Are you excited about Jude and Ally’s story?

I shared this teaser of the prologue in my reader group. It’s not final, hasn’t been edited, but here it is if you’re curious.

Bad Girl is up for preorder with a release date of June 4th.

http://books2read.com/judeandally

It’s best experienced after Alphahole and Good Girl.

This is an enemies-with-benefits roommate romance.

PROLOGUE

Goodbye  Allyssa McQueen

I’m running. Not like a speeding bullet. Not with the majestic grace of an athlete. Nope. I’m running like a foal on the day it’s born, looking like it doesn’t have command of its legs yet. This is because I’m running while wearing four-inch heels.

I zig and zag through the shopping mall with the backpack secured on my front instead of my back, so I can make sure I’ve got my arms tight around it. There’s no way I can lose this bag.

I wobble as I zoom through the purse and wallet store. These shoes are awful to run in. As terrible as they are, I know I’ll draw even more attention if I’m running shoeless, so I keep motoring.

“Does this place have a back door?” I breathlessly ask the bored sales clerk who’s scrolling on her phone.

Her eyes roll up from her screen toward my face. I probably look crazed. I am. With fear. I glance over my shoulder to see if he’s gaining on me.

I don’t have time to ask again, so I haul ass out of there and into the wine store next door to it. This shop is tiny. Bad idea.  

Though, today has been a series of bad ideas.

There are too many things to bump into that will smash, break, and make a mess not to mention draw attention to me, which I do not want. Though that might be difficult what with me wearing high heels, a sexy dress, mascara tracks down my cheeks from all the crying, not to mention running through a mall with a backpack strapped to my front.

I boogie over to the next shop and find myself in a Christmas store called Christmas Everyday!

The exclamation mark after the everyday is an upside-down Christmas tree.

It’s April.

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas is piped through the speakers and even in my panic, it strikes me as strange that it’s so busy in here. Who buys Christmas decorations in spring? There are dancing hippo figurines in Santa hats, twinkling lights, and sparkle and tinsel everywhere.  The movie White Christmas, which my mother loves, is being played on a projector screen that’s aimed at a white wall and the staff mingle with the shoppers wearing elf hats and pointy green shoes.

Is that the guy in the trench coat wearing the Dick Tracy style hat? Shit! He doesn’t see me, but he’s just walked by and his head scans from left to right as he walks, looking like a Dick Tracy Terminator robot.

I throw a tall, green elf hat on my head to distract from my blonde hair.  “Can I use your restroom?” I plead to an older elf-dressed female employee. She has a grimace on her face.

“We got no public bathroom,” she rasps in a two-pack-a-day voice. “There’s one by the food court.”

I do a jig slash bounce and plead with my eyes, hopeful, because she looks like a grandmother – albeit a grouchy one – and grandmothers don’t want to see young people pee their pants.

She looks more annoyed as she jerks her thumb over her shoulder, pointing at an alcove behind the cash register.

Hallelujah!

Not Dick Tracy hasn’t seen me.

“Thank you! Bless you!”

I boogie.

And luck would have it, there’s a door marked receiving right beside the staff bathroom. There’s a warning sign that the alarm will sound if the door opens without the alarm being disengaged.

And shit.  Because that alarm will be blaring and that’s going to draw attention, but it can’t be helped. I have zero choice.

If Not Dick Tracy catches me, I’m vulture chow, fish food, or something equally disturbing and final.

These fucking shoes; they have to go.

Beside the receiving door there’s a coat rack with Santa hats and one Santa coat. Below it, I see a pair of elf shoes.

I bite my lip in a brief beat of contemplation. Fuck it. I have no other choice.

They might have pointy toes and big buckles, but these crushed green velvet slip-ons will be a whole lot easier to run in than my current sky-high heels.

Where are the other peoples’ shoes, anyway? There are multiple people in the store wearing elf shoes. Why can’t I see a pair of Nikes or Converse or maybe even a pair of sensible Tender Tootsies belonging to the Grumpy Grandma elf?

Whatever. I have no time to ponder this further so off go my strappy heels and on go the crushed green velvet elf shoes before  I drop the elf hat, fill my lungs with air and then, being mildly superstitious, do a sign of the cross and put my shoulder against the big silver bar across the grey steel door.

The shoes are a little big but they’re way better than what I had on.

A split second after I shove and the door opens, sunlight and traffic noises spilling into the store and interrupting the now-playing All I Want for Christmas is You, the alarm blares. And I’m running.

Running for my life with a backpack full of money, dressed in a little black dress, my long blonde hair in a sleek side ponytail, the retro army green backpack on my front, and crushed velvet green pointy elf shoes on my feet in the second week of April.

No sign of Not Dick Tracy so far, and there is a yellow taxicab, so I wave it down while running toward it.

I get to the back door behind the driver’s and am just about to pull the door handle when the cab accelerates.

Shit!

I see another cab. This one a powder blue one. I dash that way and he stops. Mercifully. And with an amused look on his face.

Yeah, the shoes with the cocktail dress, I know.

I hear nothing with the adrenalin combined with the alarm sounds still vibrating my eardrums, but I climb in and breathe out relief.

“Airport,” I say, still exhaling. “As fast as you can safely get me there, pretty please.”

He immediately palms the meter and I breathe out more relief as the car surges forward.

My pulse? Racing.  My body? Shaking. I wipe my clammy hands on my dress and take in the cabbie ID on display.

Holy shit.

I blink a few times to make sure I’m really seeing what I see.

As the car pulls up to line up three cars back from the stoplight to go left out onto the main drag, I see a hat and trench coat emerge from a mall entrance, so I drop my head in an effort to hide.

That’s when I catch what looks to be a pink stuffed animal on top of a dark jacket here on the floor of the cab beside me.

Reaching down, I start to say, “Someone forgot a-” Oh. As I lift it I realize it’s a wig.

A pink wig. A dark purple blazer.

My luck sucks. It really does.

What’s happened to me lately has me convinced of it.

But at the sight of the wig and the blazer coupled with whose cab I happened to climb into, I feel like my luck is changing.

Still folded over, I yank the elastic out of my hair, making pins go flying as my long blonde locks tumble loose before I quickly wind it into a tight knot and pull the long pink wig over it. I straighten up and shrug the blazer on.

Holy shit.

I look up.

The driver laughs. His eyes crinkle in the rearview.

“That works for you, love,” he says.

He’s an older guy with gray hair and kind hazel eyes.

“Does it? You have no idea how much I needed to find this in here. Can you go any faster? I want to make sure I lose somebody. You drive fast and I’ll wear this and I just might have a shot. I tip very well, by the way.”

“Someone after you?” he asks, looking concerned. “Boyfriend? Boyfriend’s wife?”

I pause briefly and my eyes graze the cabbie ID on his visor again to make sure I really read what I think I read.

“Gangster,” I correct, feeling a peaceful sensation flood me. “Well, someone on a gangster’s payroll who is pretending to protect me. But I see through it.”

The cabbie hits the pedal, and we swerve into another lane, sending me flying to the opposite end of the back seat.

“Best get movin’, then.”

“Thank you,” I breathe.

“Not super-smart of you to tell strangers this stuff, little lady.”

I shake my head. “I haven’t been real smart at all lately. That’s about to change.”

I see the frown line over the bridge of his nose in the mirror.

I dare to glance behind us and Not Dick Tracy is nowhere in sight. Phew.

“You have kind eyes. I’d probably want to trust you based on that, but truthfully, I see your name on your permit,” I gesture to the back of his seat, “And I’ve heard your name before.”

His eyebrows shoot up in question.

“My dad was a cabbie. He said he had a friend named Scotty King that used to be his day driver. Hack Team King and McQueen. So, I’m thinking we might sort of not be strangers.”

He stares into the mirror a beat and then his face changes. “You’re not Marty McQueen’s little girl!”

I nod.

“Allyssa! Loved your old man. He was like a brother.”

We’re in the fast lane on the highway now and Scotty King is pushing the speed limit and we’re making good time.

“Haven’t seen you since his funeral. I didn’t recognize you. I’m sorry about that.”

“Think nothing of it,” I say. “It’s been twelve years. And we only met a handful of times.”

“Where are you heading from here?”

“I don’t know,” I admit.

“Right. Okay, so go to Baltimore.  When we park, I’ll give you a number for a friend of mine, Tori. She has a temp agency and she’ll rent you a room and get you a job while you figure out your next move.”

I blink in surprise. But, really, after all Daddy told me about Scotty King, I’m not that surprised. And I’ve always felt like Dad’s my guardian angel. This, today,  him picking me up might proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt.

“Yeah? Really?”

“Yep. Change your name. Change your habits. Do not contact anyone from your old life. I’m assumin’ it’s the Steele brothers who are after you. Or else the Papalia crew.”

“How’d you know?”

“Good guess. Cabbies are the eyes and ears of a city. I’m sure your old man told you stories. We sit here and either quietly drive while fares have all sorts of conversations in our back seats. Or a third of ‘em tell us their secrets, feeling like they can, for some unknown reason, trust us based on looking at the backs of our heads. We know shit. Don’t tell me which of the two it is. The less I know, the better.”

“With you, I bet it’s the eyes in the mirror. Your eyes look kind.”

Laugh lines appear around those kind eyes just briefly before the concern is back. “Give you my number, too. You get stuck, you call me and I’ll see how I can help. Memorize it and hand it back before you get out of this car.” He passes me a card. “Your father was a good man.  His friends felt his loss deep. He probably spoke to the big man upstairs and made it so I was here to see you runnin’ in those elf shoes. What’s in the bag you’re hangin’ on so tight to? Or do I wanna know?”

“A whole lot of cash.” A lot of it. I haven’t counted it but I suspect there’s enough in here to last me a good long time. “You want some?” I offer.

He sighs. “Shit, Allyssa. How much trouble you in?”

“Lots.”

“You’ll need all the cash you can get.  Listen, don’t spend any more than you have to; save it in case you need to get gone again after Baltimore. And then get gone and save the rest in case you need to get gone again. If it’s the Steele brothers especially, you’ll need resources. You hear?”

I nod.

“You have the foggiest idea of what you’re dealin’ with?”

I nod.

Obviously he knows what I’m dealing with too by his offer.

“Okay. Memorize that phone number yet?”

“I’ll do that right now.”

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