The Party Girl Read online

  The Party Girl

  By Tamara Morgan

  Book three of Getting Physical

  Kendra Khuso isn’t looking for long-term. Her traditional Indian family believes it’s time she settled down with a parent-approved husband. Instead, she’s focused on building her business by day and then enjoying all the nightlife has to offer...until she meets Noah.

  Noah Walker is happy with a solitary, sustainable life on a plot of land outside of town. He left a high-maintenance relationship behind him and he just wants to keep his head down and his hands busy, living off the grid and making no plans...until he falls for Kendra.

  The attraction is mutual and their chemistry is electric. There’s just one problem: Noah’s best friend, Lincoln, is head-over-heels in love with Kendra even though she’s keeping him firmly in the friend zone. Noah refuses to break the bro code by pursuing a woman his best friend professes to love—but Kendra is determined to get her man, even if it means giving up the social scene for the simple life.

  92,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  My vow to you is to not mention the holiday that starts with a V in this letter for the February releases. If you’re like me, you’re probably on holiday overload after all of the winter festivities, and you wish you could just blank out all of those advertisements for diamonds and chocolates and fancy dinners. Of course, if someone wanted to buy us any of that, that would be okay...

  Instead, let me tell you about the sometimes-romantic and sometimes-not lineup of books we have for you this month! Fans of Alison Packard’s The Winning Season will be glad to know that JT and Angie’s story releases this month. Look for sparks to fly in Catching Heat. Author Christi Barth finishes up her Aisle Bound series with A Matchless Romance. You won’t want to miss this playful story about a sexy gamer who just needs a beautiful Chicago matchmaker to help him see how hot he really is.

  Also in the contemporary romance category is Party Girl by Tamara Morgan, following up her well-reviewed romance The Derby Girl. When a good-time party girl meets a backwoods hermit, the only thing bigger than their differences is their attraction. Fan favorite Inez Kelley joins the contemporary romance offerings this month with smoking-hot lumberman Jonah Alcott, who wants to do more than fight with gorgeous mountain activist Zury Castellano in The Place I Belong.

  Lynda Aicher brings her trademark sizzle to a new erotic romance story in her Wicked Play series. In her first male/male romance, Bonds of Denial, security nerd Rockford Fielding finally finds a man worth coming out of the closet for, but Carter Montgomery has to move past his own insecurities before they can claim a future they both thought was impossible.

  Opium addict and Victorian bounty hunter Cherry St. Croix is back again in Karina Cooper’s Tempered. Dragged to a neglected estate and forced to dry out, Cherry tries on the role of helpless Gothic heroine—and tumbles headlong into danger when she takes to meddling in her family’s alchemical history instead.

  Returning to Carina Press with a new series is Eleri Stone with the first book in her new paranormal romance series. In Reaper’s Touch, Jake and Abby work together to find a cure for the infection that turns men into flesh-eating monsters. We’re also welcoming back Jody Wallace with her newest paranormal romance, Witch Interrupted. Wolf shifters heal from tattoos as if they were never inked, so why is the same sexy wolf back in Katie’s tattoo parlor for more? And last but not least in the paranormal romance category, we’re also pleased to bring back Victoria Davies and her newest novella Demon by My Side. When a tempting demon prince crashes into her life, a demon hunter struggles to figure out who she can trust and one wrong move will cost her not only her heart but the safety of the human world as well.

  Concluding her wonderful epic fantasy series, Shawna Thomas wraps up with Journey of the Wanderer in which to save Anatar once and for all, Ilythra must risk everything she loves.

  But with every ending there’s a new beginning, and we’re happy to welcome male/male romance author A.M. Arthur to the Carina Press team. A reformed troublemaker meets his match in an inexperienced bookworm when what was supposed to be a casual relationship starts to look a lot like love in No Such Thing.

  And we’re happy to introduce debut author Holly West. Holly delivers a fascinating, well-plotted historical mystery, the first in a new series. In Mistress of Fortune, Isabel Wilde, a mistress to King Charles II who secretly makes her living as a fortune-teller, is threatened when one of her customers is murdered after revealing a conspiracy to kill the king and the diary of her illicit activities as a soothsayer goes missing, a page of which turns up in the dead man’s pocket.

  Coming in March: look for the newest installment in Marie Force’s Fatal series!

  Here’s wishing you a wonderful month of books you love, remember and recommend.

  Happy reading!

  ~Angela James

  Editorial Director, Carina Press

  Dedication

  To the incredible team at Carina (especially my editor, Deb) for believing in these heroines.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Kendra had just managed to get Derek’s pants off when the doorbell rang.

  It wasn’t that the act of removing a man’s pants was terribly difficult. From a logistical standpoint, one button and a short zipper were easy enough to maneuver. Even easier was convincing a man to shed his clothing at the earliest available opportunity. She wasn’t saying she could close every deal that swaggered her way, but her success rate lodged somewhere at the ninetieth percentile.

  She’d always been an overachiever.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Derek lay sprawled on her bed, looking up at her through his overlong crop of dark hair. Younger than her by a few years, and unemployed save for his twice-weekly band gig a few towns over, he presented a delicious picture of youthful debauchery. “A girlfriend? Maybe two?”

  “Cute, but misguided. I don’t tag team.” She held up a finger as a muffled bang followed another cheerful chime of the doorbell. “Shoot. I better get that. Can we hold this thought?”

  As Derek had a generally thought-free item in his hands at that moment, he groaned and dropped his head to her pillow. “Someone better be dying out there. I don’t think any woman has gotten me this hot this fast before.”

  Kendra smiled as she wrapped herself in an orange floral satin robe and cinched the belt. Guys in their twenties were so much fun to rile up. Most of them were so grateful to have a woman do all the heavy lifting they sort of rolled over and lay there, eager and panting. A dog and his bone.

  “Just close your eyes and squeeze every few seconds. I’ll be right back.”

  Another thump sounded, louder this time, and Kendra gave in to a quick moment of alarm as she made her way to the front door
. It was late—booty-call late—and she wasn’t accustomed to visitors stopping by unannounced. Once upon a time, she’d had guests filing in at all hours of the night to chat and hang out, drinking too much wine and regretting it in the morning, but those visits had become a rarity as of late. Since moving to Pleasant Park to open a medical spa practice, most of her close friends had become happily bound by relationships. She was officially the last woman standing.

  Or, you know, lying down. Naked. With a virtual stranger.

  Of course, such activities did have their benefits. As there was a capable young man in her bedroom with an excess of testosterone pumping through his veins right now, it seemed safe enough to open the door.

  Thump. Groan.

  Or not.

  “Lincoln?” Her hand stopped on the knob. A familiar body slumped forward, pushing the door the rest of the way open. “What are you doing here?”

  The man moaned and pulled his hand out from the flap of his jacket, flashing her the white and red of a towel pressed to his midsection. The white was fabric. The red was not. “I need your help. I can’t drive anymore.”

  Kendra didn’t move, though there was plenty of activity going on inside her head. Her first thought—admittedly selfish—was that Lincoln couldn’t have shown up at a worse possible moment. Her second thought was one of shaky, adrenaline-infused alarm. That was an awfully large proportion of red.

  “Stay right there. I’ll call 9-1-1.”

  “No.”

  Some of that alarm faded to be replaced by an equally dangerous sense of foreboding. “Then you want me to drive you to the emergency room?” Her voice wavered. “Please tell me this is you asking me to take you to the hospital.”

  Lincoln grimaced. “C’mon, Kendra. Can’t you see I’ve been stabbed? I can’t take this to the hospital.”

  She closed her eyes and bit back a sharp retort. That statement made much more sense than it should have, given the situation. She knew all too well that hospitals followed strict procedures for wounds inflicted in violence—and Lincoln was very much an off-the-paper-trail sort of man. He wouldn’t want a record of this showing up.

  Left with no other choice, she pulled the door the rest of the way open, Derek and his guitar-strumming hands all but forgotten. “You better come in and lie down. I’ll call Whitney.”

  Lincoln shook his head in protest, unwilling to cross the threshold despite the fact that his stance was hunched and he had to brace himself with an arm on her doorjamb in order to remain standing. He was clearly in pain, but there was no doubt in her mind that Lincoln’s tenacity would win out over pain every time. Kendra had yet to meet any other person on the face of the planet whose stubbornness came close to touching his. And she knew a lot of stubborn people.

  “It’s Whitney or an ambulance. You can’t play around with this—you look seriously hurt.”

  “She’ll tell Matt. You know she will.”

  For a full ten seconds, Kendra considered shutting the door in Lincoln’s face. She’d never wish bodily harm on another human being. She’d call a thousand ambulances if she thought it might curb this man’s penchant for trouble. But this wasn’t the first time Lincoln had asked her to skirt the line of morality for him. It wasn’t even the first time he’d shown up at her house bleeding.

  “Maybe Matt should be told. Someone clearly needs to be keeping tabs on you—and your brother is a much better candidate than me.”

  “Is everything okay out here?” The gruff, cigarette-sucking rasp of Derek’s voice approached from the rear. She could just make out the sight of him, all lean and pale and wrapped up in her favorite sheet, out of the corner of her eye.

  All that lean, pale skin. Such a soft, slinky sheet.

  “What the hell, Kendra? Why is there some naked dude in your living room?” Lincoln straightened in a clear move of manly posturing, but its efficacy was cut short for several reasons. For one, he had no right to question her choice of nighttime companions. For another, he let out a cry and grabbed his side again.

  “Thanks, Derek, but everything is fine.” She looked back and forth between her two companions, knowing full well who was about to win the bid for her attention. “I’m sorry to leave you hanging like this, but there’s a bit of an emergency situation on my hands. I don’t suppose you could, uh...”

  “Another time,” he said easily. “It’s cool. Mind if I unload in your shower before I go?”

  “Sure. Whatever. Enjoy yourself.” She waved a hand his direction, dismissing him from her mind and her loins in one easy gesture.

  “You’re just going to let that guy wank in your bathroom?” Lincoln hissed.

  She stared at him with a composure she was far from feeling. Nothing was likely to get her hackles up faster than Lincoln trying to tell her what she could or could not do with her time—and her body. “The alternative is for you to sit here and wait while I finish the job myself. You pick.”

  Pain flashed across his face, grown pale underneath the orangeish synthetic tan he bore regardless of the season. That pain carried with it the very last of all her straws. “Come on. Let’s get you somewhere with good morphine and better sterilization.”

  Not willing to wait for his affirmative answer, she shoved her feet into a pair of sparkly Ugg boots and grabbed her keys, which hung on an efficient hook in the foyer. With one hand gripping Lincoln’s elbow to keep him aloft, she guided him down the front steps of her townhouse.

  They didn’t have far to go. Lincoln’s car, a slightly pimped-out Honda Civic, was parked at an awkward angle, tire marks clearly depicting his haphazard path around the corner.

  “And we’re taking your car,” Kendra added, seeing the trail of blood drops that led from the driver’s side door to their feet. “You’re not bleeding all over mine.”

  “You’re too good to me.” He turned his head her way, his eyes—a childlike, icy blue—staring deeply into hers. “Leaving your date like that. Coming to my rescue.”

  “I know I am,” she said, not inviting further discussion. It would only lead to places neither one of them wanted to go. “But I don’t care how many times you get stabbed from here on out. This is the absolute last time I’m doing this.”

  She helped him into the passenger seat and moved the seat belt buckle into place, doing her best not to hover any longer than necessary. Of course, that didn’t stop Lincoln from accidentally brushing her boobs with his arm. Looking down, she realized she had pretty much nothing on except undergarments of maximum appeal and questionable support. As a petite woman, the hem of her robe extended below her knees, providing a modicum of modesty. As a busty woman—courtesy of her plastic surgeon best friend and an amazing set of silicone implants she’d gotten for cost—that modesty was little more than an illusion.

  “Stay here. I’m going to put on pants.”

  Lincoln groaned and rolled his head against the headrest, eyes closed. She wasn’t fooled by his overdrawn antics. He’d live long enough for her to get dressed—he was still talking, and the smug grin on his face was too triumphant for a man on death’s door.

  Although that was an awful lot of blood all over the driver’s seat...

  “Goddammit, Lincoln.” Ignoring her better judgment, she slid into the seat and started the engine, trying to ignore the damp seepage of blood through the silk at her back. “Okay. Where are we going? I’m warning you right now—if I decide it’s not sanitary, I reserve the right to take you to the nearest medical facility. I want bright lights. Antiseptic handwash. A medical license would be a plus. And absolutely no back-alley vet offices or drunk frat boys with a sewing kit.”

  “I’m not stupid.”

  She didn’t answer. Lincoln was several adjectives listed under stupid in the thesaurus. As the older brother of her best friend’s fiancé, he should have been some kind of adorable setup for a ro
mantic comedy. She and Whitney, on perpetual double dates with the Fuller brothers. Family gatherings full of laughter and discreet groping.

  Wrong. As it turned out, Whitney got the good brother and a lifetime of blissful, sex-filled happiness. Kendra was left with the bleeding remains of a one-night stand she couldn’t seem to shake. Almost a whole year had passed since she and Lincoln had enjoyed relations of any sort, but he’d sort of...attached to her. Like a puppy. Or a leech.

  “I’m not,” he insisted again. When it was clear she had no intention of believing him or soothing his hurt pride, he sighed and added, “Head west out of town.”

  She swiveled her head to peer at him. “Just how far am I taking you?”

  “It’s only a few miles. Out by Miller Pond.”

  She wasn’t terribly familiar with that area, but she followed his directions all the same. Hoping to distract him as they pulled away from the lights of the borough and onto a back road, Kendra flicked on the CD player. She could feel the shift in the air as the bass kicked on and Bruno Mars promised she was amazing just the way she was.

  “Really?” She flicked the music back off. “Are you a twelve-year-old girl now?”

  Lincoln rolled his head toward her and groaned. “What are you talking about? I know lots of people who like this song.”

  “And I know lots of people who visit hospitals when they’re bleeding out their abdomens. I don’t see you following that trend.” Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Lincoln’s jaw tighten, and panic seized her. Lincoln was never quiet. If he didn’t have enough strength to argue with her, things were worse than she thought.

  “Hanging in there okay?” she asked softly. She didn’t know a whole lot about lifesaving medical techniques—beauty-saving medical techniques were more her style—but it seemed important to keep him talking. “On a scale of one to dumbass, how are you feeling right now?”

  He managed a small grin. “I’m a solid five.”

  Ha. That was a matter of opinion. “Are you at least going to tell me what happened? And please don’t say this was another one of your sure things. Remember what happened the last time? I told you that guy wasn’t really a bookie.”