Stuck On You: Sanctuary, #3

By Evie Snow

Enemies to lovers. One prank at a time...

 

Sam Jones has officially hit rock bottom. After a series of dead-end tech internships, she has no choice but to return home to live with her neurotic mother. Her embarrassment continues when her grade school nemesis catches her having breakup sex in a tiny, pink smart car…

 

Sheriff Connor Lawson is the sweetheart of Sanctuary, California. Years after terrorizing Sam in high school, he never expected to find the developer-in-training half-naked in a cramped two-seater. After spotting her applying for a job in a cafe, he offers her his spare room. After putting her through so much torture in school, it's the least he can do…

 

As the new roommates continue to give each other hell like the old days, Sam begins to realize that Connor isn't the belligerent teen he used to be. Is the sheriff finally willing to share his secret crush after all these years?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Exile Publishing
• Release date: Jul 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781912305070

Evie Snow

Evie Snow is the pseudonym for a globe-trotting writing team working towards their very own Happily Ever After: Best-selling author Georgina Penney does the actual writing and reads far too many books. Her husband, Tony Johnson (AKA The Kraken) helps out with plot wrangling and is in charge of caffeine distribution. Franky, their surly cat also helps by running the complaints department from his hiding place under the coffee table. When not writing warm and funny contemporary romance, Georgina and Tony can currently be found roaming the wilds of England & Scotland, hiking valiantly from café to tea shop in a never-ending quest to find the perfect scone.

Book preview

Chapter 1

It’s not every day a woman finds herself having break-up sex on the passenger seat of her pastel-pink smart car. And if a woman were to find herself in such a situation, she probably shouldn’t be noticing the faint layer of dust sparkling in the pool of sunlight hitting the dashboard. Nope, and she definitely shouldn’t be having to brace her hands on the seatback to stop herself from sliding too far out of range of her now ex-boyfriend’s wildly thrusting hips.

Sam Jones knew she should be feeling some sort of heartbreak over the fact she’d never see Dylan’s face contorting into that constipated-chipmunk expression ever again. She’d told herself it was cute for the last two years, so losing it should mean something, right? Two years. Two years of supporting him on her own meager income while he loafed around her San Francisco apartment playing Xbox instead of getting gigs for his Mumford & Sons cover band.

She remembered to do a moaning noise, and then wondered why she was still trying to feed Dylan’s ego even now, after he’d dumped her at the Endless Summer Bar during the lunch rush. Half of Sanctuary had been around to listen as her newly long-distance boyfriend turned his first visit into his last, and the humiliation of that moment was why she’d let her guard down and driven him out here to The Overlook, a scenic spot that faced Sanctuary’s famous Cliff Beach and showed off the curve of Victorian buildings gracing the city’s rocky terrain. She’d thought this experience might make him always regret dumping her, which showed just how bad her judgement was right now.

The worst thing about this situation—other than the cramp Sam was getting—was that this wasn’t the first time this had happened. There had been that time with Mark the Varsity-Level Cheater. On that occasion, her great idea had been to do it on top of a washing machine because of something she’d heard on a podcast. But the nookie guru had never said what to do if the washing machine sprung a leak on the heavy-duty cycle, mid-coitus . . .

She winced and readjusted her position as Dylan hit something that didn’t like being prodded at high velocity.

Sam’s high school guidance counselor had never told her that her life could come to this; twenty-eight years old, she’d just been fired from her fifth crappy unpaid Silicon Valley internship and had moved back in with her mom. That would be all good and fine, but Sam’s mom generated enough high-octane anxiety that it was a wonder the Department of Defense wasn’t trying to work out how to channel it. Ever since Sam’s dad had passed years ago, her mom had developed a bunch of symptoms that had made Sam’s college-bound exodus from Sanctuary a welcome reprieve. The rest of town might just see Laurie Jones as just another quirky character, but to Sam, her mom’s little tics and habits were impossible to live with on the best of days. And Sam was beginning to think her presence only made them worse.

To top it all off, Sam had sworn she’d never return to Sanctuary permanently unless she was driving a shiny new Porsche, had a platinum Amex card and could afford a beachfront mansion.

Okay, now the sex was getting really uncomfortable, and those weird clucking noises Dylan was making were freaking her out. Had he always sounded like that? No wonder his band never got any gigs. If he laid an egg any time soon, he was damn well gonna pay for the car to be professionally cleaned.

Enough was enough. Sam attempted the clenchy Kegel thing she’d learned in the one Pilates class she’d ever attended and felt a surge of relief when Dylan let out a squeak and collapsed awkwardly against her. Finally.

She was debating how to get out of this situation when the problem was solved by the sound of tires pulling into the otherwise empty parking lot.

Shit, Dylan said as his head jerked up to collide with Sam’s cheek, sending her glasses askew. Before Sam could react, he was disengaging, pulling off the condom and clumsily ramming his knuckles into Sam’s nether regions as he wrenched up his Calvin Klein boxers. Then, without a thought for Sam’s modesty, he opened the car door and stumbled out while pulling his three-hundred-bucks-a-pair raw denim jeans up over his hips.

Good times, Sam, good times, he said, running his fingers through his hipster haircut and giving Sam a wink she’d seen him practice far too many times in their bathroom mirror. I’ll make my own way back to the bus for San Fran. Don’t want to be inconsiderate. Have a good life, and, uh, thanks for being so understanding. He pointed his index fingers at her, giving her a double six-gun salute before turning and disappearing down the steep path that lead to the beach.

Sam stayed sprawled on the passenger seat, undies hanging off one ankle as she glared at Dylan’s retreating back, incredulity making her voice hoarse as she yelled after him. "Thanks for being understanding? Understanding? Two years of my life and that’s all I get? I hope you get sand in those stupid cowboy boots you spent last month’s rent on!"

The sound of a car door opening reminded her that she had an audience, so she attempted to push her brand-new black pencil skirt down over her hips. She’d brought the thing for a job interview at Jerry Sawyer’s used car dealership this morning, but needn’t have bothered; Jerry Sawyer had taken one look at her smart car and made up his mind.

She tried in vain for another few seconds to tug the skirt past her hips, before realizing that she’d need to get out of the car to do it properly, potentially flashing whoever had pulled in nearby. Her childhood friend, Madeline—who owned a pin-up clothing store—had said it was slimming. What Madeline had neglected to say was that the slimming would be applied to Samantha’s dignity, not her love handles.

She braved a glance through the rear window to see if she recognized the newcomer.

Her stomach lurched the minute she saw a police cruiser. Worse, a big, blond, uniformed man was casually leaning against its hood, his eyes shielded by an obligatory set of reflective Ray-Bans, mouth curved into a sardonic grin.

Really? Sam directed her question up through her car roof and to the heavens. "Him? Now? Really?"

Chapter 2

Sam resumed her desperate effort to get her skirt to behave, intermittently twisting around to glare at the cop through her rear window.

He was still there, but now he was wearing his patented grumpy-badass expression as he stared out to sea as though monitoring the seagulls wheeling around the big blue sky for misdemeanors. Sam knew where his attention really was, though. For one thing, even from this distance, she could see his mouth was still twitching at the corners. For another, this was Connor Lewis, her childhood archnemesis—the Voldemort to her Harry Potter, the Cruella to her one hundred and one Dalmatians, the dusty floor to her dropped peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

They’d been neighbors once. He was two years older than Sam, which should have meant he left her alone, but from day one, he’d spied on her, stolen her pushbike and made fun of the speech impediment she’d had until her two front adult teeth grew in properly. In return, Sam had gone for his throat any chance she could get. Sometimes this had called for preemptive strikes, but any court of law would have exonerated her.

As far as Sam could figure, some amoeba ancestor of hers must have pissed off an amoeba ancestor of Connor’s in the primordial ooze, and the vendetta had started. The acrimony had lessened a little since Sam had left town, but maybe that was just because she never saw Connor anymore, ever.

She finally gave up on modesty, climbing out of the car and standing behind the dubious cover of the open door while swiftly tugging the skirt down