Booty and the Beast Read online

  Booty and the Beast

  Sosie Frost

  Booty and the Beast

  An Ironfield Rivets Romance

  Copyright © 2019 by Sosie Frost

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  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 you’d like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Cover Design: Pink Ink Designs

  Created with Vellum

  BOOTY AND THE BEAST

  Note From Sosie: Though this is an Ironfield Rivets romance, you do not need to read the previous books in the series. Booty is a complete stand-alone with some fun cameos along the way!

  When the devastatingly gorgeous and arrogant Nick Hart seeks me out after five long years, I’d hoped he’d begin our conversation with an over-due apology, not an invitation to his bed.

  Apparently, nothing had changed about the egotistical athlete from high school—not his devilishly sculpted body or his dream of making the professional football league.

  But raw talent and endless ambition only got him so far. The one thing the unconquerable Nick Hart doesn’t have?

  Me.

  As team nutritionist for the Ironfield Rivets, I’m the one shoving tofu up picky players’ endzones and serving quinoa to pouting punters. So, when Nick asks me to risk my job and sneak him into a private team try-out, I should say no.

  But I need a favor of my own…

  With my matchmaking mother rampaging through the city, searching jail cells and corner bars for a man desperate enough to date her daughter, the only way I can focus on my career is to convince her that I’ve found the man of my dreams…who then breaks my heart. Nick’s perfect for the task—after all, he’s done it before.

  But I won’t let him do it again.

  No matter how close we get on the field.

  No matter how much he wants to score.

  No matter how deep he goes...

  But when Nick reveals the truth about the past, can I forgive him to save our future?

  Mailing List!

  Click Here To Join my Mailing List!

  I’ll email you as soon as a new book is available!

  (Usually once a month!)

  Contents

  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

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Also by Sosie Frost

  Now Available - Baby Daddy!

  About the Author

  1

  Charisma

  It was the wrong day for my mother to set me up on a blind date without my permission.

  Again.

  I checked the text messages. Fifteen today. She’d shown restraint.

  I just met a nice man.

  That was her battle cry.

  I think he’d be perfect for you.

  This was her warning.

  He owns his own company.

  This meant nothing because…

  And he says the whole drug trafficking issue is all a misunderstanding.

  There it was.

  Nothing surprised me about Mom or her matchmaking machinations anymore. Thanks to her, I’d learned two valuable lessons about life.

  First: Even if the menu claimed that the low-fat, no sugar, half-caf, gluten-free, mock-mocha cake tasted like the real thing, fake foods were like fake orgasms. They disappointed everyone.

  And second: If a man was single, under the age of forty-five, and living in Ironfield, my mother had already hunted him, presented my picture, and offered a copy of my W-2 in order to secure me a husband.

  Which was why I refused to answer the texts. Lord knew she’d scrounge up another suitor within the hour.

  So, I shut off my phone.

  Avoided my home.

  And decided to drink.

  I trusted only one place on days like today—and since the Witness Protection Program offered no packages for women seeking asylum from overbearing mothers—The Big O was my little slice of Heaven masquerading as a cheap spot in Hell…

  Also known as West Ironfield.

  Here, the buildings were old, the generation millennial, and every new brewery attempted to sell the gentrified populace a microbrew IPA so goddamned bitter we were better off shoving hops straight down our throats and jumping around to stir up some bubbles.

  The Big O acted as the lynchpin for the newer, more modern Ironfield. Neon lights guided thirsty travelers away from the garish cotton candy pink walls of the neighboring Barlow’s Good L’Oven bakery for something a little less refined.

  I took the stairs to the below-street entrance, ducked inside, and juked around the game of darts and pool to saddle up at my usual bar stool. The cherry wood bar always cradled my head on rough days, and I gave my forehead a gentle pound as I ordered something hard.

  “I need a shot of wheatgrass juice,” I said.

  Marybeth, my longtime friend and purveyor of liquid health, removed the towel draped over her shoulder. She folded it under my forehead as a cushion. That sort of service always earned an extra-tip.

  “Rough day?” Marybeth asked.

  “Leave the pulp.”

  “Damn.” She whistled between two fingers and called to the man at the jukebox. “We’re gonna need something Lizzo, stat.”

  My friend sprung into action, diving behind the juice bar for a planter’s box of green-as-envy wheatgrass. She snipped the blades from the dirt, gave them a quick wash, and began the blending.

  At least she understood me. Marybeth might’ve been the only person I knew who lived her life cleaner than me—no added preservatives, products, chemicals, or flavor. She’d even dyed her hair with Kool-Aid. Vegan, yes. Pink? That had lasted about a day. Now her hair looked so Salmon orange she avoided the river for fear of an urge to spawn.

  Today was day three of Operation Bandana, even though I’d sworn her color didn’t look that fishy.

  “Come on…” Marybeth boinged her fingers off of my ebony curls. “Spill. What happened?”

  “The usual.”

  “The team is a mess? Mom is on a rampage?”

  “Bingo.”

  “What’s the game plan?”

  A plan? Ha. I remembered those.

  At least the team had it easy. Someone had taken the time to organize their lives into offense, defense, and special teams. The guys had laminated pages full of answers to life’s difficult questions. Go for it or punt. Hit ‘em hard or play for protection.

  Whatever they wanted to do, they could find it i
n that binder with contingencies and fail-safes and disaster preparedness plans…

  “I’m thinking of tailgating tonight,” I said.

  “You’re going back to the practice facility?” She checked the ticking Minnie Mouse watch on her wrist. “It’s eight o’clock.”

  “I don’t mind working late. Besides, Mom knows where I live, and that means she’s already slipped every single man in Ironfield the address.”

  Marybeth offered me a little umbrella meant for the fancy drinks. Always could count on her to cheer me up. I tickled the umbrella with my dark fingers. At least the French tip manicure had lasted through the day. I’d take any small blessing I could get.

  “Ever think she’s just trying to help?” Marybeth asked.

  “Sure, when she was still paying for the cost of my imaginary wedding. But now that she’s making dowries out of goats and pottery? One day it won’t be matchmaking. It’ll be an auction.”

  “I’ll put in a good bid so you don’t go embarrassingly cheap.”

  “I can always count on you.”

  “You know she has your best interests at heart though.”

  I’d heard that before. In fact, the police included it in their report when I’d filed the restraining order against the nice guy with the twitch Mom had found for me.

  “You remember the eHarmony page she made for me?” I asked.

  Marybeth was never good at hiding her laugh. “It wasn’t a bad picture…but a pewter bridesmaid dress wouldn’t look good on anyone.”

  “And the church picnic?”

  “I’m sure she didn’t know the minister was married when she gave you his number.” She hesitated. “And that kurfluffle wasn’t why his wife wanted a divorce. He would’ve sent his nudes to anyone.”

  “Yeah? What about the date with Rodger Bernard?”

  “How was she supposed to remember he was your cousin? You have a million of them.”

  Marybeth presented me with a shot glass filled to the brim with green foaming liquid that smelled like freshly cut grass and tasted worse. I saluted her and forced the bitter liquid down my throat with promises to my rebelling stomach that the shot came loaded with vitamins and minerals and all sorts of healthy benefits that would counteract a day of pure, unrelenting stress.

  I hissed as I overturned the glass onto the bar. It struck the wood with a satisfying clink.

  “Could you make me my usual to-go?” I cleared the weeds out of my throat. “I’ve got a couple more hours of reading to do at my office.”

  Marybeth had already gathered the ingredients for my smoothie. Either she was on-the-ball, or I spent way too much time between The Big O and the practice facility. Probably both. Something about the low lighting, good music, and dependable supply of acai berries made this place feel more like home than my own place.

  “Maybe your mom wants to find you a husband so you don’t work so much?” Marybeth asked.

  They both knew me better than that.

  “I’m married to my job,” I said. “…And the fifty-three men on the Ironfield Rivets.”

  She ripped a stalk of celery from the bundle and innocently glanced my way. “Do they remember your name yet?”

  Leave it to Marybeth to know just where to plunge the knife.

  The answer was no, but it’d only been three years. I couldn’t expect miracles. One of these days I’d earn their trust.

  “They’re learning,” I said. “Currently, they’re calling me The Psycho With The Veggies.”

  “That’s better than what they’ve been calling you. Booty, right?”

  At least that was a well-deserved, hard-earned, squat-built nickname. “I guess.”

  “It is a compliment. Maybe the key to getting them to like you is to

  …use that booty once in a while?”

  “You’ve gotta be kidding.” I nearly stripped the pink polka-dotted tissue paper off my teeny umbrella. “I will never, ever date a football player.”

  Marybeth groaned into her blender. “Why the hell not?”

  “Because this might be the greatest career in the world for me, but every job comes with its ups, downs, and insufferable, asshole athletes who run around the field like a pack of ravenous, vegetable-hating toddlers.”

  Marybeth pouted. “You promised you wouldn’t go to war with the Rivets this offseason.”

  “We’re not at war.” Yet. Though I’d come close to shoving a fork full of arugula down a certain playboy quarterback’s throat. “Today, I asked them to eat a little grilled tuna on a bed of salad greens with a light vinaigrette. They took it to mean tuck a napkin in your pads and head out to the endzone with a knife and fork to graze.”

  “They are professionals. They know their bodies.”

  “I’m a professional too. And, as their nutritionist, I think I know their bodies just a bit better.” I nearly thunked my head off the bar again. “Today was a disaster.”

  “Worse than yesterday?”

  “Much worse.” I sighed. “I started the day in the locker room.”

  “Oh la la.”

  “Where I stepped in a puddle of unidentified fluid.”

  She crinkled her nose. “Ew.”

  Wasn’t the first time. “Maybe it was Gatorade…maybe it was a multi-millionaire’s pee. The Rivets like to play that game—but nobody wins. Certainly not the team nutritionist who is desperately hoping it was a sports drink and that one of the offensive linemen isn’t having kidney issues.”

  “Yikes.”

  “So I decided I’d head to the cafeteria and check on my secret weapon for the season.”

  “The kimchi?”

  Oh, that damned kimchi. I mimed an explosion with my hands.

  “A week’s worth of work,” I said. “Poof. Gone in an instant.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “My shoes were still wet when I hit the linoleum. I dropped it all.”

  “All of it?”

  “Ten pounds of week long, super fermented kimchi made specifically with a weaponized amount of garlic, baby shrimp, a bottle of fish sauce, and enough red pepper flakes to mace the team sitting down for breakfast.”

  Marybeth covered her mouth. “You’re kidding.”

  “Also, it was pee on my shoes.”

  “Oh, no.”

  “Kimchi on the floor. The walls. The ceilings. My hair.” I ran my fingers through the curls, hoping I wouldn’t tug out yet another piece of cabbage or daikon radish. “Nothing masks that smell. I plugged in three cinnamon Glade air fresheners, but that only turned the cafeteria into a biohazard. The guys actually ate in the locker room.”

  “With the pee?”

  “With the pee.” Bad day to serve asparagus. “Coach Sawyer banished me to my office for the rest of the day and said he’d can my ass if I ever said Lactobacillus again.”

  “He knew the word Lactobacillus?”

  “Of course…” I shrugged. “I explained all about kimchi’s health benefits. And, if I hadn’t spilled the jar all over the offensive line, they would have eaten it. I’m not bad at my job, I’m just…unlucky.”

  “Oh yeah…” Marybeth rolled her eyes. “So unlucky. It’s gotta be tough working in such proximity to hunky, gorgeous, half-naked millionaire athletes all day every day.”

  She had no idea. “You want them? You can have them. I’m wondering if it’s possible for a nutritionist to get traded like a defensive end.”

  “What’s wrong? Didn’t see enough washboard abs today?”

  “Actually…” She’d forever hate me for this job. “Yeah. A lot of the guys put on weight this off-season, but they’re refusing my help. I’ve gotta get them in shape before training camp starts, or Coach Sawyer is gonna serve me for lunch.”

  The blender muffled Marybeth’s giggle. “Most women would kill to get eaten by a Rivet.”

  “Let them try.” I traced a gouge in the otherwise pristine bar. “I’d love to be the one who gets stuck in their molars.”

  “So grumpy. I know what you can
do to feel better.”

  “Not the towels—”

  “You just grab a corner of a towel, give it a yank, and enjoy the chaos. Come on, Charisma. You have a front-row seat to the greatest show in Ironfield—Jack Carson’s ass.” She added a chunk of kale to the blender but hesitated before turning it on. “Or maybe you should go after Lachlan Reed…”

  “I’m not gonna sexually harass our star quarterback or tight end.”

  “Harass hell. I’m talking full-on molest.”

  “All I want is for them to trust me.” A mis-thrown dart landed at my feet, far from the board. I plucked it off the ground, aimed, and fired. I’d spent enough time at The Big O to simply shrug as I scored sixty with a triple on the twenty. “The guys live and breathe protein, and they’d pluck every damn chicken in the city after a practice. But ask a linebacker to sprinkle a little spirulina in their smoothie, and the entire defense loses their minds.”

  Marybeth returned with my smoothie. “Maybe the team doesn’t like those new, healthy super foods because they haven’t had it prepared right…” She folded her hands in prayer. “But if you could get some of the Rivets to come down to the bar, they could drink some algae, and I’m sure it’d drum up some business…”

  “Yeah, right.” I tapped the logo on the side of the cup. “The last time I tried to get them to come to The Big O, they thought it was a strip club. You’d have more luck if the O meant something other than Organic.”

  “What’s more orgasmic than organic food?”