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"I laughed, l cried, I wanted to really beat some people up in this book...I can’t wait for the next book in this series!! I can only imagine they get better and better!! I definitely recommend this book!!!"
-Sassy Southern Book Blog |
"I truly enjoyed Sophie and Tony's journey to realizing their feelings for each other, and making mistakes along the way. The writing was spectacular. The characters were real. The banter was hilarious."
-Red Hatter Book Blog |
Chapter One Excerpt
Sophie
moves into a new building. There are sexy assholes.
The first time we argue, I feel alive. I’m sweating, my blood’s pumping, and my hair is sticking to my face in the stinking New York City humidity. I don’t know what life really is until some asshole starts screaming at me to move my van from his spot, because it feels so damn good to yell right back at him.
“Get your U-Haul out of my parking spot!”
This guy’s hollering at me from across the street.
“Excuse me?” I call back, convinced he isn’t speaking to me. No one ever yells at me. I’m unassuming and introverted. I’m a wallpaper ninja, blending so well people can’t even find me to yell at me.
But the guy across the street sees me, clear as day.
“Are you deaf?” he yells with slow and exaggerated articulation. “Get your damn moving van out of my spot.”
I’m not the type of person to engage in a verbal fight. I’m quiet⎯even when someone pisses me off. I roll with the chaotic nature of my beautifully harsh city: a strand of seaweed in the ocean, riding the tides. But after surviving the day from hell, only to be accosted by this bear of a man? I fight back, like I never have before.
“Last time I checked there are no spots assigned to people on this block, or anywhere else in Brooklyn.”
“It’s an unwritten rule.”
I mimic his earlier tone, hitting every consonant and unleashing my New York accent to embellish the attitude. “If you couldn’t tell, I’m moving into the building and there’s an actual written rule that if I double-park the U-Haul, I’ll get a ticket.”
“That’s not my problem, baby.” He steps into the street, waiting for a break in traffic to cross. “Find a new spot.”
I nearly drop the moving box in outrage before remembering it has wine glasses mom sent from Napa. Breaking them would be a crime. I’ll need them before this shit day is over, especially after getting a look at the man charging at me like a bull chasing red.
As he crosses the street I expect to see a guido with a beer gut, and while I imagine he’s got a decent percentage of Italian heritage, there sure as hell ain’t no beer gut. Instead I’m greeted by a fit and trim physique, tanned skin, and biceps I could drool over. The muscles in his arms tense and roll with every word, every wild gesticulation. He levels with me on the sidewalk and removes his sunglasses, revealing dark eyes flecked with gold. He’s shockingly handsome—like runway model handsome— combined with the grittiness of a rock star and the best parts of a native New Yorker. I’m wearing the tank top I slept in last night, a ratty old sports bra, and shorts I haven’t washed for two weeks.
This day is the pits.
“Because of your stupid van, I had to circle the surrounding blocks for twenty minutes to find a spot for my pickup truck. A paid, limited-parking, spot.”
“How is your poor car choice my fault? Who in their right mind has a pickup truck and lives in Brooklyn? You’re just asking for endless nights searching for parking. What do you do when it snows?”
The challenge in his eyes is like a book I have to devour. One flexed bicep, an arched eyebrow, and I’m hooked.
He shoots a disparaging glance at my van before asking, “You’re moving into this building?” He points at my new place.
I’ve propped the outer foyer door open and there are boxes preloaded onto a dolly at the top of the stoop.
“No.” I lay the sarcasm on thick. “I’ve come here to unload this van with the sole purpose of pissing you off. I thought, ‘who in all of New York can I make the most miserable today?’ ” I raise one arm in a fist pump. “I won!”
His eyes widen like he can’t believe I’m not backing down, and I might be hallucinating from the heat, but I swear I catch a smile before he starts laying into me again, our voices getting louder and louder.
“I don’t care what you’re doing; I need this spot for my truck, and you need to move.”
“I will move my truck when I’m good and ready.”
“You’ll move now.”
“No.”
“No? That’s it?”
“That’s it?” I repeat, dumbfounded. As if the world revolves around this asshole’s giant ego. “I’ll tell you what’s it. It’s ninety-eight degrees outside. I had to take a day off work to move because the management company of this stupid new building insists I move one week after signing the lease, much to the dismay of my boss, who was kinda pissed I didn’t come in today.”
He opens his mouth to speak and I cover it with my hand, unwilling to break my stride. I haven’t unloaded like this in years.
“And then the rental company loses my reservation for the van, and proceeds to send me to two consecutive branches 'till I found one that has the size I reserved. Two branches.”
His eyes narrow as he crosses his arms, but he doesn’t stop me. I’m on a damn roll, releasing pressure built by an awful day, and years of containing my opinion to the written word. I keep my hand on his lips, not because it feels nice or anything, but because I need to get this off my chest and he’s the unlucky bastard who’s gonna hear it. Not even an introvert of my level can keep it cool after the shit storm of my day.
“The Task Rabbit guys I hired to load the truck were an hour late and on the drive over no less than three cabbies⎯three⎯cut me off on the bridge, and I’m pretty sure I heard one of my boxes fall over and break as I swerved to get out of the way. And now, to put the icing on a great big turd of a cake, a loudmouth jackass is ordering me to move my van after getting a spot directly in front of my new building. He wants to shit on the one good thing that’s happened to me today. You want to know what’s it?” I’m panting it’s so hard to get the last words out.
“That’s fucking it.”
I’ve lived in various spots around New York City my entire life but until this moment I’ve never adhered to the loud-mouthed-I-don’t-need-a-filter culture. With this guy and his amber-streaked hair and gold cross around his neck⎯I let go of all my insecurities and worry over what people will think and just let it fly. Over a parking spot, of all things.
A freakin’ parking spot.
When he takes my hand away from his mouth, cradling my wrist with an almost shocking tenderness, making my skin itch, I ask, “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
My yelling draws the attention of passing pedestrians. I think I see a smartphone or two recording us. He sees them too, a frown pulling his features into severity. It transforms his smooth edges into a creature of rougher origins, a true piece of him I find both unnerving and intriguing.
“I think I’m the guy who needs you to move your van, so I can park my pickup truck here, in the only spot on this block that fits it.” His voice is low, but there’s a definite heat behind it. Whether it’s the same annoyed tone from before or something new I can’t tell, and after the scene I just made, I don’t think I want to know.
He’s still holding my hand, swiping his thumb back and forth across my wrist.
“Do you verbally attack every unsuspecting person who parks in your spot, or am I just lucky?”
“Baby, you don’t know what lucky is, but I’d be more than happy to show you.”
That might be a warning or a come on…or both.
I advance on him, my bravado knowing no ends today. “Don’t call me baby, asshole.”
He matches me step for step. “Till you move out of my spot, I’ll call you what I want, baby.”
I want to kick him, but the way he says baby flashes through my body like a heat wave. A deliciously sexy heat wave.
Actually, I should kick myself to get my good sense back.
His hand is still holding my wrist. I’m starting to think I don’t want him to let go.
“Why don’t you go cool off with a walk around the block, go pump some iron, take some steroids, or do whatever it is you guido types do.”
“You say guido like it’s a bad thing. Where are you from that you can cast aspersions on my character?” He laughs when my eyebrows shoot up, casually leaning toward me as if I didn’t just spit my entire day up on him.
He finally lets go of my wrist, and I feel the loss of his heat, even in the humid air.
“Guidos know big words too, baby.”
God, why does fighting with him feel so good? I should want to smack him, and I do, but having his lips so close to mine makes me want different things. Sinful, sexy, and dirty things.
“You perpetuate that stereotype yourself. You’re doing it now, yelling at me like an Italian thug.”
His hand clutches his heart. “You wound me, baby. I should take you inside, throw you over my knee and teach you a lesson.”
His immodest threat makes me blush, but not because I’m scandalized, but because now I know I kinda want it. And God, he sees it. He sees the shift from anger to lust. He sees my skin flush in color from something other than fury, and he grabs hold.
“You can’t tell me to move the van,” I say before he can interject with another baby.
“I can tell you whatever I want; it’s up to you to behave and actually do it.”
“Who says I need to behave?”
“The laws of decency.”
“You’re screaming at an innocent woman like a madman, and you have the balls to call me indecent?”
“I have balls for many different scenarios. I keep them in a velvet-lined drawer and take them out when such occasions arise.”
Don’t laugh. Don’t fucking laugh.
I open my mouth to start another round, but before I can get a word in His Almighty Dickishness turns on a dime and flashes a roguish grin, the asshole gone in a flash. The result is devastating. His body is all fully-grown man, but his smile is whimsical and childlike, more open than what I’m prepared for. I was raised on cynicism and sarcasm. Pure honesty is alarming.
“Listen, the longer we stand here, the hotter and crankier I get. I’m gonna speed this up for us. What floor you movin’ into?”
“Why?”
He runs his hands through his hair, seeking an outlet. I know the feeling; I’m as jittery as kid with A.D.D. “I’m gonna help you move so you can get your ugly van out of my way.”
His offer, combined with the sudden change in his demeanor, throws me so far off balance I answer without thinking, “Third floor.”
“What a coincidence. I’m on the fourth. Welcome to the building. C’mon, baby, show me what you need moved.”
“You live here?”
“Yes.” He peers into the van, seeing all the boxes and furniture pieces I could cram into it. “Were you gonna move that loveseat by yourself?”
“You live here.” I point at my new address, making it obviously clear which building I mean because I need to know absolutely, without any doubt, that the man I’ve just screamed at, like a an unashamed weirdo, like I’m never gonna see him again, lives one floor above me. “At this building.”
“Yes. This building.” He grins, his teeth accompanied by a sparkle.
It is singularly unfair that a man so annoying can be so profoundly attractive. He’s checking all my boxes. Which only makes me angrier.
“I don’t need your help.” What I don’t need is this big gulp of man in my apartment. “I’m stronger than I look.”
He sighs, leans against the hated van with his arms in his pockets. Unassuming. Harmless. Ha!
“I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier.”
I dip my chin and stare at him with an eyebrow arched in sarcastic doubt.
“Okay, I am sorry I made your day harder. Let me make it up to you. Let me help you move in.”
He doesn’t wait for me to accept, of course, just turns back to the open van, eyeing it like a mountain to be climbed.
“What do you want moved first?”
He’s genuine. He’s actually offering to help me, after spending a good twenty minutes making an ass of himself by demanding I move for his benefit. And all of sudden he’s helping me, like this is who he was all along. Like I’m not the only one who’s had a shit day.
“How about the ones labeled kitchen? That’s the best room in my apartment.” he chuckles to himself. I figure it must be an inside joke until he proves he’s gotta have the single most massive ego in all of Brooklyn. “It’s only the best due to my superb cooking. Do you like linguine?”
“Yes,” I mumble automatically, unable to deal with the shift in his demeanor. I’m practically out of breath from hollering at him, and my body is on a knife’s edge, tempted by this hunk of man, and he’s talking about fucking linguine.
“Baby.” There’s that word again. “You haven’t had linguine till you’ve had my linguine.”
Oh, I want his linguine.
“Get your U-Haul out of my parking spot!”
This guy’s hollering at me from across the street.
“Excuse me?” I call back, convinced he isn’t speaking to me. No one ever yells at me. I’m unassuming and introverted. I’m a wallpaper ninja, blending so well people can’t even find me to yell at me.
But the guy across the street sees me, clear as day.
“Are you deaf?” he yells with slow and exaggerated articulation. “Get your damn moving van out of my spot.”
I’m not the type of person to engage in a verbal fight. I’m quiet⎯even when someone pisses me off. I roll with the chaotic nature of my beautifully harsh city: a strand of seaweed in the ocean, riding the tides. But after surviving the day from hell, only to be accosted by this bear of a man? I fight back, like I never have before.
“Last time I checked there are no spots assigned to people on this block, or anywhere else in Brooklyn.”
“It’s an unwritten rule.”
I mimic his earlier tone, hitting every consonant and unleashing my New York accent to embellish the attitude. “If you couldn’t tell, I’m moving into the building and there’s an actual written rule that if I double-park the U-Haul, I’ll get a ticket.”
“That’s not my problem, baby.” He steps into the street, waiting for a break in traffic to cross. “Find a new spot.”
I nearly drop the moving box in outrage before remembering it has wine glasses mom sent from Napa. Breaking them would be a crime. I’ll need them before this shit day is over, especially after getting a look at the man charging at me like a bull chasing red.
As he crosses the street I expect to see a guido with a beer gut, and while I imagine he’s got a decent percentage of Italian heritage, there sure as hell ain’t no beer gut. Instead I’m greeted by a fit and trim physique, tanned skin, and biceps I could drool over. The muscles in his arms tense and roll with every word, every wild gesticulation. He levels with me on the sidewalk and removes his sunglasses, revealing dark eyes flecked with gold. He’s shockingly handsome—like runway model handsome— combined with the grittiness of a rock star and the best parts of a native New Yorker. I’m wearing the tank top I slept in last night, a ratty old sports bra, and shorts I haven’t washed for two weeks.
This day is the pits.
“Because of your stupid van, I had to circle the surrounding blocks for twenty minutes to find a spot for my pickup truck. A paid, limited-parking, spot.”
“How is your poor car choice my fault? Who in their right mind has a pickup truck and lives in Brooklyn? You’re just asking for endless nights searching for parking. What do you do when it snows?”
The challenge in his eyes is like a book I have to devour. One flexed bicep, an arched eyebrow, and I’m hooked.
He shoots a disparaging glance at my van before asking, “You’re moving into this building?” He points at my new place.
I’ve propped the outer foyer door open and there are boxes preloaded onto a dolly at the top of the stoop.
“No.” I lay the sarcasm on thick. “I’ve come here to unload this van with the sole purpose of pissing you off. I thought, ‘who in all of New York can I make the most miserable today?’ ” I raise one arm in a fist pump. “I won!”
His eyes widen like he can’t believe I’m not backing down, and I might be hallucinating from the heat, but I swear I catch a smile before he starts laying into me again, our voices getting louder and louder.
“I don’t care what you’re doing; I need this spot for my truck, and you need to move.”
“I will move my truck when I’m good and ready.”
“You’ll move now.”
“No.”
“No? That’s it?”
“That’s it?” I repeat, dumbfounded. As if the world revolves around this asshole’s giant ego. “I’ll tell you what’s it. It’s ninety-eight degrees outside. I had to take a day off work to move because the management company of this stupid new building insists I move one week after signing the lease, much to the dismay of my boss, who was kinda pissed I didn’t come in today.”
He opens his mouth to speak and I cover it with my hand, unwilling to break my stride. I haven’t unloaded like this in years.
“And then the rental company loses my reservation for the van, and proceeds to send me to two consecutive branches 'till I found one that has the size I reserved. Two branches.”
His eyes narrow as he crosses his arms, but he doesn’t stop me. I’m on a damn roll, releasing pressure built by an awful day, and years of containing my opinion to the written word. I keep my hand on his lips, not because it feels nice or anything, but because I need to get this off my chest and he’s the unlucky bastard who’s gonna hear it. Not even an introvert of my level can keep it cool after the shit storm of my day.
“The Task Rabbit guys I hired to load the truck were an hour late and on the drive over no less than three cabbies⎯three⎯cut me off on the bridge, and I’m pretty sure I heard one of my boxes fall over and break as I swerved to get out of the way. And now, to put the icing on a great big turd of a cake, a loudmouth jackass is ordering me to move my van after getting a spot directly in front of my new building. He wants to shit on the one good thing that’s happened to me today. You want to know what’s it?” I’m panting it’s so hard to get the last words out.
“That’s fucking it.”
I’ve lived in various spots around New York City my entire life but until this moment I’ve never adhered to the loud-mouthed-I-don’t-need-a-filter culture. With this guy and his amber-streaked hair and gold cross around his neck⎯I let go of all my insecurities and worry over what people will think and just let it fly. Over a parking spot, of all things.
A freakin’ parking spot.
When he takes my hand away from his mouth, cradling my wrist with an almost shocking tenderness, making my skin itch, I ask, “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
My yelling draws the attention of passing pedestrians. I think I see a smartphone or two recording us. He sees them too, a frown pulling his features into severity. It transforms his smooth edges into a creature of rougher origins, a true piece of him I find both unnerving and intriguing.
“I think I’m the guy who needs you to move your van, so I can park my pickup truck here, in the only spot on this block that fits it.” His voice is low, but there’s a definite heat behind it. Whether it’s the same annoyed tone from before or something new I can’t tell, and after the scene I just made, I don’t think I want to know.
He’s still holding my hand, swiping his thumb back and forth across my wrist.
“Do you verbally attack every unsuspecting person who parks in your spot, or am I just lucky?”
“Baby, you don’t know what lucky is, but I’d be more than happy to show you.”
That might be a warning or a come on…or both.
I advance on him, my bravado knowing no ends today. “Don’t call me baby, asshole.”
He matches me step for step. “Till you move out of my spot, I’ll call you what I want, baby.”
I want to kick him, but the way he says baby flashes through my body like a heat wave. A deliciously sexy heat wave.
Actually, I should kick myself to get my good sense back.
His hand is still holding my wrist. I’m starting to think I don’t want him to let go.
“Why don’t you go cool off with a walk around the block, go pump some iron, take some steroids, or do whatever it is you guido types do.”
“You say guido like it’s a bad thing. Where are you from that you can cast aspersions on my character?” He laughs when my eyebrows shoot up, casually leaning toward me as if I didn’t just spit my entire day up on him.
He finally lets go of my wrist, and I feel the loss of his heat, even in the humid air.
“Guidos know big words too, baby.”
God, why does fighting with him feel so good? I should want to smack him, and I do, but having his lips so close to mine makes me want different things. Sinful, sexy, and dirty things.
“You perpetuate that stereotype yourself. You’re doing it now, yelling at me like an Italian thug.”
His hand clutches his heart. “You wound me, baby. I should take you inside, throw you over my knee and teach you a lesson.”
His immodest threat makes me blush, but not because I’m scandalized, but because now I know I kinda want it. And God, he sees it. He sees the shift from anger to lust. He sees my skin flush in color from something other than fury, and he grabs hold.
“You can’t tell me to move the van,” I say before he can interject with another baby.
“I can tell you whatever I want; it’s up to you to behave and actually do it.”
“Who says I need to behave?”
“The laws of decency.”
“You’re screaming at an innocent woman like a madman, and you have the balls to call me indecent?”
“I have balls for many different scenarios. I keep them in a velvet-lined drawer and take them out when such occasions arise.”
Don’t laugh. Don’t fucking laugh.
I open my mouth to start another round, but before I can get a word in His Almighty Dickishness turns on a dime and flashes a roguish grin, the asshole gone in a flash. The result is devastating. His body is all fully-grown man, but his smile is whimsical and childlike, more open than what I’m prepared for. I was raised on cynicism and sarcasm. Pure honesty is alarming.
“Listen, the longer we stand here, the hotter and crankier I get. I’m gonna speed this up for us. What floor you movin’ into?”
“Why?”
He runs his hands through his hair, seeking an outlet. I know the feeling; I’m as jittery as kid with A.D.D. “I’m gonna help you move so you can get your ugly van out of my way.”
His offer, combined with the sudden change in his demeanor, throws me so far off balance I answer without thinking, “Third floor.”
“What a coincidence. I’m on the fourth. Welcome to the building. C’mon, baby, show me what you need moved.”
“You live here?”
“Yes.” He peers into the van, seeing all the boxes and furniture pieces I could cram into it. “Were you gonna move that loveseat by yourself?”
“You live here.” I point at my new address, making it obviously clear which building I mean because I need to know absolutely, without any doubt, that the man I’ve just screamed at, like a an unashamed weirdo, like I’m never gonna see him again, lives one floor above me. “At this building.”
“Yes. This building.” He grins, his teeth accompanied by a sparkle.
It is singularly unfair that a man so annoying can be so profoundly attractive. He’s checking all my boxes. Which only makes me angrier.
“I don’t need your help.” What I don’t need is this big gulp of man in my apartment. “I’m stronger than I look.”
He sighs, leans against the hated van with his arms in his pockets. Unassuming. Harmless. Ha!
“I’m sorry I yelled at you earlier.”
I dip my chin and stare at him with an eyebrow arched in sarcastic doubt.
“Okay, I am sorry I made your day harder. Let me make it up to you. Let me help you move in.”
He doesn’t wait for me to accept, of course, just turns back to the open van, eyeing it like a mountain to be climbed.
“What do you want moved first?”
He’s genuine. He’s actually offering to help me, after spending a good twenty minutes making an ass of himself by demanding I move for his benefit. And all of sudden he’s helping me, like this is who he was all along. Like I’m not the only one who’s had a shit day.
“How about the ones labeled kitchen? That’s the best room in my apartment.” he chuckles to himself. I figure it must be an inside joke until he proves he’s gotta have the single most massive ego in all of Brooklyn. “It’s only the best due to my superb cooking. Do you like linguine?”
“Yes,” I mumble automatically, unable to deal with the shift in his demeanor. I’m practically out of breath from hollering at him, and my body is on a knife’s edge, tempted by this hunk of man, and he’s talking about fucking linguine.
“Baby.” There’s that word again. “You haven’t had linguine till you’ve had my linguine.”
Oh, I want his linguine.
