He groaned again. “And I want to at least see the budget before you spend a dime.”
“We’ll discuss that.”
He chuckled and I kissed him again.
When he broke the kiss, he murmured, “I wasn’t gonna be your half-assed bodyguard. I’m not gonna be your boyfriend forever. I want to be your husband. Will you marry me, Summer? I don’t do things halfway, and neither do you.”
“Yes, I’ll marry you.”
He got down on one knee again, on the carpet, and slipped the engagement ring onto my finger.
“Well, that looks damn official.” I admired the ring on my hand. It was gorgeous, and extra twinkly because of the happy tears in my eyes. “I’m assuming you won’t mind if I wear this tonight, and squee with the girls and embarrass you?”
“Squee all you want,” he said, his voice gruff with emotion. “I hope you wear it all the time.”
Then he took my dad’s ring out of the box. I held up my third finger on my right hand, where I always wore it, and he slipped it on.
“They look good together,” I said, holding up the rings.
He looked up into my eyes. “They look good on you.” He took my hands and kissed both rings… and my heart fucking swelled.
Yes, I was a daddy’s girl. And it made me ridiculously happy that he both understood and respected that my dad was my hero.
At least… he had been, until Ronan came along.
“You just made my dad really happy, you know.”
“You just made me really happy, Summer Sorensen.”
He looked utterly serious, and I looked him over.
“This is you, happy?” I teased.
“It’s the Christmas sweater,” he said gravely. “It’s overpowering the joy I’m exuding.”
“Then take it off.”
He stripped it off over his head, and I helped him.
“You’re not allowed to fuck up my makeup,” I informed him as he started pushing the layers of organza up my thighs, “but you can rip the panties.”
He growled a little in his throat as he reached under my skirt. He ripped off my panties, glancing at them as he tossed them aside. “Didn’t you just buy those…?”
“Uh-huh,” I breathed, as he started kissing his way up my thigh. I’d bought them today, in fact.
“We’re really gonna have to review your budget…” he murmured against my skin, as he started pulling off my skirt.
“Ugh. You and Brody can both shut up about my budget.”
He dropped my skirt on the floor. “I just want to make sure you have enough money to afford all the tear-off panties you want,” he said innocently.
Okay, that was a budget I could work with.
“Fine,” I sighed, as I helped him strip off my bustier. “You win this one.”
“You know, it really turns me on when you say that.”
I grinned as I undid his jeans… only to discover that he’d snuck on the slutty red underwear I gave him. I laughed with joy.
Then I made love to my fiancé… wearing nothing but my two diamond rings.
Christmas music played downstairs. Snow fell softly outside. I felt completely safe, loved, in Ronan’s arms.
And I knew…
Sometimes, fairytales do come true.
Epilogue
Taylor
“On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love sent to meeee…!”
Oh, yes, indeed. I was happy.
I was so happy, in fact, that I was singing all the way up the stairs to my apartment.
Because so what if my psycho boss had completely screwed me over in the most psycho boss move ever—by coming on to me while he was drunk at the office Christmas party—and when I turned him down, telling his wife, the HR manager, that I came on to him… and then they fired me, four days before Christmas?
So. The fuck. What.
I hated that job. I hated my boss. And now I was liberated, right?
It was all how you chose to look at it. And my glass, right now, was a truly decent quarter-full. I’d deal with refilling the rest of it after Christmas, when the suckfest of searching for a new job began.
“Eight maids a-milking! Seven swans a-swimming! Six geese a-laying…!”
Also. I was seriously looking forward to not being at the beck and call of an abusive employer over the holidays. My Christmas shopping was officially done. I’d treated myself to a new lipstick: Soulcrushing Red. And I was going to a hot Christmas party tonight with my best friend, Danica.
My boyfriend was coming with us, and I felt truly optimistic that the Big Talk he and I had over beers last night was really gonna improve things between us.
“Five! Golden! Riiiings!”
I dug my keys out of my purse and unlocked my door as an entire orchestra of Christmas bells and an angelic choir accompanied me in my head.
“Four calling birds! Three french hens! Two turtle doves! And a partridge in a peeaaaarrr—”
OH SWEET BABY JESUS.
There was a naked lady in my bed.
My naked boyfriend was stumbling away from the bed, backwards, his legs tangled in sheets as he gaped at me. He fell on his ass on the floor in the middle of my crappy-yet-cozy studio apartment.
What the fuck did I just walk into?
I looked at the woman in my bed as she looked at me. Our faces were like a warped mirror in some insane funhouse, her features stretched in the same maw of horrified realization as mine must’ve been.
He. Was. Fucking. Her. In. My. Bed.
I dropped my shopping bags. I dropped my keys and felt the terrible metallic clunk on the hardwood. It made my teeth hurt. Or maybe they hurt because I was clenching my jaw so hard it felt like my molars might crack.
Dominic sprang to his feet. He was barely managing to cover his junk with the corner of my bedsheet.
He was still hard.
I stared at him, my eyeballs so hot they felt like they might pop.
“I thought you were getting ready for the party at Danica’s!” he semi-shouted at me.
Like that made it okay?
Like that explained why it was okay for him to be fucking another woman in my bed?
The single word crept up from my intestines, clawed its way up my throat and ground its way out through my teeth in an unholy, ungodly version of my voice that vaguely reminded me of that girl from The Exorcist.
“OUT.”
That was all I said, or was conscious of saying, before I picked up his boot, just one single boot, and stalked across the room.
This was the last straw, and fuck did it break me.
I shoved the old, creaking window up and hurled his boot out into the crisp night air.
Merry Christmas motherfucker.
I had his Christmas gift in my purse. I remembered that, with a terrible burning feeling in my chest. I’d picked it up on my way home. It was a watch. Not a super expensive one, but still.
I’d use my rage to fuel past this. I’d use the receipt to return the watch. And I was definitely not going to cry.
I picked up his other boot and threw it out the window. His jeans went next, then his stupid fucking manly shirt, the one that lied.
This was no man.
All I heard him say was, “Jesus, Taylor! It’s snowing out.”
At that point, I threw his jacket out the window and he got with the program. He snatched up his underwear before I could get to it and started yanking it on. He also snatched up his socks.
I was dimly aware that at some point, very early in this whole fucked-up scene, the naked woman in my bed had picked up her clothes, screeched something in Dominic’s direction, and scurried her ass out the door.
He was still here, though. He was still talking, so I went and threw open the door. “Nothing!” I shouted. “There is nothing you can say! Now GET. THE FUCK. OUT!”
I shut my eyes and heard nothing but blood as it raged through my ears in molten surges of pain.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
When I eventually opened my eyes, he was gone.
I shut the door and locked it.
Then I made sure he was gone, checking the bathroom, the closets, under the bed, just to be certain he hadn’t slithered into some dark crevasse to hide like the spawn of Satan he evidently was.
I slammed the window shut without looking to see if he was fumbling around half-naked in the snow below, trying to find his boots.
I hoped his toes froze and snapped right off.
Then I tore all the bedding off my bed, stuffed it in a garbage bag and grabbed my keys. I slogged down to the first floor, to the garbage room. I stuffed my ruined bedding into a bin.
And I thought about the stupidest shit.
Like how sweet I thought it was when he asked if I wanted to “experiment with living together.” And how he’d ended up staying at my place all the time, even though his place was nicer, because he had a roommate, I didn’t, and he wanted “more alone time” with me.
… And with the other women he fucked in my bed while I was working my ass off for a crazy, hateful boss, apparently.
I will not cry.
I ran back upstairs. To add insult to injury, the elevator was broken again and I had to take all five flights on foot. By the time I got back to my apartment I was panting and short of breath, lightheaded. Maybe I was having a mild panic attack.
Or maybe this was just what exorcising a demon felt like.
My only solace was in knowing that my now-ex-boyfriend had to take the stairs, too. In his underwear.
I locked the apartment door behind me, making a mental note to recruit some really big, really mean dudes to go over to his place and demand my spare key back.
I dug out my spare sheets and put them on the bed.
Then I curled up in a ball in the middle of it and I cried.
Eventually, after I had my cry, I got back on my feet and got ready to go to the Christmas party.
What else was I gonna do?
I slathered on Soulcrushing Red and slipped into my super hot black satin cocktail dress. It was strapless and gave great cleavage. And it had a flirty skirt with pockets in it. I stuffed them with tissues, in case I felt the water works coming on again.
And while I got ready, I helped myself to a glass of wine—or two.
Tonight, I was celebrating Christmas with my best friend, her new rock star husband, and other assorted interesting people. And I was getting good and drunk. Oh, yes. Yes, I was.
After that, when I’d sobered up, maybe I’d forgive malekind for fucking me over. And of course, get started on completely overhauling my life.
Taylor 2.0.
Tomorrow, I was dying my hair, piercing something, and starting over.
Yup. Solid plan.
Maybe I’d even get a tattoo.
Don’t miss Lovely Madness (Players #4), the next book in the Players series!
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Playlist
As always, some of the songs on the Sweet Temptation playlist are mentioned in this book; others are songs that captured the feel of a certain scene or that I listened to while writing the book.
The playlist features rock music, of course, but it also includes a lot of other genres that I, and the characters in the book, enjoy as well. Making a playlist for this sassy, music loving DJ and her “musically challenged” man was a ton of fun.
You’ll find the links to the full playlists on Spotify and Apple Music here.
If I Never See Your Face Again (feat. Rihanna) — Maroon 5
Bang! — AJR
A.I.M. — The Cooper Temple Clause
rockstar (feat. 21 Savage) — Post Malone
Only Ones Who Know — Arctic Monkeys
Feelin' Good (Joe Claussell Remix) — Nina Simone
WTF (Where They From) [feat. Pharrell Williams] — Missy Elliott
Castle — Halsey
Just Dance (feat. Colby O’Donis) — Lady Gaga
I Want More — KALEO
Bennie and the Jets — Elton John
Hesitant — Blaise Moore
Summer Fever — Donna Summer
Kryptonite — 3 Doors Down
No Sleep — Sam Roberts
Break My Baby — KALEO
Could You Be Loved (RAC Remix) — Bob Marley & The Wailers
Licky (Vandalism Remix) — Larry Tee & Princess Superstar
One Evening (VV Mix) — Feist
Is This Love (Jason Bentley Remix) — Bob Marley & The Wailers
Ms. Fat Booty — Mos Def
Boss Bitch — Doja Cat
Bad Girls (Wick-it Remix) — M.I.A.
Wicked Games (feat. Anna Naklab) [Radio Edit] — Parra for Cuva
Promiscuous — Nelly Furtado
Everybody Loves My Baby — Serge Gainsbourg et Brigitte Bardot
Roses — SAINt JHN
Clouds — BØRNS
Summer — Calvin Harris
Hot Right Now (Bassnectar Remix) — Bassnectar & Amp Live
Illusion (feat. Born I) — Bassnectar & PEEKABOO
Midnight Hour — Skrillex, Boys Noize & Ty Dolla $ign
You've Really Got a Hold on Me — Smokey Robinson & The Miracles
What’s It Gonna Be?! (feat. Janet) — Busta Rhymes
All Day and All of the Night — The Kinks
Do It — Nelly Furtado
Lo/Hi — The Black Keys
Blue Monday — Orgy
The Girls — Calvin Harris
Eagle Birds — The Black Keys
You Can’t Control It — Jack Johnson
Alter Ego — KALEO
I See You Baby (Fatboy Slim Remix) — Groove Armada
Say So — Doja Cat
90% of Me Is You — Vanessa Kendrick
You Can Leave Your Hat On — Etta James
Clothes Off — Ria Mae
Dancing Days — Led Zeppelin
Big Shot Pimpin' (Billy Joel vs. Jay-Z) — Brat
Get Free (Andy C Remix) — Major Lazer
Drama Free (feat. Lights) — deadmau5
Loser — 3 Doors Down
Dance Of The Clairvoyants — Pearl Jam
Streets — Doja Cat
Hail To the Victor — Thirty Seconds to Mars
Something’s Got a Hold on Me — Etta James
Santa Baby — Eartha Kitt
Shine — Doja Cat
Paradise — Coldplay
About the Author
Jaine Diamond is a contemporary romance author, fond of writing the love stories of built and badass men endowed with massive hearts, and strong, complex women she’d love to have a cocktail with.
She lives in beautiful Vancouver, Canada with her real-life romantic hero (Mr. Diamond) and their daughter, where she reads, writes, and drinks copious amounts of tea.
Connect with Jaine
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Sweet Temptation: A Players Rockstar Romance (Players, Book 3) Page 49
