Excerpt Reveal: Dirty by Kylie Scott
Heavy footsteps roused me from my
stupor. I don’t know how long exactly I’d been sitting in the
bathtub, staring off at nothing, pondering the catastrophe my life
had become. Couldn’t have been too long since sunlight still lit
the room.
The footsteps came closer and closer.
And then they entered the room. Oh, shit. I froze, not even daring to
breathe. There was a loud yawn, followed by the cracking of joints.
Then a large hand reached in beside the closed shower curtain and
turned on the tap. A torrent of ice cold water poured down. It was
like a billion itty-bitty knives stabbing at my skin. All of the
scratches and raw patches from earlier stung like shit. I gritted my
teeth, shoulders hiked up to around my ears as if that would provide
any protection.
Yep, I sat there, all huddled up,
listening to the man take a leak.
Awesome. Just plain awesome.
Wasn’t like I could jump out and
interrupt the man midflow. And say what? I knew this was not a good
situation to get caught in.
1. I’d basically broken into this
guy’s house.
2. And had then gone on making myself
right at home, having a messy emotional breakdown in his bathtub.
Normal, rational people didn’t do
this sort of thing. I didn’t even have a criminal record, had never
particularly done anything outlandish or interesting until now. This
was all Chris’s fault, the bastard. I’d just have to make the
best of it and hope this guy had a sense of humor.
Just as the water began to warm, he
flushed the john and freezing cold water drenched me anew. I’d been
about to open my mouth and announce my presence, but that put an end
to that. Needles of icy cold water pelted down on my skin. I fucking
froze. Teeth gritted, I suppressed a squeal of pain and rage.
Then the shower curtain flew back.
“Shit!” The man was very tall, very
naked, and very surprised. He stumbled back a step, a hand clutching
at the bench behind him, eyes furious and wide. “What the hell?”
Good question.
I opened my mouth, closed it. Language
skills had apparently abandoned me. In total silence, the man and I
stared at each other.
Even with no clothing to take cues
from, the dude was clearly the epitome of cool. He looked about my
age, or maybe a little older. He had longish red-blond hair, dark
blue eyes set in an angular face, a lean but muscular torso covered
in tattoos, and a rather large cock. Not that I meant to check him
out, it’s just kind of hard to ignore a penis and scrotum when
they’re dangling right in front of your face. I tilted my head,
trying to get some perspective. Every viewpoint, however, was equally
shocking. There was dick as far as the eye could see.
And I should stop ogling him. Right.
“Hi.” With a calm I didn’t even
vaguely feel, I reached up and turned off the tap. Much better. His
monster penis had momentarily derailed me, but I was back on track
now. Time to talk myself out of this mess. “Hey.”
“What the fuck are you doing in my
house?” he asked flatly.
“Right. Well . . .” I neatly tucked
my dripping-wet shoulder-length blond hair back behind my ears. As if
that would help. My winged eyeliner and false lashes were probably
halfway down my cheeks. “I, um, I . . .”
“You what?”
“I’m Lydia,” I said, the first
thing to come to mind.
No reply. His handsome face, however,
took on a distinctly pissy expression. Even his strawberry-blond hair
seemed a fiery hue. Fine, so we weren’t swapping names and getting
cozy. Fair enough. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was, keeping my
eyes on his face. The struggle was real. It might have been due to my
not seeing one in so long, but his dick seemed almost hypnotic. The
thing had magical powers, I swear. It was so big and mobile, subtly
swaying every time he moved. My gaze kept darting down despite my
best efforts.
Finally he put me out of my misery,
grabbing a towel off a nearby rack and wrapping it around his waist.
It made for quite the hot-looking miniskirt. Not just any man could
have pulled off such a look.
But back to my explanations.
“Ah, firstly, I’d just like to say
sorry about this.” I waved a hand at him and his bathroom and, well
everything, really. “For any inconvenience I might have caused here
in your bathroom.”
The guy stood tall, looming over me
with his hands on hips. Tattoos covered his arms to his wrists.
Still, he had a whole lot of sinew on show. Definitely not the kind
of man you’d want to mess with. Dude could probably snap me in half
in a second. I bet he was a tattoo model, or a biker, or a pirate, or
something. Something a lot hot and more than a little scary.
Shit. I really should have chosen
another house.
“I don’t normally break into
people’s places and hide out in their tub,” I babbled, on the
verge of incoherency. “So I’m really sorry. Seriously. So very
sorry. But you’ve got a lovely home.”
“That so?”
“Not that, I mean, that’s not why
I’m here. I just . . .” Fucking hell, my mind was a disaster. I
took a deep breath, letting it out nice and slow, before trying
again. “I love the old Arts and Crafts bungalows, don’t you? They
have such soul.”
His brows drew tight. “Are you high?
What the fuck are you on?”
“Nothing!”
“You haven’t been popping any pills
or snorting something?”
“No, I swear.”
“Nothing to drink?”
“I haven’t had anything,” I said,
but the suspicion and anger still lined his face. Paired with the
stubble on his chin and the shadows beneath his eyes, my unwilling
host was one tired, cranky man. Couldn’t really blame him.
“So you’re completely sober,” he
said.
“Completely.”
A pause.
“You’re thinking I’m bat-shit
crazy now, aren’t you?” I asked, despite the answer sitting plain
as day on his pretty face.
“Pretty much, yeah.”
Oh, god. “I’m not. I’m sane.”
“You sure about that?” He looked
down the long line of his nose at me, distinctly unimpressed. “Seen
a lot of weird shit in my years. Stuff like you wouldn’t believe.
But I got to tell you, right now, this . . . you, are taking the
cake.”
“Great.” And I was so definitely
probably going to jail. Someone ought to give me a cookie. My ability
to take a bad situation and make it worse today was amazing.
“You touch any of my stuff?” he
asked. “Take anything?”
“Yes, your sofa is cunningly hidden
down the front of my dress. You won’t believe where I fit the TV.”
Again, his eyes narrowed dangerously.
“Between you and me, probably not the time to be funny, babe.”
Crap. “Sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t
mean that. You have every right to be mad.”
“Damn right, I do.”
I nodded, contrite. “I haven’t
touched any of your things.”
The dude just stood there, staring.
Lots going on behind his eyes. None of which I could read.
A stray tear trickled down my face. It
must have saved itself up just for the occasion. Gah. How pathetic. I
sniffled, brushing it off hurriedly with the back of my hand.
“Fuck’s sake,” he muttered.
“I really am sorry about this. The
truth is, I just needed somewhere to hide for a little while. I
didn’t mean to freak you out.”
He sighed. It wasn’t a happy sound.
“Lydia?”
“Yes?” Despite my best efforts, my
voice trembled slightly.
“Look at me.”
I did so. He still looked cranky and
crazy cool while I remained a hot mess.
“I’m Vaughan,” he said.
“Hi.”
He tipped his chin and silence fell
between us once more.
With the tip of his tongue rubbing at
his upper lip, he looked at the wide open window, and then back at
me. Yep, that’s how I’d gotten in. Houdini had nothing on my mad
skills.
“What are you doing in my house,
Lydia? The truth.”
“It’s kind of a long story,
actually.” Along with being excruciatingly embarrassing. But then,
what wasn’t about this day?
Vaughan crossed his arms over his wide
chest and waited me out while I fussed with my ruined skirts and
tried to come up with a way to spin the story to not make me look a
complete fool. Christ, the holes in my stockings were huge. On one
side, my entire foot stuck out. So screwed.
Vaughan crouched by the side of the
tub, resting his arms on the side. Up close the shadows under his
eyes seemed even bigger and darker against his pale skin. And there
were bags big enough to use as carry-ons. Despite the strong lines of
his lean face, the man looked done-in. Ready to sleep for a hundred
years.
I knew that feeling.
“Looks like a wedding dress,” he
said quietly.
“Yes, it is. I was going to get
married today.” I took a deep breath, wiping my face with my hands.
Just as expected, my palms came away smeared with black eye makeup.
“Ah, boy. I must look a wreck.”
Without comment, Vaughan reached out
and grabbed a towel, handing it to me. It was sort of threadbare,
old. Dated like the rest of the house. I hadn’t seen more than one
room, but real estate agents got a feel for these sort of things.
Minimal upkeep for the past five or so years would have been my
guess. Perhaps it’d even been left empty. Bushes out front hid the
house from view, so I’d never gotten a good look at it before.
“Thank you.” I patted myself dry
with the towel as best I could. What remained of my beautiful dress
was a sopping wet ruin. “I’m sorry I broke into your house,
Vaughan. I swear I don’t normally do this sort of thing.”
“No,” he said, his voice deep.
“Figured as much. Where’d you come from?”
“The big house at the back.”
His brow wrinkled. “You climbed over
the fence?”
“Yes.”
Tired, red-tinged eyes appraised me
anew. “That’s a tall fence. Must have been one hell of an
emergency.”
“It was a disaster.”
For a long moment he studied me, deep
in thought. Then he sighed yet again, climbing to his feet.
“Are you going to call the cops on
me?” I asked, my throat tight with tension. “I know you have
every right to, I’m not disputing that. I’d just, I’d like to
know. Mental preparation and all that.”
“No. I’m not.”
“Thank you. I appreciate that.” My
whole body sagged in relief.
Then he clapped his hands together,
startling the crap out of me. “Okay, Lydia. Here’s what we’re
going to do.”
“Yes?”
“I arrived late this morning, have
only had a few hours sleep. If I don’t get some coffee soon, things
are going to get ugly. And you probably need to get dried off.”
With no fuss, he held out his hand. “Let’s get shit sorted out.
Then we can sit down and you can tell me the long story of how the
hell you ended up in my house. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” I said, voice lightening.
He pulled me up. Then, with strong
hands on my waist, lifted me out of the tub. Immediately water
started dripping off of my saturated dress, pooling on the scuffed
wooden flooring at my feet. Chris would have been distinctly
unimpressed. Chris didn’t like messes. But as Vaughan didn’t seem
to care, neither did I.
“You’re really not going to call
the police?” I asked.
“No. Hold still,” he said,
carefully plucking a fake eyelash from my cheek.
“Thank you.”
“Your dress is kind of fucked.” He
looked me over from top to toe.
“I know,” I said sadly.
“I’ll leave you to get changed.”
“Wait. Please. I can’t get out of
it on my own.”
More frowning.
“It’s vintage,” I explained with
a grim face. “There’s no zip, just a line of little buttons up
the back.”
“’Course there is.” Without
another word, he turned me around and got started in on said buttons.
As he worked, he hummed beneath his breath, the song vaguely
familiar.
“Aren’t you still mad?” I asked,
perplexed.
“Nuh.”
“But I broke into your house.”
“Window was open.”
“I still trespassed.”
Busy fingers kept working on undoing
the dress. “You sat in the tub and cried because some dickhead
fucked you over.”
That shut me up.
“Or that’s what I’m assuming,
given the dress and all. I take it he’s the one that gave you that
shiner on your cheek?”
“No. No one hit me. And yes, you
assumed right about the being fucked over.” I tried to look back at
him, but I couldn’t see a thing beyond my wild-ass hair. Impressive
how it’d survived the shower. The stylist clearly knew her shit.
“You sure no one hit you?” He did
not sound convinced.
“Yes. I lost my grip and hit the
floor when I was climbing in the window. My home invasion skills need
work.”
“I’d suggest you try a different
career.” He finished with the buttons and took a step back,
scratching his head. “You okay with the dress now?”
“Yes, thank you,” I told his
reflection in the mirror. “For everything, I mean.”
“Sure.” He almost smiled and gave a
small shake of the head as if he couldn’t quite believe what was
going on. Or maybe it was disbelief that he wasn’t kicking me
straight back out the window through whence I’d come.
Lord knows, it’d shocked the shit out
of me.
He turned toward the door. “See you
out there.”
Are you ready to get Dirty?
Dirty is Book One in Kylie Scott’s
Dive Bar Series.
Meet Vaughn & Lydia on April 19th!
Pre-order your copy of DIRTY here:
Amazon US: http://amzn.to/1Q7LCyb
Amazon UK: http://amzn.to/1OYc53N
iBooks: http://apple.co/1TOAhIG
Barnes & Noble:
http://bit.ly/1MetF1F
Kobo: http://bit.ly/1Mez6t6
The last thing Vaughan Hewson expects
to find when he returns to his childhood home is a broken hearted
bride in his shower, let alone the drama and chaos that comes with
her.
Lydia Green doesn't know whether to burn down the church
or sit and
cry in a corner. Discovering the love of your life is
having an affair on your wedding day is bad enough. Finding out it's
with his best man is another thing all together. She narrowly escapes
tying the knot and meets Vaughan only hours later.
Vaughan is
the exact opposite of the picture perfect, respected businessman she
thought she'd marry. This former musician-turned-bartender is rough
around the edges and unsettled. But she already tried Mr. Right and
discovered he's all wrong-maybe it's time to give Mr. Right Now a
chance.
After all, what's wrong with getting dirty?
Kylie is a long time fan of erotic love
stories and B-grade horror films. She demands a happy ending and if
blood and carnage occur along the way then all the better. Based in
Queensland, Australia with her two children and one delightful
husband, she reads, writes and never dithers around on the internet.
Kylie is represented by Amy Tannenbaum
at the Jane Rotrosen Agency, New York.
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