“I know it’s not easy. And I know there will always be people who want to take us down. We have you to thank for reminding us of that. But guess what, Tony.” I leaned forward, energy surging in my veins. “Can I call you Tony?” I didn’t wait for him to respond. “We’re ready. Because we’ve worked for every scrap we have. And we’ll keep working for it.”
Bryson pushed back from the table, eyes narrowed.
“I expect the suit will be dropped by the end of the day.”
He shook his head. I might not know law, but I knew the look on his face. He’d given in.
The high of victory surged through me as I reached over to pick up the coffee he’d left untouched on the table. No point wasting perfectly good caffeine. I could take it home to Nate.
“Sweetie, I wouldn’t do that,” Lindy called from behind the counter.
“Why not?”
“I spit in it.”
I snorted. “Thanks, Lindy.” Then pulled out my phone and sent a text message.
~
Friday The Bar was packed. Despite getting the case dropped Monday, it was our first chance to go out because of all the work. Plus, Nate had gone back to Minneapolis to wrap up his work obligations and get the last of the few things he’d brought to his apartment.
I followed my girls onto the dance floor and moved to the music.
When an arm went around my waist, I didn’t even have to look. I knew the body, the way it fit against mine. How my pulse sped up. That heat pooled between my legs in anticipation of what would come later.
I turned my face up to him.
“Hey.”
“Hey.” Nate looked down at me, wearing a crooked smile. My heart exploded.
“We did it, Nate. We actually did it.” I was still swimming in the victory. When I’d told Lex, she’d actually cried with happiness. Jordan had released a series of swear words that gave me a run for my money.
“You did it. You’re all amazing.” He puts his mouth to my ear. “But especially you.”
“You helped.” I was drunk. Gloriously, happily drunk, and the world had never been better. And I wanted to share all of it with him.
“When I came to New York I decided I needed someone real.” The music wasn’t loud but I still had to press close to his ear to be heard. “But when I saw you again, it all came rushing back. I told myself we couldn’t because you were just a player. And self-absorbed. And an ass …”
Nate’s eyes shone in the low light. “When I saw you in that conference room, all flushed and looking at me like I was the devil, you were the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. I figured I was going straight to hell thinking the things I was sitting across from you.” He slid a hand down my side, and it settled at my waist like it was made to be there. “You completely spelled me.”
I frowned, trying to make sense of his words. “I’m not a very good speller. I was the first one out in the fourth-grade spelling bee.”
He grinned. “I’m so fucking in love with you, Ava Cameron.”
“I’m even more fucking in love with you, Nate Townsend.”
“Sounds like a lot of fucking,” he teased.
I raised my eyebrows. “You said it, Suit, not me.”
That night we closed the bar after two, following three rounds of shots and some epic dancing. We poured Kirsten and others from the magazine into cabs and got me, Lex, Nate, and Jordan into another.
Jordan stumbled to the couch and face-planted onto it. She was down for the count. Lex vanished into her room while Nate followed me into mine.
He’d let his apartment go so he needed to find a new one. Fortunately, he had a lead on one in our building. But for this week he was living with us.
Thanks to some research Nate had started while he was still in Minneapolis, he’d landed a job with Ty doing class-action lawsuits against big firms. He was starting Monday.
I pulled the door quietly behind us, sidestepping the suitcase he’d left there earlier in the day. Then I turned back to see Nate looking around in fascination. Nearly all of the nights we’d found time to spend together, we’d slept at his place.
His hands were shoved in the pockets of his jeans, his pressed blue shirt open at the collar. “I’ve never really looked in here. It’s such a girl’s room,” he said, turning in a slow circle.
He walked around. Picked up a snow globe off the shelf. Shook it before setting it down again. Collected a few pencils, which were scattered on every surface, and set them in the half-empty vase that doubled as a pencil holder. Then he glanced over sheepishly like he realized what he was doing. “Can’t help it.”
It didn’t bother me that he wanted to contain my mess, as long as he didn’t expect me to. “It’s OK.”
Nate zeroed in on something over the bed.
Shit.
A second later he plucked the check off my bulletin board. “What’s this?”
“Oh God!” My eyes bugged out as I crossed to him and jumped on his back in a tiny drunk woman’s best attempt at a football tackle.
“Whoa!” He laughed as I fell off the side.
I tried to swipe the check out of his hands, but he pulled it away, far enough I could see it but not take it. I re-read my handwriting that said “Pretty Boy Townsend.” “That’s you,” I told him solemnly.
“You calling me pretty, Cameron?” he murmured.
“You have some very attractive angles,” I declared. “This check was supposed to help me stop thinking about you. I might’ve had the teensiest bit of a hard time doing it.” I held my index finger and thumb a quarter inch apart. So he knew just how teensy we were talking about.
Nate took the check and deliberately ripped it in two. “You don’t owe me anything. Even though I want more from you now than I ever did.”
My heart did a somersault.
Or maybe it was my stomach, post-alcohol.
Either way I swooned.
“I want you more than I ever did too.”
“I’m a hard guy to stay away from.” A cocky grin crossed his face.
I shook my head. “No! I mean yes. But it’s not that Nate that makes me crazy. Cocky Nate I can handle.” He nodded in agreement, pulling me toward him. “God, Nate. I didn’t mean that I handle your cock. Though I do. And I really like to.”
His eyes were hot and I could feel him hard against me, but I needed to make him understand.
“It was the other Nate that got to me. The night you wouldn’t let me sit on the floor in the hall, even though I was being a brat. The way you looked at me when you begged me to stay at your parents. How you helped me with Travesty when I didn’t ask for it, because you knew I needed it. It was who you were deep down.”
He kissed me. It was deep and a little sweet and a lot hungry. “You mean that I’m a lawyer? Or a Townsend?” he murmured.
“I wish you weren’t,” I said earnestly. “A lawyer or a Townsend.”
He chuckled, trying to keep his voice down for the sake of the others sleeping a wall away. “How’d I get so fucking lucky with you?”
“You wanna get lucky?” I was a sure thing tonight.
His eyes darkened. “Come here, kitten. There are a lot of things I want to do with you, but you’ll have to purr quietly.”
Thank you for reading Stripped! If you loved it, please leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads.
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Piper Lawson is the author of the Travesty series (Schooled, Stripped) and the Chased series. Piper loves reading and writing stories about sassy, sexy, smart women and the guys who fall hard for them.
Piper’s main household expenditures include books, shoes, and chocolate, not necessarily in that order. Coffee = life (and she’ll defend it accordingly). Piper has two degrees from a pretty good business school and has been fortunate to spend the last several years working at a really good business school.
Home is Canada plus occasional sunny winter escapes.<
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She’d love to hear from you on Twitter @piperjlawson, Goodreads, her site (www.piperlawsonbooks.com), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/piperlawsonbooks).
Books by Piper Lawson
Schooled (Travesty #1)
Stripped (Travesty #2)
Chased Part 1
Chased Part 2
Read on for an excerpt of Chased Part 1!
“There’s no fucking way you’re keeping me off the team.”
“There’s no fucking way you’re getting back on the team, Chase.” Coach Varis’ black eyes stare through me. Daring me to say something.
I push back from his desk, anger vibrating through my body. I went to see Coach today to talk, but it’s turning into an argument. Part of me knew it would. “You can’t keep me off. The donors won’t let you.”
“The donors?” Varis scoffs, gray eyebrows disappearing under his hat. “The donors don’t want you. You’re unreliable. You quit halfway through the season.”
“But I won every race until then.”
He leans back in his chair. “How can I know you’ll put the track team ahead of yourself?”
I swallow. There’s no good answer. “You have to trust me.”
“That worked out so well last year,” Varis comments dryly before looking past me. “Yes?”
I turn around. My hands are still clenched into fists at my sides.
She’s there, hovering in the doorway.
The girl had been running with the team while I was waiting for Varis in the stands, trying to get his attention long enough to have the conversation we’re having now.
Her pale blond hair tucked into a ponytail is the color of straw. She’s flat chested, like most runners. Has a slim build, long legs. The girl’s wearing a purple T-shirt and black shorts with high-end shoes.
Rich girl.
I checked her out, because I check most girls out. Pretty enough. Cool.
Not trendy, just halfway to cold.
“Coach, I’m sorry to interrupt,” she says. Her heart-shaped faced looks worried. “I wanted to talk to you about my spot on the team.”
“We’re done Chase,” he dismisses me.
“We’re not,” I say through a clenched jaw. I glare at the girl, then back at Varis. But there’s nothing I can do. “I’ll give you five minutes, then we’re finishing this.”
I storm for the door, stopping a few feet outside the small office.
“Ariel, I told you, your time’s too slow.” Their voices carry into the hall.
“But I need this, Coach,” she insists. “You don’t understand.”
For a minute I can’t hear them. Still, it’s immediately clear he talks to her differently than he talks to me. Probably because she’s a girl. Or maybe her parents write big, fat checks.
Money makes the world go round.
“Chase, come back here.” Coach doesn’t bother raising his voice. Like he knew I was listening.
I walk in, eyeing them both warily.
“Work with Ariel for the next two weeks. Neither of you trains with the team. If Ariel can take a minute off the 10k she ran today, you both have a spot for the rest of the season.”
The girl’s watching me. “But Coach Varis—” she starts.
“You’re tying me to this?” I point at her.
Coach smiles grimly. “You want spots on the team? I’ll hold them. For both of you. Now get out of here before I change my mind.”
“But—” I try one more time.
“OUT!” Varis thunders.
I head toward the hall, but slam a fist into the doorframe on the way. I don’t fuck around with rich girls who fuck around with track because running gives them great legs or whatever. Running’s what I do. It’s who I am.
I lean into the wall, breathing deep. I study the bricks, painted our college’s signature purple, for answers.
“This doesn’t seem like a good idea.” A soft voice beside me makes me turn.
“There’s no fucking way we’re training together,” I tell her. She winces when I say ‘fuck’. “Do you even know who I am?”
“Yes. You’re Chase Owens. You’re a senior, you’ve won two national titles and you’re pretty much God’s gift to distance running. At least as far as Fielding College is concerned.”
I nod. It’s not pride, just a fact. “You’re a soph?”
“Yes.”
“And your name is seriously Ariel. Like the Disney princess.”
“Ariel Hastings. But people call me Ari,” she says.
Like that makes it better.
“I don’t need to call you anything, because this isn’t going to happen.”
I turn and walk down the hallway and out into the sun. This is the last thing I need. My life’s a goddamn joke.
Rrrruff!
A vicious dog barks. Fear invades my brain.
Again. Louder, like it’s closer.
I’m desperate, panting.
Then my mind makes a multitude of connections and the fear recedes.
I’m in my room at school, not at home.
My fingers feel for my phone under the edge of the bed.
“Yeah.” I answer as I roll back onto my back, heart still thudding.
“It’s noon. You gonna be here anytime soon, lad?” A thick Scottish accent as familiar as my own name comes over the line.
“On my way.”
I drop the phone and take a deep breath. Still hot, crowded. The dreams I’d been surviving fade into the background. Where they’ll lie until I fall asleep tonight and they take shape again.
A hand reaches across my body, tickling the hair on my chest. Stroking. Stoking. I don’t need to look over to know she’s there. It’s Saturday. She’s always there, redhead and naked.
“Stay in bed.” Ashley pleads. She leans over me, presses her mouth against mine and her truly spectacular breasts into my chest. Her kiss tastes faintly like the vodka she mainlined a few hours before.
I roll over, figuring she’ll get the idea. Instead she wraps her arms around my back and curls into me. Ash drags a finger down the side of my abs in a way that’s calculated to entice me to fuck her again.
My dick twitches, because it’s easy like that. I weigh the merits of letting her ride me for the next eight minutes, feeling her squeeze around me while she moans and writhes, or getting on with what I have to do.
Decision made, I push Ash off and stand up, tugging on boxer briefs and a shirt before jerking open the bedroom door and walking down the hall and downstairs toward the kitchen.
She follows sleepily. “Chase. Are you gonna make me breakfast?”
“Nope.”
She pouts. “We never spend time together. I want to feel like we have something in common.”
“We do. I have to leave in three minutes, and so do you.” I don’t glance back to see if my words made an impression. Last night was our usual. The game we always play. Ash came to my work, to get me to take her home. I fucked her in my truck, in the hall, and in my bed.
She’s pretty depraved and it’s what I want. The escape. The darkness.
Plus, she lets me put it anywhere I want.
When I make it to the fridge I jerk the door open and peruse its contents. A carton of apple juice keeps company with a half-eaten bowl of mac and cheese. I chug half the juice, ignoring the alarm bell in the back of my brain saying this is not breakfast.
Once I would’ve been more careful about my eating habits. Worried about macronutrients and timing relative to my workouts.
But then, I also would’ve been up before noon on a Saturday.
“Are you at least going to offer me some of that?” Ash asks as I set the carton on the counter.
Before I can answer, a sound in the kitchen makes us both turn.
“Looking good, Ash,” my roommate Spencer pipes up from the kitchen doorway. Judging by the way he’s dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, Spencer was already up. He’s taller than me, a few inches over six feet when I’m just under.
We could pass for brothers if you didn’t get too close. His short hair’s dirty blond while mine’s darker. But we have the same square jaw. Blue eyes.
“Yeah, except for one important difference,” he says, grinning. “My dick’s way bigger.”
I snort.
Ash pats him on the shoulder. “I doubt that, sweetie.”
“Later, Spence,” I call, grabbing my keys off the hook and pressing Ash out ahead of me.
“Yeah. In a week.”
“Right.” I’d forgotten my roommate was going to visit family in Boston.
“Don’t trash the place,” he says. I shoot him a look.
After dropping Ash off at her apartment, I pull up behind Tor’s bar in my beat-up truck. The bar is on the edge of campus and it’s a bit of a dive. No one really knows how Tor stays in business, except that there are some devout regulars along with the transient students who pass through its doors.
Without checking the schedule on Tor’s desk I know I’m doing inventories and stock before bartending tonight.
The long shifts don’t bother me. They keep me busy. Out of trouble.
“You sounded like you drank turpentine when I called you. Wasn’t sure you’d show,” Tor comments as I let myself in the back door.
“Don’t I always?” I lower myself onto a crate in the store room and take the sheaf of papers and pen he’s offering. Tor’s old school and inventory involves a pencil. I sometimes wonder if he does it to punish me.
“Aye. That you do.” He pats my head like I’m five.
Torin MacDermott is Scottish and in his sixties and bought the bar ages ago. Having immigrated in the seventies, he’s one of a handful of Scots who seemed to make it to California.
“You might want to lay off the drinking if you’re getting back into track.”
“Varis won’t let me back on the team. I tried, Tor.” I lift my hands.
Tor stills, his eyes narrowing to show off age lines. But the look in them is sharp as anything. “Try harder, lad.”
Stripped (Travesty Book 2) Page 25
