplet trickling down the side of his neck. I watched it slide down his throat and disappear into his T-shirt, all the while reminding myself that sweaty guys dashed with motor oil were not attractive.
Parts of me listened. Other parts of me did not.
Cade Wilson looked like no other law major I had ever seen. I liked boys and khakis. Oxford shirts did it for me. Well groomed, well spoken. Those were qualities I didn’t only admire, I required. But with Cade my response was off the grid. Carnal. Basal. Against my better judgment over the last few months, I had become inexplicably attracted to his shaggy, messy, never-styled hair. I liked the dangerous quality of the ink on his body. I liked the way he eyed me through that light brown stare of his, with a combination of spite and curiosity.
I understood because I’d been looking at him the same way for a long time.
We had a history. It wasn’t a good one.
“You’ve gained muscle,” I commented. It wasn’t a flirty comment, more a professional observation. Improving bodies was my passion. Noticing his went with the territory. His broken arm had hampered his weightlifting until it healed, but he had more than regained the muscle he’d lost.
He licked a droplet of juice off his lips and I tossed my backpack on the couch, unfazed by his tongue or his attitude.
Mostly, any
way.
“This is a great space,” I began. “Now that I’m here and you’re here, I think we could do actual work today instead of you ignoring me and me doing my homework.”
His bland gaze said what he didn’t: He didn’t like my suggestion.
Part of me fantasized that he’d give in and cooperate. That I’d have my own moment of personal triumph by helping him progress from a stoic, silent statue into a proper chatterbox.
His face scrunched.
Maybe not.
“The kind of therapy I’m proposing would be more like a workout.” I folded my arms and gave him a smile. “You like to work out, right?”
No response. Just the same bland stare.
“Only we’ll be working out your face instead of your arms. Think of it as bench presses for your lips. Curls for your tongue.”
One brown eyebrow arched in suspicion. Then the side of his mouth flinched. It wasn’t exactly a smile, but interest stirred in the depths of his eyes. I thought about what I’d just said and scowled.
“That wasn’t a sexual comment. So don’t take it that way.” What I didn’t need was Cade thinking I was flirting with him. I knew he was bad news—that any attraction we felt was due to proximity and the fact that he was a guy and I was a girl.
The hint of a smile vanished from his face. I wish I could say it satisfied me to see it go, but Cade had an amazing smile. He used to smile often. Before the accident, he’d been a grinning idiot most of the time. The problem with this godlike, grinning specimen was that he’d had a big mouth and a sharp tongue. He’d flayed me once with it, and I hadn’t forgotten.
“We may as well do something while I’m here,” I snapped.
He returned the juice carton and slammed the fridge.
“Cade.”
“What!” He spun on me.
Stunned, I blinked at him. He lifted that same eyebrow in challenge.
Shut Up and Kiss Me: A Lost Boys Novel Page 1
