Nailed Read online

  Nailed

  Jasinda Wilder

  Contents

  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

  Epilogue

  COMING SOON!

  Also by Jasinda Wilder

  Chapter 1

  “I’m not sure what you want me to tell you, Laurel,” Audra says, scooping a ridiculous amount of guacamole onto a corn chip. “I can’t say I know him very well, but what I do know, I like. He seems like a great guy.”

  I sigh, and take a sip of my skinny margarita. “Not helpful.”

  She shrugs, popping the chip and guac into her mouth, speaking after she’s chewed a few times. “Sorry. I told you I wouldn’t be much help.”

  Audra is on the shorter side at five-five or five-six, but she’s insanely fit, strong, and toned, as well as curvy in all the right places; with platinum blonde hair in a swept-back pixie cut and sky-blue eyes, Audra is the potty mouth of our group, the one always making inappropriate but hysterical jokes, and innuendos that can be downright salacious.

  Nova, the other new girl of this foursome besides me, just laughs as she listens to our exchange. And as she listens, she uses the tiny black straw to poke at the lime floating on the top of her margarita. Nova is a red-haired Amazon woman, standing six feet tall with fiery red hair that is draped in a thick braid over her right shoulder. She has electric blue eyes and she’s built like a goddess in every way— absurdly well-endowed in both her tits and ass, as well as being ripped in a way that speaks to her intense dedication at the gym.

  “Why are you looking for reasons to dislike him, Laurel?” Nova asks me.

  “Because he vanished on me, and if he did that once, he’ll do it again, and I’m not interested in playing those kinds of games,” I reply. “I don’t want to like him. I want to dislike him so it’ll be easier to forget about him.”

  Imogen grins at me. “I might have something for you. I’m not sure how much reason this is to dislike him, but it may be a little bit of a red flag.”

  Five-seven, with rich auburn hair and eyes the green of grass lit by the summer sun, Imogen is built somewhere between Audra and Nova—curvy and gorgeous and fit, but not as powerfully built or ripped as Nova, nor as shredded as Audra.

  I lean forward. “Do tell!”

  The other three lean forward as well, and Imogen laughs. “You guys are like TMZ at the slightest whiff of gossip!”

  I wrinkle my nose. “I’m not after gossip for the sake of gossip, I’m after legitimate reasons to blow off Ryder McCann.”

  Imogen snorts. “Because that’s so much better than just wanting to gossip.”

  I nodded, intentionally ignoring her sarcasm. “You’re right, it is, though I’m not just digging around in his past out of morbid curiosity. I have my reasons.”

  Imogen rolls her eyes, sips her margarita, and then pops her lips. “Well, this is just what I heard from the other guys the first time I hung out with them all.” She lifts a shoulder. “So I don’t know how true or accurate it is, or how far it goes. But…apparently, Ryder has a thing for, as he put it, the crazy chicks.”

  I blink. “He has a thing for crazy chicks?”

  Imogen nods. “According to him, they’re fun to date because crazy chicks are also—and I’m quoting him here—‘crazy in the sack.’”

  I sit back with a huff. “Men are pigs.”

  Audra is cackling, now. “Honestly, though, if that’s true, then it’s probably a good thing I met Franco first, because according to some of the guys I slept with before Franco…I’m a crazy chick.”

  Imogen, sitting beside Audra, smacks her on the arm. “You are not.”

  Audra just stares at Imogen. “Bitch have you met me? I’ve probably slept with more guys than all three of you combined.”

  “That just means you’re a slut,” Imogen says, laughing. “Not crazy.”

  I widen my eyes at the insult, but then Audra starts laughing.

  “Former slut,” Audra says, holding up a finger. “Reformed slut. I have found love, left behind my slutty ways, and am now a kept woman.”

  Nova snickers. “I don’t think that means what you think it means, Audra.”

  Audra frowns. “Kept by a man, duh—a one-man woman.”

  I reach across the table and pat her on the head, patronizingly. “You may wanna Google ‘kept woman’ before you use it again.”

  Audra looks around at everyone, and since all of us are laughing, she huffs. “Fine, then. Enlighten me.”

  “Kept woman is the archaic term for what we call a sugar baby,” Nova answers. “It’s basically a woman who dates and sleeps with a wealthy older man in return for a lavish lifestyle. Not exactly prostitution, since it’s not direct payment for sex, but that’s the implication.”

  Audra reddens. “Oh. Yeah, that’s not what I thought it meant.”

  We all laugh, and then Imogen wraps an arm around Audra, kissing her loudly on the cheek. “Oh, Audra. There’s absolutely no one like you.” She snickers again. “I love that you’re…ahem…a kept woman.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way,” she snaps. “I meant committed to one man.”

  Imogen is still laughing, leaning against Audra, who is stiff with embarrassed anger. “I know, I know—I’m using your term. I’m not making fun of you, honey.”

  “Feels like it,” Audra huffs, and slams the rest of her margarita and then looks around for the waitress to order us another pitcher.

  Imogen sighs. “That’s just because things with you and Franco are still new, and you’re a little defensive about your relationship. I get it.”

  “I’m not defensive,” Audra protests. “I’m just…” she sighs, throws up her hands. “Fine! I’m defensive about it. But it’s weird! I’ve spent the last twenty fucking years avoiding relationships like the bubonic plague, and now suddenly I’m in one, and it’s serious, and I’m living with him and we’re saying I love you and it’s fucking weird, okay?”

  “That’s a lot of fucking,” I mutter, repressing laughter.

  Audra arches an eyebrow at me, smirking. “You have no idea how much fucking Franco and I do.” She wiggles her eyebrows, and all of us laugh at the silly gesture. “We’re like teenagers, I swear. He woke me up at two in the morning with a hard-on the size of goddamn Texas shoved between my ass cheeks.”

  Imogen just stares dreamily at the ceiling, sighing dramatically. “I just love that, don’t you?”

  Audra rolls her eyes. “Not when I have to be up at five to get ready for work and he kept me up until midnight trying to fuck through half the positions in the Kama Sutra.”

  I nearly spit out my drink, and it ends up spraying out of my nose instead. “Ouch! That burns…shit!” I dab at my nose and hold the napkin over my mouth as I cough around the aspirated alcohol. “God, you two are terrible!”

  Nova and I, both single, exchange glances of equal parts amusement and annoyance.

  Nova shakes her head. “You really are a nasty woman, Audra.”

  “I have one of those Nasty Woman T-shirts, actually,” Audra says, “so I take that as a compliment.”

  Nova just laughs. “Good, because I meant it that way.” She scoops salsa, chomping the chip noisily. “I’m just cranky because I’m currently not being woken up with a giant cock between my ass cheeks, so I’m low-key jealous and being bitchy about it.”

  Audra focuses intently on stirring the guac with a chip. “I can think of a cock that might want to
get buried between your ass cheeks. And—I’m just guessing here—but I imagine it’s probably pretty giant. I mean, the rest of him sure as fuck is.”

  Nova colors. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Audra frowns. “Oh come on! I know I saw you and James macking on each other at the barbecue.”

  Nova shakes her head again. “Who says ‘macking” anymore?” She waves a chip. “And that’s a nonstarter. Not talking about it.”

  “Well then you can’t complain about not having a dick in your ass, because I saw how James looked at you,” Audra says. “And if nothing else, he definitely wants to put his dick in you.”

  Nova scratches at the table, her pale skin almost as red as her hair. “I don’t want a dick in my ass, thank you very much. Just sort of…wedged between the cheeks.” She won’t look at any of us. “And I’m serious, I’m not talking about…that. Or him. Or anyone else as it pertains to me, or my love life. Which is nonexistent, and that’s all you nosy bitches need to know.”

  Audra holds up her hands. “Fine, fine. I’ll let it go. But only because we’re new friends and I’m not ready to piss you off with my tendency to be a pit bull about getting the juicy details.”

  Imogen cackles. “Enjoy it while it lasts, Nova. Once she decides she wants to know something, you’re better off just telling her, because she will get it out of you.”

  Nova narrows her eyes. “Not out of me, she won’t.”

  Turning to Audra, Nova says, “You’ve met your match when it comes to stubbornness.”

  Audra narrows her eyes as well, and this escalates until they’re both basically just squinting. “Nobody, and I mean nobody, can out-stubborn me.” She stabs a finger at Nova. “Try me, bitch.”

  Nova, somehow, manages to keep a straight face. “You’re on…bitch.”

  I just watch all this. “You’re both being so…aggressive…about this. Can’t we all just get along?”

  Imogen snorts, eyeing me. “Ever the peacemaker, huh, Laurel?”

  I shrug and nod. “Typically, yes.”

  “So, does Ryder having a thing for crazy chicks count as a reason to not like him?” Imogen asks, turning the conversation back to me.

  I sigh. “Maybe? I mean, I’d like to say that him having a thing for crazy chicks just because they’re good in bed is a solid reason, but he’s a single guy, so that’s sort of par for the course. It’s just a bit…sleazy, maybe.”

  Audra frowns at me. “It’s not sleazy, he’s just being honest about what he wants—some red-hot boning.”

  I almost spit out my drink again. “Stop doing that!”

  Nova hands me another napkin. “And also, just because he said that crazy chicks are crazy in bed doesn’t mean it’s good sex.” She glances at all of us. “I think we can all agree that crazy sex and good sex aren’t necessarily the same.”

  Audra eyes her. “So—spill.”

  Nova lifts an eyebrow. “Spill what?”

  “Examples, bitch! Crazy sex versus good sex.”

  Nova looks around at all of us, and then sighs. “This is codified girl talk, right? This doesn’t leave this booth?” We all chorus our agreement, and Nova grins. “So, in college, there was this guy I was crushing on, like really hard. He was in my anatomy and physiology class, and we’d actually had several classes together, since we were both in the medical program. He was…not my usual type. I’m a tall girl, right? And I’ve been into powerlifting since high school—I was the first girl to compete with the powerlifting team in my school’s history, actually. So, I’m not just tall, I’m strong. Which intimidates most guys, right? Especially guys who work out, oddly—they’re worried I’ll show ’em up or something stupid, I guess. Even more curious is that the guys who aren’t intimidated by my size, strength, and build are, historically, the skinny guys who don’t work out.

  “Anyway, this guy fit that bill—long hair, beard, wore socks with Birkenstocks, played hacky sack in the quad—that kinda guy. But he was cute, and funny, and we tended to sit near each other a lot.”

  Audra pretends to snore. “We don’t need the backstory, hon. Get to the juicy shit.”

  Nova sighs. “Fine. To make the story shorter—for those with attention span deficits—he ended up being an absolute maniac in bed. Not super well-endowed, but damn did he make up for it with sheer…just…wildness. He was insatiable, and like, insanely creative. He wanted to try things I’d never heard of, all these weird positions and shit.”

  “Like what?” Imogen asks.

  “Like, once, he wanted to try the…um…butter churner.” She blushes scarlet again, focusing on crumbling a chip into pieces.

  Audra splutters. “He did not. Really?”

  Nova nods. “He certainly did.”

  “And?” Audra is, of course, all ears.

  “And…it’s uncomfortable and amazing at the same time. It’s not the kind of position you can just hang out in for very long, but it’s intense in the moment.” She grins lopsidedly.

  Imogen and I both have similarly lost expressions, and Imogen is the first to admit ignorance. “Um, sorry, but what’s the butter churner?”

  Nova cackles, and is now ripping up a napkin into shreds. “It’s, um…you—meaning, the woman—you’re on your back, with your butt up in the air. Like, you’re sort of resting on your neck. Sort of like doing the bicycle? And he’s standing over you, or kneeling on a couch or something, and going at it downward.”

  Imogen glances at the ceiling as she tries to picture what Nova is describing. “Wow. That sounds…not great.”

  Nova shrugs and makes a face. “If you have a pillow under your neck and he’s got the right angle, it’s actually really great. Stimulates your G-spot like nothing else.” She grinned. “He also wanted to try what he called the couch twerk. Which was another weird one that I ended up liking a lot more than I thought I would. He sits upright at the edge of the bed, and you have to kneel on him, facing the same way as him with your feet under your butt. And then you bend forward and put your hands on the floor and…yeah. Talk about getting deep. It’s hot because you have all the control over pace and rhythm and everything. All he can do is sit there and feel good while you decide how fast or slow you want it.”

  Audra blinks. “Wow. That’s a new one for me.” Her grin is lascivious. “I know what Franco and I are trying tonight.”

  I laugh, glancing at Nova. “So, that was crazy sex, needless to say.”

  “Right. It was always like that—crazy positions, super energetic and athletic and fun.” She shrugs. “But not…good. Like, it was adventurous and fun, and I always got there in the end, but it was fun more for the novelty of things and how crazy he was about everything. But it wasn’t good in terms of sheer sexual satisfaction.”

  Imogen nods. “I can understand that. So what was good for you, then?”

  Nova sighs. “My ex.”

  “Ex what?” I ask.

  Nova shrugs. “Does it matter?” She pours salt onto the table and traces designs in it. “It was rarely adventurous—cowgirl was about as exotic as it got, for the most part, but it was just…good. He could just make me feel amazing.”

  I nod in agreement. “I totally sympathize. My ex-husband always wanted to ‘spice things up’ with weird stuff. Standing up and bending me over random objects and…just weird, random positions that felt a little kinky but honestly didn’t make me feel any better in terms of gratification. It was really more about him and me putting a Band-Aid on our dying marriage. Using weird positions to mask the fact that things had stopped working between us. But then my ex-boyfriend, Derek, who I dated a few years after Paul and I divorced—we had great chemistry. We didn’t need weird stuff, because it was just good.”

  Audra snorts. “If it was so good, why aren’t you with those guys?”

  Imogen whacks her on the shoulder. “Because good sex doesn’t mean a good relationship—you should know that better than any of us.”

  Audra tips her head to one sid
e. “True, true. But then you have to talk about great sex. I think if you have a great relationship, you’re going to have great sex.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Nova said. “What constitutes great sex or a great relationship? How do you quantify that?”

  Audra just grins wickedly. “Great sex is simple—crazy sex that’s intensely gratifying, with feelings.” She shrugs. “A great relationship? I’m not sure I could quantify that one.”

  Imogen holds up a finger. “I can. It’s when you’re crazy in love, and you’re totally committed to each other for life. It’s when the sex can be totally vanilla but still satisfying and intense, so trying new positions is just icing on the cake, because you don’t need the crazy stuff to feel good. It’s having the best of all the worlds. When you don’t even need to have sex to be totally gratified and happy—you’re just…happy to be near each other.”

  Audra holds up a hand, and Imogen high-fives her. “Preach, sister!” Audra says, laughing.

  Nova and I just exchange irritated glances.

  “Well, I guess I wouldn’t know what that’s like, would I?” I snap.

  Audra gives me a long stare. “You could, though.”

  I narrow my eyes at her. “Don’t.” I point a finger at her. “Do not.”

  She holds up her hands palms out. “I’m just saying—between the four of us, the worst thing we could find to say about Ryder is that he has a thing for crazy chicks—and thus, crazy sex. Which would work in your favor, because crazy sex is always worth it, even if it doesn’t lead to good sex or a great relationship.”

  I sigh, scrubbing my hands down my face. “You had to go there?”

  Audra just grins at me. “You know it. If there’s a there to go to, I’ll go there, and probably ten steps beyond it.”

  Imogen laughs. “That is God’s own truth!” She side-hugs Audra. “Nobody can make a totally innocent situation dirty as fast as you.”