Lush & Lovely (Big & Beautiful Book 2) Read online

  “Yes, you will. Ooh, here they are now.”

  Xander’s eyes never left Mandy’s and I knew it wouldn’t be long before he proposed. Aidan winked at me as he stepped closer, reading my mind like he’d been doing for years.

  “Are we interrupting your evening, ladies?” Aidan asked.

  “Not at all. We were toasting to the new bride,” Lexi told him. Aidan pulled me up and gave me a toe curling kiss in front of everyone. Catcalls and cheers erupted behind me as Aidan bent me backward to deepen our kiss. When he finally let me up he stole my chair then pulled me down on his lap. He looked at the plate in front of me, with one cupcake left. The same cupcake he fed me months ago the first night we went out.

  Aidan raised an eyebrow at me, his eyes darkening, and pulled me close. “We’re taking that home, wife. And I’m going to have fun devouring it, after I cover your body with the frosting.”

  He licked my throat and nipped my ear, sending jolts of pleasure through my body.

  Xander raised a cup and toasted to us again, echoing Mandy’s words of happiness. We all took another drink and I looked around the table at my friends and husband. “Xander has some great ideas for the house. And it looks like we can have everything finished in about six weeks.”

  “That sounds great. We can have the party after that.”

  “Yep, September 27, everyone block your schedules. It’ll be our wedding reception and house warming party. We expect you all to be there. Oh, and Charlie, we’ll need a few hundred cupcakes. Sam, hopefully you can take some pictures for us.”

  “Of course,” they both answered.

  We all talked about house plans and reception plans and about the rest of summer. After a while everyone started to leave. Aidan and I stood up with Xander and Mandy and walked out together, with the last cupcake.

  We said goodbye to our friends and turned toward our apartment. “Come on, wife, I’m taking you home and I’m going to make love to you.”

  I smiled. Life didn’t get any better than that.

  Epilogue

  Lexi

  “To Claire and Aidan,” chorused around me. I raised my glass and toasted the couple. Claire and Aidan were celebrating their wedding and new house and everyone had turned out to congratulate them.

  I was happy for them. Even though I’d barely known Claire when they got married, I really liked her. Aidan seemed good for her, too. He brought her out of her shell and helped her heal, something it was clear she hadn’t been able to do before Aidan.

  I sipped my glass of champagne wishing I had a beer instead. There was beer somewhere, but they passed out champagne for the toasts. Mandy spoke, then Claire’s dad, then Aidan’s dad. It was sweet.

  Getting to know Claire over the last few months I realized how important it was to them that their parents were there and happy. Claire worked harder than just about anyone I knew, and Aidan was right behind her. She’d managed to get her program off the ground in time for the school year and had brought it to Addi’s school first. Never Alone kicked off with a huge response from the teachers and parents. The students Claire first spoke to accepted her message and Addi said there were a few students who stepped forward to help others after they heard Claire speak.

  Never Alone was turning out to be a huge success. Right along with their marriage and new house.

  Xander and Aidan worked on the new house and made it into something truly spectacular. Once the toasts died down, I wandered the house with a beer. The kitchen was completely gutted and replaced with new cabinets, counters, and appliances. The original hardwood floors stretched throughout the entire house, complimenting the cabinets and connecting the entire space.

  A huge couch filled the living room, one I wanted to stretch out on. I smiled to myself thinking of Claire and Aidan christening the couch. I hoped they had. I kept wandering, passing Claire’s home office, a storage room, a guest bedroom, and finally ended up in Claire and Aidan’s bedroom.

  I looked quickly, not wanting to invade their privacy. A king sized bed dominated the room with matching dressers and nightstands. A large picture of Aidan on bended knee in front of the Grand Canyon hung on one side of the room and another large print of their wedding on the other side. It was clearly a place they shared a lot of love.

  Love.

  It was a foreign word to me. A word I barely heard, except when one of my parents wanted something. The product of a divorce, I got passed back and forth and manipulated by both my parents. Love wasn’t something I knew well.

  I think that was why I responded to Claire when she and Aidan were first dating. I felt like I’d met someone who felt the same way I did about love.

  In the end though, I’m glad Claire wasn’t like me. I’m glad she was able to open her heart and accept love. I didn’t want anyone else to suffer my same fate. Love seemed like it would be something wonderful. The people I knew who claimed they were in love were usually happy, and when they weren’t they had someone to share their sorrow with.

  Not me though. I was alone.

  Well, not entirely. I had my new friends. I had Charlie. When I needed him, I had Mike, too.

  “Where’s Mike tonight?” Charlie asked, interrupting my thoughts when she found me in Claire and Aidan’s room.

  I flashed her an embarrassed look, but Charlie just shrugged. It didn’t faze her that I was in the bedroom.

  “He’s home, I guess. I’m not really sure.”

  Mike was my friend with benefits. We’d been together for a long time, but our relationship was purely physical. He wasn’t my boyfriend, and I was okay with that. I actually preferred it that way. It was easier.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever understand you. I can’t sleep with a guy unless it’s more than just sex.”

  I shrugged. “It works for me.”

  Charlie and I had known each other for years. She knew about my parents, but I never told her the details about the way they’d treated me, how they’d used my love for them to hurt each other. It was my secret to bear, my issue. My past.

  “I know it does. I just worry you’re going to end up getting hurt.”

  I laughed. You had to have a heart to get hurt, but I didn’t share that with Charlie. I knew she wouldn’t believe me if I told her I didn’t have one. She was a romantic, and as sweet as her cupcakes. She couldn’t imagine I was as heartless as I knew I was. Of course it had helped me in my career to be heartless. I could go toe to toe with any man out there and not let my emotions get the best of me.

  That was how I met Mike.

  As one of my coworkers, and manager of Building X-7L, one of the production buildings at EAAC Pigments, Mike had seen me in action. He knew I was fierce and unbending. He also knew I was fiery and passionate. I lived it in my work, and he’d told me more than once that I brought that to the bedroom, too.

  That was why Mike and I worked well. We could argue at work, and we did, all the time, then work out that aggression in the bedroom. It was what we both needed. No messy emotions, no feelings, just sex. Hot, sweaty, passionate sex.

  “I promise you, I’m not going to get hurt,” I assured Charlie. She was always worried about me. The truth was, she was the one who was likely to get hurt. Charlie fell in love faster than I changed my underwear. She was deserted by her parents when she was a kid and was raised by her grandma. When her grandma died she told me she sort of fell apart. She wasn’t prepared to be alone, and she’d been searching for love ever since, only to have it slap her in the face time and again.

  I wasn’t going to live through that. I knew the truth about love. And there was no way I was going to risk it hurting me again.

  “No one will notice if we’re gone for a few minutes,” a whispered voice said outside the bedroom door. Charlie and I glanced at each other then started for the door.

  A soft giggle tugged at my core. They sounded happy. I hoped they were. It frustrated me though. To be that trusting, that carefree… Just once I’d love to feel that way. To not worr
y how badly things were going to blow up in my face. But they always did.

  “Aidan, we have guests though,” Claire’s protest ended with a soft moan, one I was sure Aidan targeted. “Well, if we can be quick,” she finally agreed.

  The door pushed open and Charlie and I were busted. “Just leaving,” we said together as we locked the door and pulled it closed behind us. I heard their laughter for a second before another moan filled the air.

  Damn. Just the sound wound me up. “I’m gonna need to call Mike when I leave here.”

  “All the happily ever after making you rethink your arrangement?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Our arrangement is good. Besides, we’re both up for that promotion. If either of us gets it we’ll have to end what we have anyway.”

  “Why?” Charlie looked baffled.

  “Whoever gets the job will be the boss. I can’t be sleeping with someone who works for me. It’d get too… complicated.” Messy. Difficult. Ugly. Take your pick, it wasn’t good. Being on even ground, we could have a physical relationship and it wasn’t a big deal. If I was Mike’s boss, or he was mine, sex would turn into a way to manipulate the other. And extra orgasm for siding with him on an issue, dinner out for giving him the better employees, more sex for more money.

  I wasn’t going there.

  So while I was hoping I would get the job, a part of me wanted things to stay as they were. Comfortable. Even.

  Too bad I couldn’t control the outcome.

  Thank You!

  Thank you so much for reading Lush & Lovely. This book was a piece of my heart. Growing up overweight, I really wanted a series where the fat woman gets the guy, so I wrote it.

  Reviews are huge for writers, especially new ones like me. I’ve love for you to leave a review of Lush & Lovely wherever you buy books. And please check out my other titles!

  Big & Beautiful series

  Chubby & Charming

  Lush & Lovely

  Shapely & Stunning (available for preorder now)

  Bulky & Beauteous (available Feb 2)

  Fat & Fine (available Feb 23)

  Plump & Pretty (available Mar 15)

  Husky & Hot (available Apr 5)

  Fluffy & Fabulous (available Apr 26)

  Paradise Park series

  Playing By The Rules (free everywhere)

  Back In The Game

  Stuck On The Sidelines

  Better In Bed series

  Wait For It

  Work For It

  Fight For It

  Love On Deck series

  In Front Of Me

  Breathing For The First Time

  Learning To Love

  Standalone Novels

  Finding Home

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  About the Author

  Mary E. Thompson grew up loving to read, like a good little girl. Many nights she would fall asleep with the flashlight still turned on as she hid under the covers trying to finish the last few pages of a book. As an adult, the light from her ereader means she doesn't need a flashlight, but she still stays up way too late to finish a book.

  When Mary's not reading she's playing with her two kids or living out her own romance novel with her hubby. She has a weakness for chocolate, especially when it's paired with peanut butter, and has been known to have a bad day just because there's no chocolate in the house.

  Mary grew up in Buffalo, NY and swears she's the only local to never ski or snowboard. Soccer was always her sport, with a couple adventures white water rafting and skydiving to keep things interesting. Mary moved to South Carolina for college but missed Buffalo every day, yeah she thinks she's crazy, too. She somehow convinced her South Carolina born and bred hubby to return to Buffalo to raise the kids and live out their lives. He’s still not sure what he was thinking.

  Table of Contents

  Lush & Lovely

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  Lexi

  Thank You!

  About the Author