Flirting with the Frenemy Read online

  Flirting with the Frenemy

  Pippa Grant

  Contents

  Introduction

  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

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek at AMERICA’S GEEKHEART

  Sneak Peek at MISTER McHOTTIE

  Complete Pippa Grant Book List and Reading Order

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Introduction

  Flirting with the Frenemy

  Mission: Survive my best friend's wedding, where I must play nice with my ex and his perfect new girlfriend.

  Strategy: Bring the hottest fake boyfriend on the planet.

  Target: Grady Rock. Master Baker. Dimples. Muscles. The unicorn of fake boyfriends.

  Complication: Wyatt Morgan. My brother's best friend. My sworn enemy. Military man. Sexy as hell single dad. The man I let into my panties for one night of hot hate sex after my ex dumped me before my life fell apart.

  And the man who just scared off that perfect fake boyfriend.

  By pretending to be my real boyfriend.

  I can roll with this though. What’s the harm in Flirting with the Frenemy if it helps me get the job done?

  Complete my mission and move on.

  Or so I thought.

  Until Wyatt kisses me again and I start feeling things I shouldn't.

  The thing about weddings...nothing ever goes as planned.

  Flirting with the Frenemy is a rollicking fun romantic comedy featuring a single dad military man, an irritatingly attractive blast from his past, pirates, cursing parrots, and a wedding gone wild. It stands alone with no cheating or cliffhangers.

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  More Books by Pippa Grant

  Mister McHottie (Chase & Ambrosia)

  Stud in the Stacks (Parker & Knox)

  The Pilot and the Puck-Up (Zeus and Joey)

  Royally Pucked (Manning and Gracie)

  Beauty and the Beefcake (Ares and Felicity)

  Rockaway Bride (Willow and Dax)

  Hot Heir (Viktor and Peach)

  The Hero and the Hacktivist (Rhett and Eloise)

  Charming as Puck (Nick and Kami)

  Exes and Ho Ho Hos (Jake and Kaitlyn)

  And more…

  One

  Ellie Ryder, aka a woman in need of more than ice cream to fill the hole in her heart

  When I rule the world, peppermint crunch ice cream will be available all year long, because assholes who break people’s hearts don’t restrict their assholery and heart-breaking to Christmas.

  Unless, apparently, they’re my asshole.

  Check that.

  My former asshole.

  I stab my spoon straight into the cold carton that I grabbed at the store on the way here and ignore the twinkling holiday cheer on my parents’ gigantic tree in the living room. It’s late, so I didn’t tell them I was coming over, but I don’t want to spend one more night at my house this week.

  Alone.

  Sleeping in the bed where Patrick screwed me—and then screwed me over—just two nights ago.

  Merry Christmas, Ellie. I’m in love with my neighbor.

  I leave them a note taped to the coffee pot to let them know I’m here, then stomp down the stairs—softly, so I don’t wake them—and turn the corner into the rec room, where I pound the light switch up.

  And then almost scream.

  There’s a lump of a man sprawled on the couch watching a black-and-white movie, and as soon as the lights go on, he winces and throws his arm over his eyes. “Christ,” he snarls.

  My heart backpedals from the precipice where it was about to leap, then surges into a furious beat all over again. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Wyatt Morgan drops his arm and squints at me. “Oh, good. It’s Ellie. Drop in to rub some salt in the wound?”

  I inhale another bite of ice cream while I glare at him, because I didn’t ask him to be here, and he’s scowling just as hard as I’m glaring. “Beck’s place is downtown. Go get drunk there.” Even as the words leave my mouth, guilt stabs me in the lung.

  Not the heart, because first, I’d have to like my brother’s best friend for my heart to be affected, and second, because I’m not sure I have a heart left.

  I’m in a shit-tastic mood—who dumps their girlfriend on Christmas Eve?—but even in the midst of my own pity party, I know why Wyatt’s sitting in my parents’ basement, stewing himself in beer and watching It’s a Wonderful Life.

  He doesn’t even roll his eyes at my order to get out.

  “Beck’s having a party,” he informs me. “Didn’t want to go. Guess you weren’t invited. Or you prefer to add to the shit pile here.”

  He tips back his beer, and another guilt knife attacks me, this time in the liver.

  It’s entirely possible he has bigger problems than I do. I lost a boyfriend that I’ll probably acknowledge soon enough—for real, not just in a fit of anger—that I’m better off without.

  The courts just handed Wyatt a final divorce decree that means he only gets to see his kid once a month.

  If he travels five hundred miles to do it every time.

  “Shove it, Morgan,” I tell him. “I don’t kick a man when he’s down.”

  “Since when?”

  “Oh, please. Like you can talk.”

  It’s been like this since we were kids. My brother’s childhood best friend is the only man in the entire universe who can get under my skin and bring out my ugly faster than you can blink, and I swear he takes joy in doing it.

  A ninety-five on your math test, Ellie? Why not perfect?

  Nice shot, but you’re still down by eight.

  Who taught you to hold a pool cue, a blind monkey?

  And damn if all that taunting didn’t make me try harder every fucking time.

  Because when he wasn’t taunting me, he was the first one holding out a hand to pull me off the pavement or out of the mud when I inevitably got trampled trying to keep up with Beck and his friends in soccer, street hockey, basketball, and whatever else I swore I was big enough to do with them.

  He eyeballs my breasts, and my whole body lights up like the Christmas lights all over downtown.

  “You gonna eat that whole carton?” he asks, and fuck, he’s not looking at my chest.

  He’s looking at my ice cream, and here I am, getting turned on at the idea that he’s finally noticed I’m a woman.

  I have issues.

  So many fucking issues.

  I fling myself onto the couch next to him. “It’s loser ice cream, so yeah, I am,” I grumble. “Here. Have a bite, you drunk asshole.”

  T
hose gray eyes connect with mine, and dammit, that’s straight lust pooling in my belly.

  He’s sporting a thick five-o’clock shadow, and even sprawled out on the worn flowery couch in my parents’ basement, he exudes power and masculinity in a way I never would’ve expected from the skinny pipsqueak peeking out from behind his grandmother’s legs on the front porch twenty-some years ago.

  Or maybe it’s the tight black T-shirt, with his biceps testing the limits of the cotton and detailing his trim stomach, even sitting down, and the gray sweatpants hinting at a more substantial package than I ever would’ve given him credit for.

  Plus the knowledge that Pipsqueak Wyatt grew up to join the Air Force as some kind of badass pilot who flies untested aircraft, which takes a hell of a lot of guts, if you ask me when I’m willing to admit something like that about him.

  Which is apparently tonight.

  You used to like him, my subconscious reminds me, because it’s forgetting its place.

  I’d tell it to shut up, that I don’t go for guys who don’t appreciate me, except isn’t that what I just spent the last two years of my life doing?

  He reaches for my spoon, and our fingers brush when he takes it. A shiver ripples over my skin. I look away to watch the movie while I hold the carton for him to dig out a scoopful.

  George Bailey is arguing with Mr. Potter on the TV, and I can feel the heat off Wyatt’s skin penetrating my baggy Ryder Consulting sweatshirt.

  I snort softly to myself.

  Of course he wasn’t staring at my chest. He can’t even see it under this thing.

  You’re holding the basketball wrong, Ellie.

  It went in, didn’t it?

  Yeah, but you could be more consistent if you worked on your form.

  Damn him for sneaking into my head. Damn him for taunting me.

  Damn him for being right.

  Because I did work on my fucking form, and Beck—who’s three years older than I am—quit playing ball with me after I beat him in a free throw contest when I was twelve.

  He said it was because he was working on other stuff with the guys, but I knew my brother better than that.

  I knew he quit playing with me because I beat him.

  Wyatt still took the challenge though. He’d tell me I got lucky when I won. He’d tell me what I did wrong when I didn’t.

  And I worked my ass off getting better and better until I beat him every time.

  And then he lost interest too.

  I take the spoon from him and grunt softly while I dig deeper into the carton. “You were such an asshole when we were kids.”

  He grunts back and snags the spoon again. “You were such an asshole when we were kids.”

  “You were just insecure about getting your ass beat by a girl on the basketball court.”

  “You just hated that you wouldn’t have been half as good without me.”

  I take my spoon back and shovel in. My extra-large bite of ice cream makes my brain cramp, but fuck if I’ll let him see me hurt.

  Not that I can hide it. I know my face is blotchy from crying before I drove over here, and my eyes are that special kind of dry that comes after too many tears.

  I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve talked to him solo since he and Beck and the guys graduated high school. He’s changed. His voice is deeper, if that’s possible. His body definitely harder—god, those biceps, and his forearms are tight, with large veins snaking over the corded muscle from his elbows to his knuckles—his square jaw more chiseled, his eyes steel rather than simple gray.

  And it’s not like he lost custody of his kid because he’s an asshole.

  Beck was blabbering all about it at Christmas dinner yesterday. Dude got so fucked. The military gave him orders here, so Lydia moved first, with Tucker. She hated military life. But then his orders got changed last-minute so he ended up in Georgia, she filed for divorce, and he’s been fighting the military and the courts ever since to get back to where he can be closer to his kid. He’s in fucking hell right now. And if he cuts bait on the military, they’ll toss him in jail for being AWOL. He’s fucked. He’s SO fucked.

  There goes George Bailey, leaving Mr. Potter’s office to go get drunk.

  Wyatt tips back his beer. A holiday brew. Like that can take away the misery of hurting this time of year. I don’t know why he’s here instead of taking advantage of every last minute with his kid, but then, I don’t know much about divorce either.

  Maybe this isn’t his Christmas to see his son. Maybe Lydia’s being an asshole.

  One more bottle sits on the end table next to him, but just one.

  Drowning his sorrows with a broken George Bailey.

  “I’m sorry about your shitty divorce,” I say.

  Sullenly.

  Just in case he thinks I might have a twinge of sympathy for him. That won’t do for either of us.

  He sets the bottle down and grabs the spoon again.

  “So you’re sharing because you feel sorry for me.”

  “Maybe I’m sharing because I’m not a total asshole.”

  “But I still am?”

  I heave a sigh. I don’t want to be sitting here with Wyatt Morgan any more than I want to give in to the urge to go running over to Patrick’s swanky condo in the Warehouse district and beg him to give us another chance.

  I was supposed to be getting engaged this Christmas.

  Not dumped.

  And I can’t tell if that searing pain in my chest is my heart or my pride.

  Or both.

  Probably both.

  It’s not like the sex was even good the other night, and he rolled over and checked his email right after, so logically, I know I’m not missing anything.

  But my fucking heart still hurts.

  “Misery loves company more than it cares what the company is,” I tell Wyatt.

  He looks at me while he shoves the spoon back in the carton, then waves a hand in a circle, gesturing to me. “This is you being miserable?”

  “I know, I make it look good.”

  “I thought you looked like this all the time.”

  “Asshole.”

  He smirks, but it’s a dark smirk. Like he wanted me to call him an asshole, but it didn’t make him feel as good as he hoped it would. “What the hell do you have to be miserable about?”

  “I broke a nail.”

  He snags my hand and lifts it, turning it to inspect my perfectly trimmed, newly manicured nails, and tremors skittle out from the point where his thumb rests inside my palm.

  It’s like he’s turning me on.

  Patrick hasn’t turned me on in months. That’s what’s supposed to happen, right? You settle down with one person and get yourself into a rut and the sex becomes routine instead of exciting. It’s normal, right?

  Or you were an idiot who should’ve dumped him a year ago, my subconscious helpfully offers.

  I snatch my hand back, but I’m still ridiculously aware of Wyatt beside me.

  The hitch in his breath.

  The subtle scent of cinnamon and beer wafting off him.

  The way his gaze is still trained on me. “So you got dumped too,” he muses.

  “Shut. Up.”

  That would’ve been more effective if I’d been able to say it without dribbling peppermint crunch ice cream down my chin and my voice wobbling.

  He reaches out and wipes the drip off my chin, and I realize he’s leaning into my space.

  My heart’s pounding. My breasts are getting full and heavy. My mouth is going dry, even with ice cream still lingering on my tongue, and I almost choke when I swallow.

  “Merry fucking Christmas to us,” he says. His nose is inches from mine, and his lids are lowering over darkened eyes.

  “There’s no fucking going on,” I point out, my breath getting shallower as I glance down his just-barely-off-center nose to his stupidly perfect lips.

  “There’s not, is there?” he muses while his gaze darts to my lips too. “Th
ere’s only getting fucked over.”

  Every time he says fuck, I get a shot of heat between my legs.

  “You’re in my bubble,” I whisper.

  “Maybe I’m trying to annoy you to make myself feel better.”

  “Maybe if you wanted to annoy me, you should take your clothes off.”

  Holy shit, I just said that.

  He holds my gaze for half a second, and then his shirt goes flying. He settles back against the couch, still leaning into my space, but now with acres and acres of hard chest and sculpted stomach and cut hips and that perfect trail of hair arrowing down to disappear under his sweatpants.

  “Now, what are you going to do to annoy me?” he asks.

  I should dump this carton of ice cream on his head.

  But I want to do something else.

  Something wrong.

  But right? Maybe?

  Fuck it.

  Thinking’s what got me in trouble with Patrick. I thought he was what I wanted. I thought I loved him because I thought I should. I thought he’d be a good partner. I thought we wanted the same things in life.

  I thought Wyatt was annoying.

  But my body isn’t thinking.

  My body just wants.

  I slap the ice cream onto the wobbly end table that my brother broke years ago, and then I peel off my sweatshirt and the stained college T-shirt beneath it.

  “Annoyed yet?” I purr.

  Oh, fuck, I’m purring.

  His gaze dips to my chest, and his sweatpants tent.

  Holy hell.

  Wyatt Morgan is packing, and it’s making my clit tingle.