Stud in the Stacks (Girl Band #2)

by Pippa Grant

That’s the absolute last time I try online dating. Yes, yes, I said the same thing after the clown incident, but I mean it this time. The jackass is lucky a broken nose is all he has—if my brothers had been there, he’d be missing a few fingers and viewing the world through the slit in his butt cheeks.

Nothing says I’m just here for a business meeting like spending an hour figuring out which jeans best accentuate my butt without making it look like my cheeks are dueling blimps trapped in denim. I got my mother’s German booty, and the struggle is real.

Something about last night—about that kiss—broke something inside me. In a good way that I can’t quite identify. All I know is, I’m not entirely myself this morning, but I like whoever it is that I am.

And half the female population in a six-block radius just had to check and make sure their birth control is current, because his laser-focused, aroused interest is that potent. Even that mom behind him nursing an itty-bitty baby and sporting bags under her eyes that suggest she still remembers the consequence of sex is eyeing him with the lust-glazed look of a woman turned on by a sexy man.

What if he is that good? What if I never want to have sex with anyone else again? Then again, what if he’s not? Which, let’s be honest, is a far more statistically likely outcome.

“About your blog. If it’s okay with you, I’d like access to the back end to tweak a few things.” “I like your back end,” he tells me. I drop my keys trying to shove them into my lock. “You might be the only one.” “Impossible. But I’ll settle for being the best one. If you came back, I’d show you how much.”

I can issue orders at work like I’m a fucking general, but when it comes to telling a man what to do to my body, I’m awkward as a sheltered teenager. Which, for the record, I totally was.

Pretty sure he’s not interested in how many fucks I don’t give, so I go for the silent you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about glare.

Favorite sexy fake fiancée read? Lauren Blakely’s Big Rock. Favorite fake fiancée heroine? Kimmie in Jamie Farrell’s Sugared. Sweetest? Rachel Harris’s Seven Day Fiancé.

“You can’t see anything through the balloons, there are six times as many people as there should be crammed into a small space, and after Steph spends all week making tacos, she’s pretty much coming undone at the hinges.” “Tacos?” she says brightly. Shit. Fatal mistake. This is what her boobs are doing to me.

It’s possible I’m mildly overprotective of her. But who could know her and not be?

He studies me carefully. “You want to talk about her exes?” No, I don’t want to fucking talk about the men who’ve made her think there’s something wrong with her. But I want to know why she always picked the losers.

I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I’ve apparently been accepted into the family. I’ll let you know when I get a full sentence in.

I can admit I’m also a little turned on by Knox in the unicorn horn. There’s something undeniably sexy about a lean, muscled jungle man being brought to his knees by a bunch of unicorn-loving princess-wannabes.

Today, though, I care less about five more romance lovers in the world and more about snagging her wrist and leaning over the table to kiss her. Because I can. And I need to. As often as possible, for as long as possible, because there is not now, nor will there ever be, another man who can appreciate Parker for the beautiful, half-mess, half-goddess, all-perfect woman that she is.

This woman? Mine. Because I’m hers. Heart, body, and soul. She’s it. I’m done.

Parker, you—you’re funny, and you’re smart, and you’re so fucking strong, so fucking beautiful, and I’m not letting you go so you can find some idiot who doesn’t appreciate every single molecule of your very essence.”

Fucking dammit. There goes my strong, independent woman card, flying out the window because of a sex unicorn.

Whoever invented cheerful needs to be dragged out in the street and shot.

I don’t want this to end because this—the two of us, together—is so much more than everything I thought I could ever hope for.