Wicked Read online

  Blurb

  What could be worse than catching your creepy boss in an inappropriate position? Hearing him say your name.

  Bailey

  This day couldn't get any worse.

  I just saw my boss Mr. Dent's extremely unimpressive... dent. A night of drinking with my best friend is exactly what I need. Hunter is always there for me. The perfect Mr. Nice Guy.

  Hunter

  This day couldn't get any better.

  Finally I get my chance to show my best friend that I’m also the best guy for her. I just saw Bailey’s perfect curves soaped up in the shower and all my dreams are coming true. Until she won't return my calls the next day.

  Bailey wants to pretend none of it happened but I just need one chance to prove our attraction is real. I’m finally going to show her that I’m not that...nice.

  Wicked

  M. Malone

  Nana Malone

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Excerpt of Shameless

  More from The Malones

  About the Authors

  1

  Hunter

  I heard her laugh first.

  I was at happy hour, as usual, with some people from work, when across the room, I heard that laugh. Not just a feminine giggle, but a full-blown belly laugh. Me, and several other men in the bar, all craned our necks to see where it was coming from.

  The thing was, it wasn’t some melodic feminine laugh. Oh no. It was a full-on whole body guffaw. Not at all ladylike, but incredibly visceral. It made my lips twitch, her good humor contagious. It made me want to be near someone who could laugh like that.

  When I caught sight of her, my heart tripped. Like I’d heard about in books. She was sitting in a corner with some people, a brunette and two other men. They looked about the same age. Maybe college. Maybe grad school. Probably around twenty-three. Honey blonde hair, styled in big puffy curls, hanging softly down her shoulders. One of the guys said something and she laughed again.

  Oh shit. I liked her. She clearly wasn’t taking herself too seriously, like half the women here. Sure, she was wearing business casual, some kind of dress that wrapped around. It had flowers on it. I couldn’t see her feet, but I assumed there was some kind of either, fuck-me heel, or chunky contraption. Sensible. For work. The brunette said something again. And then they all laughed.

  One of my co-workers said something to me and I didn’t even hear it. My gaze was still focused on the blonde in the corner.

  I gave a haphazard answer and hoped it was the right one, but I couldn’t turn away from her. Somebody must have alerted her, because suddenly, her head whipped around and our gazes collided. Instead of giving me the coy, slide-away-look thing, her gaze just pinned to mine. And then she did the most remarkable thing, she full on smiled at me.

  That’s all it took. Dick, hard.

  I was so screwed.

  Finally, my co-worker Mike saw what I was staring at. “Oh, so that’s why you’re not paying attention.”

  “Do you have any idea who she is?” I asked.

  “Nope. I’ve never seen her here before.”

  Mike was married, so he could appreciate the view, but he wasn’t any competition. At least not today. She turned back to her friends, and my brain went through all the scenarios in which I could approach her. I couldn’t just walk up to her and start chatting her up with her friends right there. Odds were slim that would work in my favor. But no way I was losing the chance.

  I was so busy running through all my scenarios and the best angles, I didn’t even notice that one of her friends got up and left. Two minutes later, someone tapped me on the shoulder. When I turned, my heart did that stopping thing again. Which, could be dangerous. I know.

  The blonde stood right behind me with that smile again. “Hi. I’m Bailey.”

  “Uh, hi. Hunter Richards.”

  “Do you mind if I sit here? I’m waiting for someone to hand this off to. I don’t want to occupy a whole table all by myself.”

  I stared at her, dumbfounded. Yeah, smooth. Real smooth slick.

  Only when Mike nudged me did I manage to stutter. “Y-yeah, of course. Have a seat.”

  She grinned that sweet smile and then ordered a club soda.

  “A club soda? At least let me get you a real drink.”

  I was relieved that my social cues kicked in. I was terrified that something about this girl had short-circuited my brain. Women had never been a problem for me. Usually, all it took was a smile, a flirtatious comment. I knew what I looked like. It helped that I was tall, clearly hit the gym regularly and that I was friendly.

  She turned to me. “Okay let’s have it. Favorite Star Wars character?”

  I blinked for a second again. Why was she getting me so off kilter? “Excuse me?”

  She pointed at my watch. I had the Star Wars face on my apple watch. “Oh, sorry. I forgot I was wearing that. I mean, Luke Skywalker, of course. I think he’s every kid’s favorite.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. I love Jar Jar Binks. He was funny.”

  My jaw unhinged. “Please, do not ever say that out loud. Do not ever, in public again.”

  Cue the laughing. I felt like someone had shoved a lightning bolt straight up my dick, and it lit up my whole body making every nerve tingle. She held on to the edge of the bar as she leaned back, her hair cascading in a honey blonde waterfall behind her.

  “Oh my God. You should see your face. That’s the best.” Her head fell back again as she gripped her ribs and laughed even harder. “Of course, my favorite is not Jar Jar Binks. Oh my God, he almost ruined the franchise for me. I’m all about Yoda.”

  “I think I’m in love.”

  She winked at me. “Nah, you only think my choice of characters is cool. Imagine if it had been Jar Jar. That would have been the end of a glorious bar relationship.”

  I grinned back at her. “You know, I have been known to get over some bad choices. Just as long as you tell me you also love Star Trek, I would have gotten over it.”

  She narrowed her gaze at me. “Original, Next Generation or Voyager?”

  I choked. “My God, Next Generation. Please don’t tell me you liked Voyager.”

  She shrugged. “Honestly, I kind of liked Voyager. It didn’t have the gravitas of Next Generation, but you know, it was still solid.”

  “Oh my God, you’re killing me.”

  “What? A girl can’t have a lady boner for Voyager?”

  Then it was my turn to laugh. “Fuck, did you just say lady boner?”

  Her grin was so wide and her eyes danced and sparkled and in that moment I suddenly understood how these things happened. How people fall in love with just a look. I was so captivated by this girl I had completely forgotten about my friend who was sitting directly on the other side of me.

  “I feel like I have to reprogram your entire binge watching situation here. Please tell me that you actually watch cool sci fi shit.”

  She shrugged. “I do like Warehouse 13. And I’ve totally binged Quantum Leap on Netflix.”

  I sighed. “I don’t know what to do with you.”

  She grinned. “You know, you are not the first person who has said that to me.”

  And it went like that. I don’t know how much time went by, just that the person she was waiting for never showe
d. We sat there chatting and laughing long after my friend tapped me on the shoulder and waved goodbye. It was like the best first date, that wasn’t even a date, I’d ever been on.

  Finally, she glanced at her watch and groaned. “Oh my God, I need to get home. I start my new internship tomorrow. I can’t be out all night.”

  I glanced at my watch. “It’s only nine.”

  “You got me. I have a ten-year old’s bed time. I’m useless if I stay up too late. Besides, it’s my first day. I want to make a good impression. You know, I have to obsess about what outfit I’m going to wear for several hours and agonize over my hair, only to end up looking just like this.”

  My gaze swept over her. “I don’t know. You look pretty good to me.”

  A flush crept up her neck and then dusted her cheeks with a pretty pink. “Thank you.”

  Come on dude. Get your shit together. Get the digits. “So listen, we should definitely do this again because like I said, you need a lot of sci-fi deprogramming. So why don’t you put your number in my phone?”

  She grinned then, took my phone enthusiastically and then dug around her purse. “Mine is here somewhere. Hold on.” She put her purse in my lap as she dug through it.

  Did she have no idea what she was doing to me? How beautiful she was? But it was clear she wasn’t being coy and brushing against me on purpose. No games. She was unabashedly herself.

  She finally plucked out her phone and handed it to me. “Give me yours, too.”

  I put myself in as Hot Hunter. You know, that way she would always remember who I was. When she returned my phone to me, I saw that she’d just put in Bailey Jones. I adjusted it to Beautiful Bailey with the name of the bar behind it, so I would know who she was.

  Because yes, I’m a bad boy.

  She grabbed the folder she’d been holding on to and then hopped to her feet. “Well, it was very nice to meet you, Hunter. You should definitely call, or text, because really, who makes phone calls now? Who wants to talk with their voice, when they can just text out a message?”

  She had me laughing at that. “That’s a good point. But I don’t know, I like your voice. Mostly, I like how you laugh.”

  Ahh, cue the pink flushing again. So pretty.

  “Okay, well, I’m going to go, have a good night.”

  “Oh hey wait, what job are you starting tomorrow?”

  She pointed down the street towards my building. “Bold Horizons. I start tomorrow. I’m so excited.”

  My face froze immediately. And she frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “That’s where I work.”

  Her smile deepened. “Oh fantastic. Then at least, I’ll have one friend there.”

  I swallowed hard. “Yeah, you have one friend for sure.”

  Back at home, I tossed my keys onto the side table next to the door. That was one hell of a night. A night that ended with a boner Bailey would not be helping me out with.

  Ever.

  She was amazing and funny, and just my type of girl. But this wasn’t going to happen. Just my luck.

  At the thought of her, my dick twitched.

  “Yeah buddy, I know. She was awesome. But we can’t have her. No sex with co-workers remember? Bad idea.”

  My dick twitched again. That was basically the only response he was capable of at the moment.

  I needed to do something about him, otherwise, it was going to be a long night. Maybe if I grabbed a shower and took care of the situation, then I’d be able to think clearly and I wouldn’t have a single-minded focus on Bailey.

  I’d be seeing her every day at Bold Horizons. No way in hell was popping a boner every time she walked by going to work out. She was awesome, and she thought we were going to be friends, so I would have to figure my shit out.

  I started peeling clothes off as I headed towards the shower, my plan firm in my mind. A mindless orgasm concluded with crashing in bed. That’s all I needed.

  A trail of clothes marked my path. I’d pick them up on the way back. I wasn’t a total slob, despite what my cleaning lady probably thought.

  I grabbed a pair of boxers and a T-shirt from my dresser and headed for the shower. My watch beeped. It was an alert that a work message I’d been waiting on all day had finally come through. So instead of the shower, I diverted to my laptop first.

  I tossed it on the bed and opened it up, determined to reply quickly, then get my shower and hit the sack. Thoughts of the shower conjured an image of Bailey wet and soaped up. My dick seemed to like that idea as it swelled even more.

  God, I had it so bad.

  The real question was whether being her friend was going to make it better or make it worse? I replied to the email and then frowned when I saw a deposit notice from my bank. I opened the email quickly and my brows furrowed. What the hell?

  $9,999 had been deposited into my account.

  It was a direct transfer. I didn’t recognize the bank, or the name of the sender. BS Trust & Holdings. The name alone made me suspicious.

  I had my own researcher on retainer. I liked to call him Google. I pulled up a search window and typed in BS Trust & Holdings. My eyes scanned the search results, not that there was much to see. It appeared to be a local import-export based right here in New York City but not much else was available.

  Awesome.

  I made decent money. Hell, good money. But a sudden influx of almost ten grand was still nothing to sneeze at.

  There was a time when that would have been a life-changing amount of money. I grew up in foster care in Long Island. Some places had been really great. My last place was outstanding.

  My foster dad was the professor at a college. He figured out how to teach me so that shit was interesting. I got into a good college, thanks to him. Some of the others before him, had been not so good. Those places had been borderline abusive.

  If it hadn’t been for one of my foster brothers, Steven, I would have gotten my ass kicked daily. I always wondered what happened to him. I tried once or twice to find him, to see how he turned out, see if I could help him in some way, return the favor. But after I got transferred out of that hellhole, the word was he ran away. No one had ever heard from him again. I dreaded to think of what had happened to him after I’d been shipped out.

  I stared at the amount of money again. In the morning, I’d call the bank. It might be a mistake. An incorrect account number, it could be anything. Or it could be something insane.

  But insane things didn’t happen to me. I lived a perfectly normal life. Sure, I went out with a lot of women. No harm in that. On weekends, I liked to play. Hiking, sky diving, rock climbing… adventurous, yes. But there was nothing about my life to warrant interest from anybody sinister.

  So who the hell put $9,999 into your account?

  It was such an oddly specific amount. Another search yielded the very interesting fact that any deposit of ten thousand dollars or higher had to be reported to the IRS. And I was pretty damn sure that whoever made this transfer was well aware of that rule.

  Which led me to wonder just what the hell was going on.

  I had no idea, but I was going to find out.

  2

  Bailey

  “So, tell me everything. How’s the new job?”

  I grinned as Talia prattled on a mile a minute. I was so excited we were going to be roommates next year when she transferred. “It’s great actually. I love my job. And I’m learning so much. I mean, it was totally the right move.”

  “Oh good. Tell me if you start working on anything cool, like a marketing campaign featuring hot male models.”

  “If they let me near any hot models, you’ll be the first one to know. But I don’t think this is that type of internship. It’s been a month and so far it’s just admin stuff.”

  “So, who is your boss? Is he cute?”

  “Mr. Dent? No way. My life is not a romance novel. I swear. If my boss was hot, that would actually be a problem. I don’t want anything to mess up this opportunity for me. I l
ove the job and I’ve already made some friends, so everything is really great.”

  “Oh cool. I didn’t know if anyone would be weird because you’re still in college. You know how they treat interns at some places.”

  “I was worried about that, too. But everyone has been so nice and really generous with their time.”

  “So now, you’re not giving me any juicy gossip? Nothing at all? Ugh, it’s so frustrating. I figured one of us would at least have something cool on the horizon, you know? Now you make me think of work as boring.”

  “Well, it’s not boring. I just, you know. I’m not focused on guys.” Except, you do think about Hunter.

  As soon as that thought flowed, I shoved it down immediately. I was not going to think about Hunter. You know, anymore. Because I spent an embarrassing amount of time thinking about him. It wasn’t intentional. It just happened. Every time I turned around, he was there. Being sweet. God, he was so good looking. The first night we met, I would have sworn he was boyfriend material. We just clicked like we’d known each other for years. Then I found out he worked here at Bold Horizons.

  And that ruined that.

  Sometimes I considered saying to hell with the rules, but I was an intern. Chasing after another employee was not a good look.

  So, I would keep my head down and keep it professional, even if sometimes I did check out his ass. I mean, honestly, it would be a crime not to. But it wasn’t like he was going to go anywhere. It wasn’t like I could do anything about it.

  The look on his face when he found out I worked here, was like someone had kicked his puppy. And I’d felt it, too. Which made no sense. It wasn’t as if I knew him well. But just the idea that someone that hot was paying attention to me, and someone to share the fun dirty things that I did, that had been a total bonus.