Stripped Bare (Stripped #1)(45)

“Is that what you say to him in bed?”

I moved as if I were going to whack her one, and Allie jumped up.

“Okay, okay!” She held her arms up. “No more ribbing on Mia. She’s having a really hard time.”

“I bet she is,” Lucie snorted. “Super, super hard.”

“Lucie Mayer, I will kill you in your sleep,” I snapped, my cheeks flushed.

Damn. Why couldn’t I have nice friends? Why did they all have to be asses?

Oh, that’s right. Because they were just like me. An ass. Nobody else would have us.

“Please drop it now. I don’t want to talk about West or anything else, okay?” I let out a heavy sigh. “Let’s move on.”

“Ma’am? You’re done,” my fitter said to me. She unzipped the back of my dress.

I quickly stepped out of it and grabbed the sundress I’d thrown on before going to the airport.

“I just have one more question.” Jaz held her finger up. “Have you actually spoken to him since?”

I nodded.

“About what happened?”

I didn’t say anything.

“Mia!” Allie pulled her shirt over her head and climbed onto the mini box thing I’d just been standing on. For a virgin, the girl was shameless in her neon-pink bra and thong. “Why not?”

“What am I supposed to do? Break into the middle of a work chat and be like, ‘Hey, West, thanks for that shit-hot orgasm, by the way! You gave me the f*ck of my life’?” I slapped my hand against my forehead and slumped down the sofa. “No, Al. I can’t just do that, can I?”

“I’ve done it,” Jaz chirped up, sitting next to me while Lucie took her place.

“But that’s you, and you’re special.” I patted her knee. “I don’t need to talk about it with him, okay? I’m not insecure about my...skills...in the bedroom. I literally don’t need to thank the guy.”

We all paused as the girl buttoned Allie’s dress. Her hair might have been in a messy bun, piled on top of her head, and her makeup next to nothing, but damn. In that figure-hugging, lacy gown that elegantly flared out at her feet, I knew one thing for certain: I had the most beautiful best friend in the world.

Who currently had her finger pointed at my face.

“Don’t you dare cry, Mia O’Halloran! If you cry, I’m gonna cry. Then we’re all gonna cry, and then we’re all in trouble.”

I smiled, fighting the fond bubble of emotion back. What was it about wedding dresses, huh?

“You look gorgeous, Al. If I didn’t think Joe would put up a fight, I’d marry you myself.”

“So, you’ll marry your best friend but not discuss mind-blowing sex with a man who makes the guys in Magic Mike look like drunk amateurs?” Lucie raised her eyebrows.

I sighed and looked at her. “You just had to ruin the moment, didn’t you, Luce?”

“I was just—ow! That hurt!” She jerked away from the fitter and almost fell off the raised block. “You weren’t kidding, Mia.”

“Told you,” I muttered, sinking down the sofa and petulantly crossing my arms.

Seriously, they needed to give the sex a rest. I never should have told them.

I had no idea why I’d told them. I had known what I’d be getting myself into if I did.

I really, really needed a nap.

Alas, I knew I wouldn’t be that lucky because I still had to see my mother. That would be the biggest test of my life as I knew it. I was sure to be in for an ass-whooping for my impromptu trip to Vegas—for work or not—and questioned about who, if anyone, I would be taking to the wedding.

If only I’d had any idea what I was getting myself into, I would have skipped it all and gone back to Vegas.



I knocked three times at the door of my childhood home, narrowly avoiding an attack by a rogue rosebush branch, and pushed the door open. “Mom? Dad?”

Lark, the temperamental, pissy little feline my mom both loved to hate and hated to love, opened one eye from his perch on the side table. Sun streamed in through the glass windows that surrounded the door, right over him.

“Hey, Lark.” I scratched the top of his head with my nails, and he closed his judgmental little eye and purred loudly.

Sure, he was an uptight little shit, but I didn’t see my mom’s huge problem with him.

“Mom? Dad?” I called again. “Have you suddenly developed a desire to ignore me?”

Please say yes. Please, please, please.

“Don’t be overdramatic, Mia.” Mom walked down the stairs, drying her hands on a perfectly white, fluffy towel. “I was cleaning the toilet and had to wash my hands.”

“Hello to you too.” I shut the door behind me. “Where’s Dad?”

She leveled her steady, calculating, green-gray gaze on me and pointed one perfectly manicured finger toward the backyard. “Tinkering.”

“Ah. What’s he building this time?”

“A go-kart for the neighbor’s boy. Although, to the boy’s credit, he’s working with him on it.”

“That’s good. He might learn something.”

“Such is your father’s life mission: to teach the younger generation how to make shit things stunning. Come get some tea.”