TEASERS

Excerpt

FOR AS LONG as Dalton had known Holly Larson, the girl sparkled. Glitter on her nails, her hair, her clothes. Tonight she wore a pair of tight gold glittery pants, reminding him of the sea of strings tied to her birthday balloons on her twenty-first birthday.

Even though he wanted her, Dalton didn’t so much as flirt with the idea of kissing her glossed lips. She was a no-go zone despite how badly he wanted to test the softness of her blond curls with his fingers. On the night of her birthday, she’d tucked herself against him when they danced, as if she’d been designed to fit there....

Now, her golden shoulders peeked out from the holes in her black shirt. Her heels were so high that her jade-colored eyes aligned with his as she approached. Champagne in hand, she toasted him.

“Congrats on your promotion to Project Director. I’m so glad it’s you leading the Brownsboro Project with me.”

“Hey, Hol.” He tapped his beer glass against her flute. “Congrats on your promotion too, gorgeous.”

“Thank you.” She leaned in and kissed his cheek and he caught her scent— an expensive perfume he’d come to expect. He was glad to have her by his side in the project, as well. She didn’t land the position at LLM because of her last name. Holly had great instincts and a never-say-die attitude that guaranteed everything she touched turned to gold.

He smiled again at her glittery pants. Appropriate.

“You smell nice. Look better.” He pulled her into a hug, careful to only wrap one arm around her neck.

“Thanks.” Those green eyes sparkled. Maybe that wasn’t her first glass of champagne.

“You need me to get you a water?” he asked.

She scoffed.

“I’m just looking out for you.”

“I’m not a baby, Dalton.”

“Honey, I see that.” Clearly. Some days more clearly than others. He halted those thoughts. This was the Larson princess, and the last thing she needed was a guy from Slumville making moves on her. Especially one who didn’t plan on sticking around for anything more than the physical, Dalton thought with a dash of self-deprecation. He wasn’t worthy of the boyfriend role in any woman’s life, let alone this one.

“What if every time I looked at you, I saw an eleven-year-old?” she asked.

He made a disgusted face. When he was eleven, he’d been buck-toothed and skinny. Knock-kneed and kind of mean. He would never want Holly to see him as anything less than the man he was today. She knew he grew up rough, but she didn’t know exactly where he came from and he’d like to keep it that way. Let her see him the way she saw Jace: as a guy who’d take a bullet for her if someone took aim.

She shifted, popping her hip and resting a manicured hand there, her breasts shifting slightly in her shirt. Telling himself she was just another Larson didn’t make him blind, for God’s sake. There was no doubt she was sexy...but she wasn’t for him.

He took a sip of his beer. Then he noticed the party was . . . moving to the spot where he and Holly were standing on the patio. Most of the faces he recognized from work. Then everyone parted like the Red Sea. Mr. and Mrs. Larson came up the center, displaying broad smiles, and holding glasses of champagne.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Clark started. “I have a toast to make.”

“Ah, shit,” Dalton muttered to Holly, lightly wrapping his arm around her neck again and lowering his lips to her ear. “Ready to get embarrassed?”

“Not me,” she said. “They already took me out to a big dinner.”

It took a beat for that to sink in, and then his heart joined his stomach on a ride to his toes. “Oh, come on.”

“This is for you,” she whispered, giving his arm a squeeze and then bouncing over to stand with her parents.

“Now, Dalton . . . ” Clark’s expression grew serious.

Dalton cleared his throat, feeling nervous about the amount of attention on him—especially now that Holly had left his side and he stood alone.

“We’ve known you since you were a poorly dressed kid who showed up to eat the roast chicken Wendy made every Sunday.”
A hand clapped Dalton’s shoulder and squeezed. He turned to find Jace. “Now he’s a poorly dressed adult who shows up for chicken dinner on Sunday.”

The crowd chuckled and Dalton shot his elbow into his buddy’s ribs. When he first met the Larsons, they reminded him of some sort of strange Stepford family. Compared to his family and his buddies’ families in the old neighborhood, this was some straight-up Cleavers shit.

Accustomed to waiting for the impending shoe-drop, Dalton kept his guard up with them for years. It wasn’t until he’d witnessed an honest-to-goodness family argument that he could see they weren’t perfect. The Larsons were the real deal.

Jace backed off, loping over to join the crowd, and stirring them up with a “woo-hoo!” Embarrassed, Dalton put his palm on his neck and tried to accept the praise to which he might never become accustomed.

“We love you, Dalton,” Wendy said as the crowd’s applause died down. “You’re a quality human being. You work hard and never complain.”

“In fact you work harder than Jace, but we have to employ him,” Clark added, dodging a playful punch from his son. “To Dalton Thomas! Our new project director and honorary Larson!”

The applause erupted anew, Holly’s included. She came back to him, all smiles. The crowd turned away and Dalton accepted handshakes and hugs from Clark and Wendy. And then it was him and Holly again.

“I’m guessing you knew about this,” he said.

“I suspected. They like to celebrate,” she answered. “So. Are you going to have a problem now that you have to answer to a woman?” she asked, feisty glint in her eye.

The raise and title appointed both Holly and him directors of the Browns boro Project, but she never hesitated to bust his balls. Still, he was proud as hell of her.

“Not if I want to keep both balls attached to my body.” He winked. Holly blushed. She couldn’t talk trash. Never could. The moment he mentioned anything slightly colorful, a rosy hue took her cheeks.

He liked that she was sweet. He liked to imagine she’d retain that sweetness forever. Not that he believed Holly Larson was a virgin—even if everyone kept her carefully protected. The idea of some guy getting her out of her pants made Dalton want to spit nails, and he could only imagine how her real family reacted to the thought.

That spirit had leaked over from Jace to him. How many boys had they run off when Holly was growing up? Too many to count. Once she even tried to sneak one in through her window. Jace chased the guy halfway down the block—in his bare feet.

“What are you grinning about?” she asked, moving closer to him. Her eyes darted away and for a moment he felt a palpable sadness waft off her. He rested a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey. You okay?”

“Just struggling to adjust.” She quickly tucked in her bottom lip, which had pushed itself out into a pout. He understood how she felt, though. Holly was juggling a new position at work—a position other people whispered about, saying she’d never earned it because her parents had “given” it to her. Plus, he and Jace recently helped her move into an apartment. She was living on her own for the first time.

When she brought up moving out of her parents’ house, the suggestion had gone over like a ton of shit. Jace had checked out security at the apartment complex, talked to the management, and paid for a building inspector to ensure the plumbing, structure, and electric were all in working order.

“You just wait, Hol,” Dalton told her now. “So much good is coming your way, you won’t have the space to store it all.” He gave her shoulder a squeeze.

Her features abruptly softened, her liquid green eyes zeroing in on his. “Dalton, I wanted to talk to you about something. I—”

“Dalt!” shouted Jace from over his shoulder. He elbowed him and pointed across the patio. “The redhead and the brunette.”

Dalton followed his buddy’s pointing finger and the brunette looked away, turning to the redhead and giggling.

“I told them I had a single friend,” Jace said proudly.

“You’re such a moron,” Holly snapped at her older brother.

“Well, that’s thoughtful, Jace,” Dalton drawled, stealing a look at the girls again. Cute. Both of them. “But Holly and I are chatting right now, so I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Your loss. Hey, Little.” Jace leaned in toward Holly and tipped his head to the side. “Aaron Nielson’s here if you want to ask him on a second date.”

“Idiot!” Holly gave him a shove.

“Seriously?” Dalton sobered, hardly able to believe Holly had attempted going out with a guy who A) worked for the Larsons and B) turned dorky into an art form.

“Yeah, but he was smart enough to back off.” Jace grinned like he was taking credit and then left for the other side of the patio.

Dalton turned to tell Holly he agreed that her brother was an idiot, but she wasn’t smiling. In fact, her sadness seemed to have returned tenfold.

“You were saying?” Dalton said.

“Oh. It was nothing.” But the way she looked at her shoes didn’t look like nothing. “I’ll catch up with you later.” She backed a few steps away. “I should say hi to Aaron. And you should”—she shooed in the direction of the girls, now being joined by Jace—“do whatever it is you do.”

Her sad smile paired with a swivel on one heel. Dalton watched those gold glittery hips sway, leaving him to wonder what she’d left unsaid.