by Jessie Evans
Good Girl VS. Bad Boy
Jessie Evans
Self Taught Ninja
Contents
Good Girl vs. Bad Boy
Copyright
About the Book
Dedication
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
Sneak Peek!
About the Author
Tell Jessie Your Favorite Part!
Acknowledgments
More by Jessie Evans
Good Girl vs. Bad Boy
The Marine Meets His Match
Brody Brothers Book One
By Jessie Evans
All Rights Reserved
Copyright Good Girl VS. Bad Boy © 2015 Jessie D. Evans www.jessieevansromance.com
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. This contemporary sexy romantic comedy romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This e-book is licensed for your personal use only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy hot, sexy, emotional novels featuring alpha heroes. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work. Cover by Bootstrap Designs. Edited by Robin Leone Editorial.
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About the Book
Let the battle of the sexes begin…
He’s hot, wild, unpredictable, untamable, and her best friend’s older brother.
Colton Brody is everything a good girl like Phoebe Page should avoid. But since her sister Kelly’s death, Phoebe isn’t as worried about being good as she used to be. She wants to live big with no regrets, the way Kelly did, and she intends to start with having a top secret, super steamy, no-strings-attached holiday fling with the man she’s crushed on her entire life.
What could go wrong?
Except everything?
Wounded in action and discharged without a chance to prove himself, all Colton cares about is getting back into the Marine Corps where he belongs. He will not get sucked into small town drama, will not take that promotion at the firehouse, and certainly won’t fall in love with his little sister’s best friend. He’s down for friends-with-benefits, nothing more, and plans to leave town long before quirky, bossy, cute-as-a-button Phoebe can get under his skin.
He is in control.
At least until a certain sexy brunette turns his world upside down.
It isn’t long before Colton finds himself buying flowers, talking feelings, and wishing Phoebe wanted more than another night of hot, no-holds-barred sex. Because when he’s with Phoebe even hot and dirty feels like making love.
Now Colton will have to decide what’s worth fighting for—the dreams a plane crash stole from him or the dream he’s holding in his arms.
WARNING: Good Girl vs. Bad Boy contains a mix of heart-warming romance, quirky characters, laugh out loud moments, and blisteringly hot banging. If you don’t like hot sex, laughter, mentions of humping unicorns, turkey bowling, off-beat town rituals, or graphic descriptions of artisanal pancakes, steer clear.
To Michael, who rescued me from the shorts that wouldn’t unzip.
If you hadn’t been my hero already, babe, that would have sealed the deal.
Chapter 1
Phoebe
Phoebe Page woke up at twenty after seven and rolled over, stretching in the winter light filtering through the calico curtains, blissfully unaware that she was about to have the most embarrassing week of her life.
Worse than the time she threw up onstage at the Lover’s Leap annual Christmas pageant, earning herself the nickname Puking Page for the rest of fifth grade.
Worse than the time she sneaked off to pee in the woods at a high school bonfire and was caught midstream by her best friend’s big brother, aka the hottest guy in school, aka her lifelong crush and the last person she ever wanted to see her squatting behind a bush.
Worse than the time her computer coughed up racy pictures from the depths of her hard drive during a PowerPoint presentation at her accounting firm in Chicago, displaying them onscreen for her entire—all male—team to see.
With Phoebe’s knack for mortification, her superstitious, tarot-card-reading mother worried that her daughter might be cursed. But Phoebe knew she usually did her part to earn her shame.
Her father had warned her that she was going to make herself sick if she ate two of his salted-caramel-drizzled funnel cakes right before the Christmas pageant. And by age fifteen, she’d been aware that she had the smallest bladder in the universe, but she had drunk two apple ciders at the bonfire anyway. And most mortifying of all, she’d allowed her ex-boyfriend, Clarence, to take pictures of her wearing skimpy lingerie.
He hadn’t stolen the snapshots while she was sleeping; she had posed for him and regretted it ever since. She’d known it was a bad idea—Clarence wasn’t The One, and one should never trust anyone but The One with racy pictures—but she’d let herself be bullied into posing for her ex. He’d been grumbling for months that she wasn’t as uninhibited as he would have liked for her to be. She had assumed a sexy photo shoot would prove once and for all that she wasn’t in the running for Vanilla Geek of the Year.
Sure, she worked with numbers all day, did sudoku puzzles for fun, and considered a weekend spent wandering around the science museum edge-of-your-seat entertainment, but she had her sassy side. She added Sriracha to her brussels sprouts, drove five miles over the speed limit when she was in a hurry, and had run every extreme obstacle marathon in the tristate area—from the Mud Run to the Warrior Dash to the Run For Your Life Zombie 5k.
She had layers, hidden depths, and an adventurous side waiting to break free.
But Clarence hadn’t seen her depths or made an effort to peel back her layers. He had taken the sexy pictures, shared them with his creepy lawyer friends, and broken up with Phoebe the next day, ensuring she couldn’t walk past his firm’s office without her cheeks turning fuchsia with a combination of rage and embarrassment.
Some of the rage was for Clarence, but most of it was for herself.
She was ashamed that she’d let herself be bullied into something that made her uncomfortable. The entire mess with her ex had made her vow to live more authentically moving forward—no more changing to please a man or apologizing for the things that made her happy—and that was before she’d received the call from the Lover’s Leap hospital about Kelly.
Phoebe sat up
in bed, rubbing at her eyes as she glanced around the room.
Evidence of her older sister was everywhere—from the papier-mâché animal sculptures hanging from the ceiling to the bright pink calico curtains to the empty terrarium in the hobby room where Kelly’s pet skink, a lizard named Sir Licks-a-Lot, had once made his home.
Kelly had always lived wild, free, and in bright, uncompromising color.
But now she was gone and Phoebe was alone, with nothing but the objects her sister had left behind and her memories to keep her company.
“Miss you,” Phoebe said softly, closing her eyes as a rush of comforting warmth spread through her chest in response.
She could feel Kelly’s spirit here in a way she couldn’t when she was in Chicago or at her parents’ new house in Florida where she and Kelly had spent the holidays as adults. It made her glad to be back in Lover’s Leap, even if she had no idea how to run a curiosity shoppe or how to keep a house this ancient in working order.
But she would figure it out. She would restock the shop, get this corner of Evergreen Lane open for business, and she and Old Vic—Kelly’s nickname for her fussy Victorian home—would find a way to coexist. She wasn’t going to let her sister’s mark on the world fade away. She was going to keep Kelly’s legacy alive and live wild and free enough for both herself and the best friend she’d lost too soon.
Inspired by the thought, Phoebe swung her legs out of bed only to squeal as soon as her feet hit the floor.
The freezing cold floor.
She glanced over to see the space heater in the corner dead to the world and cursed. It must have overloaded the electrical system in the night again. Now she was going to have to go outside and flip the circuit breakers and hope the aging wires would hold on long enough for her to make tea and toast.
The entire grid was going to have to be replaced, but there was no way she was getting an electrician out to give her a quote until January. Between the Frozen Dead Dude festival coming up and Christmas Eve the day after, the entire town would be in full-time party mode for the next week.
The town’s annual celebration in honor of a local man who had been cryogenically frozen and entrusted to his daughter’s keeping—Frankie stored Pops in a Tuff Shed near downtown Lover’s Leap—was usually one of Phoebe’s favorite times of the year. It was a time for bowling with frozen turkeys, racing coffins on wheels through downtown, daring friends to join the polar bear plunge, and enjoying some silly fun before celebrating Christmas.
But even though she was looking forward to racing coffins with her best friend Daisy, she couldn’t help wishing that not every handyman in town was taking the week off.
Crossing her arms tight to hold in her body heat, she hurried to the closet and wiggled her toes into a pair of zombie house slippers that made her feet look like they were being digested by two members of the undead.
Kelly had always had a thing for brightly colored clothing and anything that made her laugh. The pj’s Phoebe was wearing were bright blue with pink humping unicorns all over them. She’d been wearing her sister’s clothes for the past week—the airline had yet to locate her missing luggage—and enjoyed feeling close to Kelly, but she didn’t want to be seen in public in pajamas, let alone humping-unicorn pajamas.
Phoebe padded down the stairs and opened the front door just far enough to stick her head out, her sleep-fuzzy thoughts sharpening as a rush of frigid air swept into her face. It was going to be a cold one, the kind of day that made even the most hardcore skiers take time off the slopes to stay home and snuggle by the fire.
A glance up and down Evergreen Lane, the main street leading through downtown, revealed nothing but locked doors and quietly steaming chimneys. It was too early—and too cold—for even the most hardcore coffee addicts to be headed into their favorite café for a fix. She should be able to get out to the circuit breakers around the left side of the house and back inside without being spotted.
Bracing herself for the chill, Phoebe dashed out the door and down the front steps, silently congratulating herself on keeping the walk so nicely shoveled. Her zombie slippers scuffed on the snow-dusted concrete, but her toes stayed cozy and dry as she flicked the switches and hurried back the way she’d come.
She was back on the porch before the last of the lingering bed-warmth had vanished from her flannel pajamas, already imagining how good a cup of lemongrass and ginger tea was going to taste on a chilly morning like this when she realized she had made a serious mistake.
Her fingers curled around the doorknob, but when she twisted, the knob held firm not budging an inch.
“No.” She tried to spin it a second time. “No, no, no!” She wrapped both hands around the freezing metal and hauled to the right and then the left, but still the door remained tightly closed.
“Damn it,” she whispered, adding a few more colorful phrases beneath her breath. She’d forgotten to flip the lock on the doorknob to open before she started down the stairs and now she was locked out of the house.
Locked out in her unicorn-humping pajamas and zombie slippers with no phone, no car keys, and no way to reach her best friend Daisy, the only person in town who had a spare key.
“Score one for you, Old Vic,” she grumbled, resisting the urge to kick the front door.
The house had won the round, but she wasn’t going to let it win the match. There were other ways to get into a building than through the front door, especially when the building in question had been renovated by a woman who had absolutely no concern for her personal safety.
Phoebe started around the house, cringing as her slippers sank in snow that reached nearly to her knees, cursing herself for installing window locks on the ground floor yesterday. Kelly had never locked the house or the Curiosity Shoppe in the old carriage house next door, not even when the cash register on the checkout counter was filled with money.
Lover’s Leap, Colorado was one of the safest small towns in the nation—voted a best bet for families with small children four years running—but it still had its share of petty theft.
But Kelly hadn’t worried about things like that.
She hadn’t worried about anything, really. Her sister had floated through her days without a care in the world, leading a charmed life until that morning last March when she’d broken her leg skiing and a blood clot had turned a serious injury into a fatal one. Phoebe, however, was the opposite of charmed, a fact she should have remembered before she decided to climb up the ancient fire escape and sneak in through the bathroom window on the second floor.
But she wasn’t thinking about foul luck or her mother’s warning that she had been born under a bad sign when she jumped up to grab the lowest rung of the fire escape and hooked her leg around the metal tread, sending one zombie slipper flying off to land on the snow bank beneath her. She was thinking about hot tea and butter melted on toast and how good it was going to feel to be back inside the only semifreezing house instead of out in the absolutely freezing outdoors.
She was thinking about her new life and her new worldview and sisters doing it for themselves and that she was woman, hear her roar!
She was halfway up the ladder to the second-floor landing when her hands slipped on the icy rails, sending her left leg sliding through the gap between two rungs. She opened her mouth to scream, but before she could make a sound, she lost her balance and arched backward in a reverse swan dive, her skull on a collision course with the ground.
Phoebe threw her arms over her head and braced herself for impact, but at the last second, her bulky pajama pants snagged on something above her. The fabric caught and held for a heart-racing moment, slowing her fall long enough for her to yip in fear before the elastic waistband of her pants proved no match for gravity and gave out, sending her slipping out of her britches and tumbling toward the ground.
This time, Phoebe had enough time to scream before she landed with a gasp, upside down in a stranger’s arms.
A very strong stranger’s arms, which wer
e attached to equally powerful shoulders that cradled Phoebe’s thighs perfectly as they draped over them, bringing the stranger’s face into intimate contact with the crotch of her extra-large white granny panties.
Phoebe closed her eyes, waiting to see if this would be the time that mortification finally killed her.
Chapter 2
Colton
Colton Brody was no innocent.
He’d had his face between the thighs of his fair share of beautiful women, but not usually before eight o’clock in the morning, and never with the woman in question hanging upside down in his arms after being surprised in the middle of breaking and entering.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, her voice muffled and her thighs squirming on either side of his face as she inched the crotch of her cotton panties away from his mouth. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“I’m not the one you should apologize to,” Colton said, trying to ignore the feel of her soft skin against his end-of-shift stubble and the light, feminine scent of her swirling around him.
It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman, but this one wasn’t an option. He was no angel, but he drew the line at hopping into bed with people who were trying to break into an old friend’s house.
“I know the woman who owns this building,” he continued, shifting his grip, trying to figure out the best way to set his captive down without dropping her head first into the snow. “And I know she’s not you.”
“I can explain.” She giggled as his finger accidentally slipped along her ribs. “Sorry, I’m ticklish. If you’ll please just put me down, I can—”
