Shallow (32 page)

Olivia Townsend is nothing special. She’s just a girl working her way through college so she can return home to help her father run his business. She’s determined not to be the second woman in his life to abandon him, even if it means putting her own life on hold. To Olivia, it’s clear what she must do. Plain and simple. Black and white.

But clear becomes complicated when she meets Cash and Nash Davenport. They’re brothers. Twins.

Cash is everything she’s always wanted in a guy. He’s a dangerous, sexy bad boy who wants her in his bed at any cost. He turns her insides to mush and, with just one kiss, makes her forget why he’s no good for her.

Nash is everything she’s ever needed in a guy. He’s successful, responsible and intensely passionate. But he’s taken. Very taken, by none other than Marissa, Liv’s rich, beautiful cousin. That doesn’t stop Olivia from melting every time he looks at her, though. With just one touch, he makes her forget why they can never be together.

Black and white turns to shades of gray when Olivia discovers the boys are hiding something, something that should make her run as far and as fast as she can. But it’s too late to run. Olivia’s already involved. And in love. With both of them.

Both brothers make her heart tremble. Both brothers set her body on fire.

She wants them both.

And they want her.

How will she ever choose between them?

CHAPTER ONE- Olivia

My head is spinning lightly, but happily. I can’t even remember the name of the drink Shawna keeps ordering for us. I just know they’re delicious. And potent as hell! Wow!

“When’s the stripper coming? I’m ready to get my freak on!” Ginger shouts. She’s the crazy, outspoken, cougar-of-a-bartender we work with at Tad’s Sports Bar and Grill in Salt Springs, Georgia. She’s wild enough in her natural environment, but stick her in a strange new place in city like Atlanta and she morphs into a full blown tiger. Rawr!

She looks at me and grins. Her bottle-blond hair looks urine yellow in the low light and her pale blue eyes are twinkling devilishly.

I’m instantly suspicious.

“What?” I ask dazedly.

“I talked to the manager ahead of time. He’s gonna make sure Shawna has to help the stripper get out of those pesky clothes he’ll be wearing.” She giggles maniacally. I can’t help but laugh. She’s a mess.

“Ryan would kill her if she stripped another man’s clothes off, bachelorette party or not!”

“He’ll never know. What stays in the VIP room happens in the VIP room,” she slurs.

“Don’t you mean what happens in the VIP room stays in the VIP room?”

“That’s what I said.”

I snicker. “Oh, okay.” I giggle as I watch her take another sip of her neurotoxic drink. I opt for my water instead. Somebody has to remain semi-lucid. Might as well be me. Tonight is all about Shawna anyway. I want to send her off into married life with the best party possible. I doubt that includes her having to carry me home or clean vomit off her shoes.

A knock at the door to the private room has us all turning our heads in that direction. The girls immediately start laughing and hollering and cat-calling.

Dear God, I hope it’s the stripper and not a cop or something!

The door opens and in walks the most incredibly handsome guy I think I’ve ever seen. He looks like he’s in his early twenties, really tall, and built like a football player—wide chest and shoulders, thick arms and legs, tiny waist in between. He’s dressed in solid black from head to toe. But it’s his face that’s most impressive.

Sweet hell, he’s effin’ gorgeous!

His short hair is dark blond and his face is chiseled perfection. I can’t tell what color his eyes are as he scans the room, but I can see that they’re dark. He’s just opened his mouth to speak when his eyes finally make their way to me. They click to a stop on mine and he stares.

I’m completely mesmerized. As I look into them, I still can’t determine a color, but the orbs look nearly black. Even in the light spilling through the door behind him, they look like pools of ink. Just barely, he tilts his head to one side as he watches me.

It makes me nervous. And excited. I don’t know why. I have no reason to be, but he makes me feel twitchy. Squirmy. Warm.

We’re still staring at each other when Ginger gets up and drags him further into the room, flinging the door shut behind him.

“All right, Shawna. Come kick your single life to the curb the right way!”

The other girls start squealing and cheering her on. Shawna’s smiling, but shaking her head. “No way! Not this girl!” The bridesmaids-to-be get more insistent, two of them coming around to take her by the hands and haul her to her feet.

She leans back, away from them, shaking her head more vigorously. “No, no, no. I don’t want to. One of y’all do it.”

She starts wiggling her arms to free herself, but the girls have a death grip on her thin wrists. When she looks at me, her wide brown eyes tell me all I need to know. She’s totally freaked by the idea.

“Liv, help!” I raise my hands in a gesture that says what do you want me to do? She nods toward the hunk hulking behind Ginger. “You do it!”

“Are you crazy? I’m not stripping a stripper!”

“Please! You know I’d do it for you.”

And she would. Dammit.

How the hell does the world’s clumsiest shy girl get wrangled into doing things like this?

As I so often do, I answer myself.

Because she’s a pushover!

Taking a deep breath, I stand and turn toward the Hot Stripper Guy, purposely jacking my chin up another notch. He’s still watching me with those smoky coal eyes.

When I take a step toward him, he very slowly raises one eyebrow.

Heat washes through me.

Must be those dangerous drinks, I think. It has to be.

I feel flushed and a little breathless, but I take another step anyway.

Hot Stripper Guy takes a step away from Ginger and turns to face me fully. He crosses his arms over his chest and waits, that one brow still raised in curiosity. He’s not going to make it easy. He’s leaving it all up to me, just like Ginger asked them to do.

As if on cue, the music that’s been pumping into the room all night gets louder. It’s a sexy song, heavy on the bass. It’s mood music for sure. It seems to punctuate every intense beat of my heart as I get closer and closer to those velvety eyes.

When I stop in front of him, I have to look up. My five and a half feet of height is nearly a foot shorter than his towering frame.

Up close, I see that his eyes are brown. Dark, dark brown. Nearly black.

Sinful.

I’m lost in wondering why that particular word would come to mind when the girls start chanting for me to take his shirt off. Uncertainly, I glance at their excited faces then back to him. Slowly, he spreads his arms, holding them out to his sides, away from his body.

One corner of his mouth twitches. His expression, his body language is rife with challenge.

I realize he doesn’t think I’ll do it. No one probably does.

And that’s exactly why I will.

Letting the beat of the music relax my tense muscles, I plaster on a smile as I reach forward to tug Hot Stripper Guy’s shirt from the waistband of his pants.

THANK YOU SO MUCH to Georgia Cates for letting me put an excerpt in her book. For more about Down to You, including where and how to purchase your copy, visit my blog at
mleightonbooks.blogspot.com