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  Bang on Loosely

  Lili Valente

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright Bang on Loosely © 2020 Lili Valente

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. This erotic romance is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners. This e-book is licensed for your personal use only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with, especially if you enjoy hot, sexy, emotional novels featuring hockey-playing alpha males. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work. Cover design by Lori Jackson. Editorial services provided by RCM.

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  Contents

  BANG ON LOOSELY

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  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

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek

  About the Author

  Also by Lili Valente

  BANG ON LOOSELY

  By Lili Valente

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Pop Quiz: You just banged a rock star you vowed to loathe until the end of time. What’s next?

  Hint: You don’t agree to be his fake girlfriend. And you certainly don’t fall in love…

  Once upon a time, Cutter Comstock was the hot older boy who tormented me in high school. Fast forward thirteen years and I find myself in his bed, riding him like the last stud at the sex rodeo…

  Needless to say, mistakes have been made…

  But as a chef, I turn food flops around all the time. I can turn this around, too. All I have to do is ignore the insufferably gorgeous (and generally insufferable) Cutter until he goes on tour.

  Too bad my nemesis has other plans…

  Cutter wants my help winning back the one who got away and he knows just the bait to dangle—the chance to open my own restaurant in a dream location.

  I can pull off pretending to be the devil’s devoted girlfriend in order to make my dreams come true. Right?

  But what happens when my dreams start to include the clever, funny, unexpectedly sweet man Cutter has become?

  Can a bad boy rock star and a chronically nerdy chef live happily ever after?

  Chapter One

  Theodora

  You can’t think your way into a good soufflé.

  You can read every recipe and troubleshooting tip, but mastering the perfect egg-white-whip-and-fold requires real-world experience, and there’s no way you’re nailing it the first time out.

  Soufflés are hard, and mistakes will be made.

  But if you’re paying attention, you’ll learn from your missteps and come out a better cook on the other side.

  I accept this truth as a part of life in the kitchen and do my best to be grateful for my culinary screwups. Mistakes are how we grow, and I credit my willingness to take risks and learn from where I’ve gone wrong as the reason I’ll soon be the youngest head chef in Claudio’s fifty-year history.

  Yes, I’ve worked my butt off for this promotion, but without the lessons learned at the School of Food Flops, I wouldn’t be where I am today.

  Where I am today…

  The words float through my sleep-fuzzy thoughts, and a prickle of foreboding scales my spine on tiny spider feet.

  I don’t want to think about where I am today. My subconscious lunges for my brain, wrapping its arms around the spongy organ, trying to drag it back down into the safety of sleep.

  But sleep is long gone, and my brain has sprung into action, lobbing memories from last night my way like fastballs that hit right in the gut.

  And the pride.

  And the self-respect.

  Oh, sweet baby corn, what have I done?

  “No, no, no,” I whisper, squeezing my eyes shut tight as I burrow deeper into the covers. But the covers are scratchy cotton, not the cozy flannel I dress my bed in all year round, and they don’t smell like honeysuckle dryer sheets.

  They smell like man.

  Like spice and sweat and…banging. Hot, sweaty, wild, multi-orgasmic banging that makes it abundantly obvious last night was no dream.

  I really got drunk, went home with Cutter Comstock, and rode him like I was a rhinestone cowgirl and his mouth was the last rodeo left on earth.

  Memories flood my conscious mind—Cutter’s big hands on my breasts, teasing my nipples as his tongue told my clit everything she’d always wanted to hear. And then the part where my stupid mouth kept shouting things like “Yes! The best. You’re the best. Oh my God, oh my God!”

  My skin shrivels with embarrassment even as my lizard brain sends a surge of heat rushing between my legs. The lizard brain is down for a repeat of last night’s idiocy, but it’s a cold-blooded reptile. A heartless, shameless thing that craves satisfaction at any cost.

  But the cost in this situation is way too high.

  Not only is Cutter a man whore with a booty call in every city—and probably a bad case of crotch cooties waiting to happen—he’s my childhood nemesis.

  It doesn’t matter that we called a truce years ago or that we’ve both grown up and moved on from our teenage feud, he’s still the guy who made me feel like a scrawny loser every day of my freshman year of high school. The guy who ignored me, called me a bitch, and then ignored me some more, not even granting me the dignity of knowing I irritated him as much as he irritated me. I spent many an angsty, hormone-fueled night wishing Cutter’s perfect unicorn-person face would break out in oozing revenge acne, and that’s not a thing a girl forgets.

  And that guy isn’t someone who deserves to see me out of my mind with pleasure, heaping praise on him while I come my brains out.

  But he did.

  And I did.

  Boy, I really, really did.

  I’d been too high on happy hormones to remember every moment clearly, but I know he made me feel delicious things I’ve never felt before, and I wasn’t shy about sharing the good news. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was still whispering “the best, the very, very best,” between promises to rock his world as soon as the room stopped spinning, when I drifted off to sleep in his arms.

  Maybe that should make me feel better—at least Cutter didn’t get an orgasm along with bragging rights—but it only adds to my embarrassment.

  I’m a generous person. I like to make my man feel good. The fact that I failed to deliver with Cutter stings, even though he’s not my man, or even my friend, and he should have known better than to ask me to come back to his house in t
he first place.

  He knew I was drunk.

  But he was drunk, too. And if I’m being honest, I can’t say I was out of my right mind—at least not because of those three glasses of white wine.

  It was his kiss that undid me, that slow, seductive kiss that woke my dormant sex drive from hibernation. And she woke up starving, so ravenous for D that she didn’t care that the D in question was attached to a bad guy.

  Because Cutter is still a bad guy.

  That hasn’t changed.

  Sure, he might be nicer in social situations, but he still regularly gets arrested for doing stupid rock star things, screws around like it’s his job, and thinks anyone who believes in love is a dummy of the highest order.

  He’s never going to settle down and care about someone—even if he did, the two of us would be a match made in hell—and I’m never going to be okay with being some guy’s booty call when he’s in town.

  Assuming Cutter hopes for a repeat of last night and doesn’t regret it as much as I do…

  The thought triggers a fresh wave of shame. Yes, it’s mortifying to be a notch on Cutter’s bedpost. But it would be even more mortifying to be the chick he regrets dragging home from the bar, a bad lay he’ll groan about to his friends when the band goes on tour in a few weeks.

  And even though the rational part of me knows he wouldn’t do that—I’m close with the other guys in the band, especially Zack, who would punch Cutter in the nuts if he dared to talk about me that way—the shame monster growing inside me still gains fuel from the thought. As I slit my eyes, glancing around the room to find no sign of Cutter in the large loft space, the monster swells bigger and stronger, drowning out the voice of common sense.

  By the time I drag myself out of bed, shielding my breasts with one hand and my (thankfully!) recently waxed fuzzy bits with the other, I’m so embarrassed all I can think about is giving Cutter a piece of my mind.

  A big, angry piece.

  Some people run and hide when they’re ashamed. Some people fall to pieces. I lash out like a cornered honey badger, determined to hurt the person who made me feel like crap before they can make me feel like crap again.

  If given the choice between fight or flight, I’ll fight almost every time.

  As a woman in an industry dominated by men—not a single female chef made the world’s top chefs list as a solo operation last year—I’ve had to fight to be taken seriously. As a junior chef, I fought to have my recipes included in the seasonal menus at Claudio’s. Now, I fight for inclusion in food festivals that only accept twenty percent of female applicants versus eighty percent of males. I fight for the respect of the men who work under me, many of whom have made it clear they don’t enjoy taking orders from someone without a penis.

  So when I fail to find my clothes on the floor and end up wrapping myself in a sheet before heading down the circular staircase to the second floor, toward the sound of the shower running at the end of the hall, I’m spoiling for a fight.

  How dare Cutter roll out of bed without waking me up and telling me where he was going?

  How dare he take my clothes with him?

  How dare he be so chill about the morning after that he’s taking a shower and going about his business like it’s any other day, and he didn’t just see a person he’s known since childhood naked for the first time?

  I’m being ridiculous.

  A part of me knows it, but the rest of me doesn’t care. The rest of me is wounded and ashamed and coming out of her cave with her claws flashing.

  I don’t even bother knocking on the bathroom door. I simply storm into the steamy space, slam the door behind me, and reach for the shower curtain, a verbal arrow drawn and ready on my tongue. “Where the hell are my clothes, asshole?” I jerk the curtain open with a frown that transforms into a horrified shriek as I reveal a man who is not Cutter.

  This man is older and grayer, and the shocked blue eyes he turns my way are not Cutter’s glittering green. This man is Cutter’s dad, a man I have met only twice, but who I have now seen completely bleeping naked, furry bare buns and all.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” I scramble backward, continuing to apologize profusely as I try to draw the curtain closed. But the rungs are stuck, and I’m clumsy in my makeshift toga, and before I know what’s happening, I trip on the sheet and go down hard.

  I tumble over the toilet, losing my grip on the fabric as I roll heels-over-head to land in a naked tangle on the floor.

  All while my inner voice helpfully screams—Oh my God, we’re naked! We’re naked in front of Cutter’s dad who is also naked! Oh my God! Oh my God!—making such a ruckus I can’t think straight. I’m so panicked that as I stagger to my feet and make a run for safety, I leave my sheet behind on the floor of the bathroom.

  When I slam the door behind me with one last shouted apology, I’m as naked as the day I was born. I realize I’ve made a terrible mistake, and then I hear male laughter coming from the top of the stairs, and my mortification is complete.

  “You should see your face,” Cutter chokes out as I glance over my shoulder. He’s losing his shit so completely that he’s had to brace a hand on the wall to remain upright. “Jesus Christ, I haven’t laughed this hard since Shep accidentally set his balls on fire in tenth grade.”

  Covering my nakedness as best I can and cringing so hard inside I’m pretty sure my stomach is never coming out from behind my ribs, I spin and scoot toward the stairs, hissing, “Just give me my clothes. Please!”

  Cutter sucks in a breath, maybe trying to control himself, but he’s still laughing when he says, “They’re in the dryer. They were still soaked from the rain, so I threw them in to dry while I made you breakfast.”

  “I don’t want breakfast. I want not to be naked,” I snap, even as a stupid part of me gets excited that he’s being nice instead of mean.

  But the stupid part of me is stupid. People are supposed to be nice. Cutter doesn’t get extra credit for being a decent human being.

  And even if he deserved credit for being thoughtful with regard to my damp clothing, he undoes that good deed by continuing to laugh at me while I’m naked and vulnerable.

  “Please,” I beg, hating the way my voice cracks in the middle of the word. “I have to be gone before your dad gets out of the shower. Quit laughing and help me?”

  Cutter snorts as he rolls his eyes. “Please. Don’t worry about it. My dad couldn’t give less of a shit. He’s always walking around here naked. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen his balls more than I’ve seen my own. He’s not shy.”

  “Well, I am.” Tears sting my eyes no matter how hard I try to fight them. “And I’m dying of embarrassment right now, okay? So either help me find something to wear or go away so I can run back to your room and borrow a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt without you watching my butt jiggle as I climb the stairs.”

  “Hey, relax,” he says, the grin fading from his handsome face. “I’ll go check on your clothes right now, but it’s seriously not a big deal. My dad will be cool, and I’ve already seen your ass.” He shrugs. “Even if I hadn’t, you don’t have anything I haven’t seen before.”

  “It is something you’ve never seen before because it’s mine,” I sputter. “Or it was. Before I was stupid enough to go home with a jerk I can’t stand.”

  Cutter’s golden brows creep higher on his forehead. “Seems like you were standing me just fine last night.”

  “Last night was a mistake.”

  His green eyes harden. “Why? You had a good time. I had a good time. I don’t see what you’re so upset about.”

  “I was drunk,” I say, feeling more exposed with every passing second. “If I hadn’t been, I would never have done…any of that. I don’t like you in that way.”

  Cutter’s lips stretch into another smile, but this one doesn’t reach his eyes. “Aw. Well, shit, that’s a shame, Squirt. I was thinking we could get married and have some babies. Live happily ever after. The whole nine yards. You’
ve really crushed my fucking dreams.”

  I exhale. “I know you don’t like me in that way, either. I just meant that—”

  “I know what you meant,” he cuts in. “You forgot that you think you’re morally superior to people like me for a few hours. But now that you’ve gotten off and sobered up, you’ve come back to your senses.”

  “I don’t think I’m morally—”

  “Of course you do, sweetheart. You’ve been looking down your nose at me since that night on the beach.” He climbs the last two steps, bringing us onto even ground. “Remember that night? When you told me you wouldn’t fuck me if I were the last man on earth?” He eases closer until only a few inches separate us, and my heart begins to race faster in my throat.

  I’m actively willing the floor to open up and swallow me whole as he adds in a softer voice, “Well, looks like that was a promise you couldn’t keep, princess. And don’t even try to pretend you didn’t enjoy yourself.” He leans in, whispering his next words into the tangled curls near my ear. “You were so wet, I woke up with the taste of you still all over my tongue this morning.”

  My throat locks tight, and my cheeks catch fire, all the blood in my body rushing to my face so fast it leaves me shivering.

  “But tell yourself whatever you need to tell yourself to keep thinking you’ve got shit all figured out.” He steps back, reaching for the bottom of his shirt and drawing it up and over his head, revealing his perfectly muscled chest and the lightly furred abs I’m pretty sure I licked at some point last night. “Here. Wear this.” He thrusts the body-warmed tee into my hands. “I’ll get your clothes and put them in the downstairs bathroom. If you hurry, you can be out of here before I finish frying the bacon. If you’ve made me burn it, I’m going to be pissed. I’ve been looking forward to some fucking bacon.”