Reckless With You: A Less Than Novel Read online

  Reckless With You

  A Less Than Novel

  Carrie Ann Ryan

  Contents

  Reckless With Her

  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

  Epilogue

  A Note from Carrie Ann Ryan

  About the Author

  More from Carrie Ann Ryan

  Reckless With You

  A Less Than Novel

  By: Carrie Ann Ryan

  © 2019 Carrie Ann Ryan

  ISBN: 978-1-947007-62-8

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  Cover Art by Charity Hendry

  Photograph by Wander Photography

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  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This 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 or use proper retail channels to lend a copy. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  All characters in this book are fiction and figments of the author’s imagination.

  Praise for Carrie Ann Ryan

  “Carrie Ann Ryan knows how to pull your heartstrings and make your pulse pound! Her wonderful Redwood Pack series will draw you in and keep you reading long into the night. I can’t wait to see what comes next with the new generation, the Talons. Keep them coming, Carrie Ann!” –Lara Adrian, New York Times bestselling author of CRAVE THE NIGHT

  “Carrie Ann Ryan never fails to draw readers in with passion, raw sensuality, and characters that pop off the page. Any book by Carrie Ann is an absolute treat.” – New York Times Bestselling Author J. Kenner

  "With snarky humor, sizzling love scenes, and brilliant, imaginative worldbuilding, The Dante's Circle series reads as if Carrie Ann Ryan peeked at my personal wish list!" – NYT Bestselling Author, Larissa Ione

  "Carrie Ann Ryan writes sexy shifters in a world full of passionate happily-ever-afters." – New York Times Bestselling Author Vivian Arend

  “Carrie Ann’s books are sexy with characters you can’t help but love from page one. They are heat and heart blended to perfection.” New York Times Bestselling Author Jayne Rylon

  Carrie Ann Ryan's books are wickedly funny and deliciously hot, with plenty of twists to keep you guessing. They'll keep you up all night!” USA Today Bestselling Author Cari Quinn

  "Once again, Carrie Ann Ryan knocks the Dante's Circle series out of the park. The queen of hot, sexy, enthralling paranormal romance, Carrie Ann is an author not to miss!" New York Times bestselling Author Marie Harte

  To Chelle.

  Thank you for reminding me.

  Reckless With Her

  From the NYT Bestselling Author of Breathless With Her comes a fake relationship romance that’s all too real.

  Professing her love to her best friend while wearing only her favorite panty set and coat probably wasn’t the best decision Amelia Carr has ever made. In fact, it’s perhaps the worst. But when her family becomes their overprotective selves while encroaching on her life, she makes a rash decision: her brother’s best friend will just have to be her beard. Too bad, he has no idea what he’s in for.

  Tucker Reinhard loves women, and they tend to love him even more. Despite the love, he never would have expected Amelia to come up with the plan she poses to him. He’ll go along with it, but only because he doesn’t want to see her hurt—even if that means fighting his best friend.

  In the midst of her scheme, Amelia realizes she doesn’t know Tucker as well as she thought. And neither of them are prepared for what happens when they let the façade go and see what truly lies beneath.

  Chapter 1

  Amelia

  I’m good at making mistakes. After all, I’ve had twenty-six years’ worth of learning how to make them in spectacular fashion. I’d like to say I’m good at making them with grace and dignity, but that just isn’t the case.

  I make mistakes. I make them often.

  And, sometimes, I realize those mistakes were made for a reason. So I can learn and grow from them.

  In retrospect, I can look back on them and figure out exactly what I did wrong. I can figure out what I need to do now and how I can be a better person because of it.

  I can become a better Amelia. A better Carr.

  But as I’m making the mistake?

  Sometimes, it feels like the world is crashing down around me, and I just want to fall into a hole, bury myself, and never come out.

  Sometimes, those mistakes are difficult to figure out, to realize that I’m actually making them, so I make things worse by compounding them with even more mistakes.

  But I’m human.

  So human that I know we all make bad choices. We think we’re doing the right thing, and then suddenly realize that we’re not. We screw up to the point where everything is bad, and all we want to do is die. Hide away from the world and forget that those mistakes ever happened.

  Sometimes—especially when I was younger—I didn’t want to look at those wrong choices I made. I wanted to forget them. Move past them.

  Like that time I was in school, and the teacher split up the class into rows facing each other. Three rows on the left side of the room, and three on the right.

  That meant I literally faced some of my classmates. On A days, the ones where I actually had that class, I couldn’t wear a skirt because that meant facing the rest of the class and...

  Everybody could see up your skirt.

  I had no idea why our Portuguese teacher decided to set up the room that way. Maybe because she wanted to be able to walk through the classroom as she focused on what we were doing, listening to us annunciating the words horribly.

  But it wasn’t like I could change any of it. So, I just didn’t wear skirts. Because people who had that class before me had warned me. Like they warned me not to wear a dress on days where we had geography with Mr. Clampton. He liked to put the girls in skirts up front. He was never super creepy about it, never touched, or really even looked. But it wasn’t a coincidence that the girls always sat up front.

  Mr. Clampton no longer worked at the school, thank God.

  Because it wasn’t like you actually told your parents that things were creepy. You just relayed to the next generation how things were. And it wasn’t until you realized…oh my God, that’s actually horrible!...that you took things to the next level and got him out of the school.

  But I digress. There was that one time in Portuguese class that I made a mistake. So bad that I was determined not to think about it again. I figured I’d bury it down deep in my subconscious and maybe deal with it later. When I was an adult. You know, after therapy. Because everybody on TV had therapy. So, I mean, I figured I would just deal with it then. I wasn’t going to deal with it when I was a fourteen-year-old girl.

  Because there was this kid named Lee. Lee was about my height—so a little short for a boy—but I hadn’t minded. He was sweet, kind of funny, a little mean, but I didn’t mind. Because, sometimes, he paid attention to me. And I was one of those girls.

  The ones I hated.

  I wanted someone to notice me. So this skinny boy named Le
e did this thing with his chair where he would make a circle with his body. He would lean against his legs under the chair and fold himself into a pretzel, then do circles around the desk itself.

  He did it over and over, and when the teacher wasn’t looking, everyone would try it.

  The slender girls would do it, and everyone would laugh. Some of the guys would do it.

  Though some of the more muscular guys just scoffed and said, “Hell, no.”

  I wanted to be one of the cool people. So, I tried.

  Notice, I said tried.

  I tried and got stuck.

  Imagine it. My legs are spread, and I’m face-down under the desk, my body stuck between my legs in a folded-up position.

  And everyone saw.

  Thankfully, I got myself out quickly and just waved it off, my cheeks flaming red as I said, “Yeah, oops.” It wasn’t until later that I realized it was because I had boobs. And even though I was short and still tiny, boobs got in the way of everything.

  I might love them now, but I did not love them when I was in school.

  See, that was a mistake. One that I buried and only thought of every once in a while. Usually, it was when I was anxious about something else. Or when I was about to go to bed, knowing that I needed to wake up early the next morning. That’s when I thought about all of my wrong choices.

  Because I hadn’t gone to therapy. Instead, I thought about every wrong choice and mistake right when I needed to go to sleep.

  Or when I knew that I could possibly make another one.

  Like tonight. Tonight, might be a mistake. But I hoped it wouldn’t be. I had been waiting for months for this. Years.

  Because I knew there was someone I was destined to be with.

  While I understood why I didn’t truly believe in fate and everlasting happiness and love— you really couldn’t in the house I grew up in—I did think that some things were meant to be. Was that fate?

  Or was that just a long line of decisions that didn’t turn into mistakes?

  That was what I needed to worry about.

  Because tonight, I was going to make something happen. I wasn’t going to wait any longer.

  It was all about a boy.

  Yes, a boy. One who had been sitting next to Lee in that class, who tried his best to go under the table once and made it happen. One who hadn’t laughed when I got stuck.

  Instead, he had dropped his book from his desk on purpose, forcing everyone to look at him, including the teacher.

  Everybody soon forgot about the fact that I’d gotten stuck. At least, that’s what I told myself.

  Because I didn’t really want to think about anyone talking about me behind my back. I didn’t like it now, and I sure as heck hadn’t liked it when I was a teen.

  But that boy had been my best friend. He still was.

  I actually didn’t know when Tobey and I had become best friends. I just remember waking up one day and knowing that he was my best friend.

  And the love of my life.

  I don’t really remember when I fell in love with him either.

  He’s weirdly always been there, forever a part of me.

  And I love him with every ounce of my being.

  So, yes, maybe it’s cheesy, perhaps it’s that fate thing that I told myself I couldn’t and shouldn’t believe in.

  But I loved Tobey.

  Tobey McMillan, who, oddly enough, looked a little like Tobey Maguire. At least when the actor was going through that hot stage instead of the awkward one.

  Tobey with an E. The Tobey who had always been there for me.

  I honestly didn’t remember when everything with us started. He’d just shown up one day in like middle school or something. Or was it elementary school?

  We shared a lunch in the cafeteria, mostly because I wanted half of his ham and cheese, and he wanted half of my tuna fish.

  Why my mother would even think to give me tuna fish, I didn’t know. But Tobey had loved it, and we had shared.

  After that, we shared lunches until college. I always got one thing, he got another, and we split them.

  I never wanted for anything. Never had to wonder what the other side was like because Tobey was there, and I knew he would always share with me.

  If I needed help at work, he was there. If I needed help with my math or science homework when we were younger, he was there. I’d helped him with his English and history. And we just learned together.

  We were never the type of friends that did things for each other in terms of me doing his homework for him.

  Mostly because we wanted to be able to do it ourselves, but it was still nice to know that we always had someone to rely on.

  And considering that I had three big brothers who I could also rely on, I knew I was pretty lucky.

  No, my parents hadn’t been the best, what with all the drinking, cheating, fighting, and yelling.

  But it hadn’t mattered. Not really.

  Because I had my brothers—all three of them in their big, bearded ways. And I had Tobey.

  He was sweet, caring, and sometimes a little aloof. Occasionally, he got distracted by things and forgot important details, but he always came through in the end.

  I loved him.

  We were always the will they, won’t they couple.

  I had dated others in high school and college, of course. And he had dated, as well.

  It’d always given me a little clutch of jealousy when he did, but in the end, I realized that it didn’t really matter. We could go through life and find our own paths, but in the end, I knew we would end up together.

  Because that was fate.

  Apparently, I did believe in fate. Who knew?

  My brothers thought Tobey and I were already dating. After all, we were constantly together. Always touching each other, holding one another, and sometimes even kissing. But only in that quick way, a peck on the cheek, the forehead. Maybe a brush on the lips. As if we had always been together.

  Sometimes, we acted like we were an old married couple, and that was fine by me. Because I loved him. But I was also kind of through waiting. Waiting for him to make a move, to tell me that we were ready to take that next step. He’d told me that he loved me. Like I’d said it to him.

  Sometimes, a small part of me worried that that love was just friendship—not that there was anything just about friendship.

  What we had couldn’t be altered, not in any irrevocable way. But it could be built upon. And I knew we were ready.

  So this wasn’t going to be one of those mistakes of my past. It couldn’t be. Not when it came to Tobey and me.

  But waiting for Tobey to do anything was sort of a lose-lose situation. Because the man worked on his own timetable. He had spent an extra year in college, mostly because it had taken him a while to figure out his major. And then it’d taken him another six months to really figure out what job he wanted once we graduated.

  Tobey took forever for most things. I even usually picked out our meals, and he just agreed with it, because if not, it would take forever to decide what we were going to eat. If we wanted to go out for a movie, he usually said, “you pick, Amelia.”

  Yes, Tobey was a little slow off the start. But that was fine.

  I had plenty of decisions inside for both of us. And I was quick at making them.

  Maybe that’s why I made so many mistakes in the past. But it was fine, because Tobey would be there for me, even if I made more.

  Tonight was the night. I was finally going to tell him that I truly loved him. Convince him that we were meant to be together. I was finally ready to do this thing. Waiting for Tobey to actually start this thing between us and take it to the next level? Yeah, no. I wasn’t really keen on waiting any longer.

  As it was, everyone already considered us a couple. Part of me did, as well. Not the parts that actually had sex, but every other part of me.

  We had dinner together most nights, we talked to each other or texted with each other every day. br />
  I had a key to his house, he had mine. He was always helping me with work, and I tried to help him too, but he was a computer scientist and didn’t really need my help. I worked with my hands and did more manual labor since I was a landscape architect. I sometimes needed those extra muscles.

  And while Tobey had been skinny and a little less muscle-y when he was a kid, he was nicely filled out now.

  Tobey was damn sexy. I loved my best friend.

  And I couldn’t wait to officially tell him.

  But because I was me, and I had gotten drunk one night to formulate this plan, I was going to have fun while doing it.

  Because we deserved fun.

  We had been through a lot recently, mostly thanks to two of my older brothers, so it would be nice for it just to be us. We deserved this.

  And with that thought, I looked at myself in the mirror and let out a shaky breath.

  “You are fine, Amelia,” I told myself. “You are beautiful, busty, lusty, and so ready to get this going.”

  And…I was never saying that statement again. Busty and lusty? Why don’t I just read a Penthouse magazine and get it on with myself?

  Well, considering that what I was about to do might end up as a Penthouse Letter to the Editor, I planned to have some fun with it.

  I bent down low and lifted my boobs into the cups of my lacy bra so they’d sit just right. It was a deep-plunged bra that had padding at the bottom, not to give me more of my girls—because I had plenty of those—but to lift and separate. It had this thick band below the cups that sort of made it like a corset, but not really. I called it more of a bustier, not that I actually knew what those were. I generally wore whatever bra was the comfiest.