Becoming A Vincent (The Wild Ones Book 1)(32)

He cocks his head like he's studying me.

"And you're just dancing because … "

My eyebrows go up. "I like dancing. Besides, if I had stayed over there, something terrible would have happened."

He waits expectantly, and I grin at him.

"What?" he finally asks, taking the bait.

"You would have just kept smirking at me and delivering veiled insults."

His smile spreads for the first time. A real, genuine smile.

I'm human, and I'm capable and crass enough to admit that smile of his  is like a live wire straight to my clit. Not that I'd ever tell him  that.

"That would be terrible, I suppose," he says, stepping closer.

"Very," I agree, wondering if I'm crossing into flirty territory when he tucks another curl behind my ear.

I might even shiver a little when his fingers brush my cheek during the  motion. This guy smells as good as he looks. And it's been … six months?  At least six months since the last time I found someone to scratch an  itch with.

"You really sure you can skydive? Because tomorrow is no joke," he says seriously.

My lips twitch.

"You skydive often?" I ask, vaguely aware we're just standing in the middle of a bunch of people dancing.

"Not too often anymore, but still on occasion. I like the rush it gives me."                       
       
           



       

"I'm well-acquainted with adrenaline rushes," I say with a shrug.

He gives me a dubious look that tells me he doesn't believe me, but I hold my secretive smile in place, not elaborating.

"You're a confusing little specimen, Kylie Malone," he says. I'm not sure why my name sounds so good coming off his lips.

I blame it on all the beards I've endured for too long. Our town stopped  fornicating when the beards got long enough to hide baby birds in them.  The whole nest and momma bird too, in some cases.

"I'm actually simple. We all are." I smile again.

"Simple? We? Who's we?" he muses.

"My family. Friends. Everyone back home."

"On the ranch?" he asks, but this time his tone is light and teasing instead of insulting.

"Back at the lake. No ranching."

"They wear cowboy boots on the lake?"

"I wear them."

He tugs one of my curls, and I allow him to keep invading my space. His  foot is touching mine, but it's not offending my boot yet. If he scuffs a  boot, I really will kick his ass. Then kick it some more.

"What were you showcasing at the gallery?" he asks, not bothered by the  bodies bumping into us as they dance around our unmoving ones.

"Several pieces, actually. Why? Did you come peruse the massive showing?"

He cocks his head, his own secretive smile etching up. "I own the gallery."

Well, damn.

My eyebrows go up, and he smiles cockier. He's proud of his money and prestige, I guess.

I grab the sides of his face, and his smile dies as I tug his face down.  He acts like he's about to struggle when I narrow my eyes and make a  show of looking him over.

"Funny. I was thinking you to be more of the model type. Perfect symmetry."

His eyebrows go up again, and he stares at me like he thinks I'm crazy,  while I keep his face smashed between my hands, giving his lips a bit of  a fish pucker effect.

"You truly are a beautiful man," I say on a long sigh as I release the sides of his face.

"Beautiful?" he asks, laughing lightly.

"Yes. A beautiful … prick."

I pat the side of his cheek, and all the humor in his expression disappears.

"See you tomorrow, Pretty Boy," I say over my shoulder as I sashay away  in my awesome boots. "See you guys bright and early," I say cheerily to  the table of artists.

"You okay to walk back to your place alone?" Rudy asks so helpfully.

I wink at him. "Don't worry. I'll give someone hell if they fuck with me."

I grab my purse, and Liam is suddenly back at the table.

"Someone should walk you back to your hotel," Liam says firmly.

My smile creeps up, and I peer over at him. "I'm not at a hotel. I'm  staying with a family friend. And don't worry," I tell him as I walk  away. Without turning around, I loudly add, "I'm a Wild One."





Note from the author:





Thank you so much for reading the first book of the Wild Ones. This was a  side project I wanted to do because I needed something light and fun to  break up the more serious or darker books I'd been writing.

My heart needed a break.

Even my romantic comedies have some heavy subject matters at times. I  just wanted something carefree, maybe even a little silly, with low  intensity so you don't have your stomach in knots, your heart ripped  out, or your soul stained for all eternity or whatever. ;) Nothing too  deep or heavy.

With so many intense reads, sometimes you just need a fun book to reset  yourself and break them up. I needed to write this to refresh myself,  and this is my fun, simple, somewhat crazy series that makes me smile.

I really hope it makes you smile too, because there are several more Wild Ones to come, if all goes according to plan.

Kylie Malone's story is next, since Becoming A Vincent leads you into  that with Liam's tale of why he moved to Tomahawk, land of the beardless  ex beards. (Don't worry. Most still have beards, but they're just kept  neat instead of collecting trays of food now.) It'll start in the past  to show you how they initially met, then fast forward to the present  where they finally meet again.

After hers, the plan (which could change, based on how the writing  process goes) is to release Kai Wilder. Finally getting some of those  Wild Men.

Anyway, thank you for giving this one a chance, even if it wasn't for  you. I'd love to see your reviews, and they always help a book get  noticed by others the more reviews an author collects-good or bad.

Now, to tell you just a little about the Wild Ones-a lot of the crazy  came from my real life. I wanted wilderness, funny, crazy, outrageous,  little civilization, and a very small /backwoods town. Welcome to  Tomahawk. ;)                       
       
           



       

Nothing about this series is going to be mature. This is completely wild and outlandish, which is its intent.

By now, if you've followed me, you realize I'm not exactly normal.

Though we're a family of bullshitters and fish tales, we also had tons  of real stories to share with people that no one ever believed … until  they saw it. And then they either loved us or hated us.

My father liked to shoot a Coke can (never Pepsi) out of my uncle's hand  just to prove he was a good shot, and my uncle always went along. He  still has both hands. They got dynamite one time-fish really do float to  the top if they were near (but not actually inside) the blast, or at  least they did that week.

Don't worry-the fish got eaten and there wasn't that many since this was a pond and not a lake. ;)

We got a really dirt cheap four-wheeler (yes, I realize not everyone  calls them this), and the plastic upper frame was held to the actual  mechanical part (how's that awesome terminology for you?) with bungie  cords. No joke.

I crashed it into the deep end of the pond, had to use a backhoe and  logging chain to get it out, and pretend I had no idea why it was tore  up when my dad got home.

Half of my dad's backyard is full of buried broken things, since we  couldn't hide broken shit in the trash. He always carried the trash to  work because he was too cheap for trash service-this is still a funny  point of conversation with my family. Anyway, if you broke something,  you buried it, because we had so many knickknacks that no one noticed  something missing. Fortunately.

Unless it was a really expensive dolphin figurine … that always sucked.  Prepare to do the grossest shit imaginable-clean porta potties type of  gross-in order to pay back the money for a damn expensive glass dolphin.  Punishments could be creative when my dad was in a funny-guy mood.

I'm getting off track.

That's just one tip of the iceberg there. I'll share a little more with  you as the series goes on, if you want. I'll also be using a lot of that  in these books.

Bottom line, what you may find crazy might have been something I pulled  from my actual life. Or an exaggerated version of it. Hopefully that  makes it a little more fun to read when you're guessing if it really  happened or not. And the books, of course, will only get crazier.

(I like to ease people into the madness so they don't see just how deep  they've gotten until it's too late and they realize they're a little  crazy too.)

I have some of the absolute best memories from my semi-reckless  childhood because of all the crazy ways we found to not be bored-days  before internet was a household commonality; before the smart phone gave  you unlimited entertainment at your fingertips (which means you had to  be creative or stay hella bored); and before social media could forever  document the photos of stupid things you'd probably like no one else to  ever know about.