Twirled Bond (Holly Woods Files, #5) Read Free

love you, but it’s way more fun watching it happen to someone else. This time, it’s your turn.”
    “You really shouldn’t eat more of those cookies,” Brody points out. “They’re going straight to your hips.”
    I stare at him. “I’m going to mix baby powder with water, tip it into a condom, then put it in Nonna’s bed and tell her you had sex in it.”
    Drake raises his eyebrows. “Like she needs another reason to hate the bed.”
    “I don’t care about the bed. I just need other methods of pissing this asshole”—I point at Brody—“off, because I can’t keep kicking your balls instead of his. I need yours. I couldn’t give a shit about his.”
    “Aaaand I’m out.” Brody steals two more cookies out of the jar. “All gone. No more cookies for you, fatty.”
    Screw it.
    I kick him, making contact with his shin. He yells a curse and then darts out the kitchen, swearing at me the whole time. Good. I’m glad it hurt him. Next time, it really will be his balls.
    He’s my brother. It’s my job to torture him.
    “Don’t worry.” Drake gets up from the table and boxes me in against the counter. His hard, muscular body presses against mine, and he kisses my jaw. “You’re not fat.”
    “I’m not helpin’ you with Nonna’s wrath.”
    “I’m not sayin’ it for that.” He continues kissing my jaw until his lips find my neck. “I’m sayin’ it ‘cause it’s true.”
    “Drake Nash, put my daughter down.” Mom strolls in through the back door. “If you must do it, do it in your own kitchen. You share one, I believe.”
    Drake sighs heavily and releases me in time to see her walk straight through the kitchen and turn toward the stairs. “There’s no catching a break with this family, is there?”
    I reach back inside the cookie jar and grin when my fingertips connect with one final cookie. Ha! Suck on that, Brody Bond. “No.” I tear a bite off, still grinning, and shove the last of it in Drake’s mouth.
    He takes it, his eyes sparkling with laughter, and turns. “Let’s go before your mom tells me off again. I’ve had enough of the women in your family for one day.”
    “You realize I am one of the women in my family, right?” I pull the front door shut behind me.
    “Yeah,” he says, glancing over his shoulder and unlocking his truck. “But I can fuck you to shut you up. That’s why you’re my favorite.”

“D id you see that the theater is reopening this weekend?” Bek slides into my office, a cardboard holder with two mugs of coffee in one hand and a paper bag emblazoned with Rosie’s Café logo clasped in the other.
    I sniff. I smell hot pastriiiiies . “How could I not? There are fliers all over the damn place. Including through my freakin’ letterbox.” I grab a small pile that’s next to me and wave them through the air, making a flapping sound. “I can make a flip book.”
    She stares at me for a moment before she drops herself into the chair on the other side of my desk and sets the coffee and the pastries on the desk. I reach for the pastries like a starved woman and all but accost the greasy, hot, carb-filled goodies as I pull them from the bag. Bek stares at me like I’m insane, but she wisely waits until I’ve had a mouthful of coffee and a mouthful of croissant before she talks.
    “Wow. Listen to how supportive you are.” She rolls her eyes, snatching her own pastry in the bag before I steal that too.
    What? I’m hungry. No. I lie. I’m hangry.
    “I need caffeine and carbs. Lots of it.” I tear a bite off my croissant and moan as the buttery goodness explodes across my taste buds. God, it’s good. Rosie’s outdone herself this morning. “Honestly, I think it’s great. That place has been shut down for, what, like, over fifteen years?”
    “Do you remember the year it closed? We finally convinced our moms we could sit through the Nutcracker after, like, six months of trying, and then it closed right on Halloween.”
    I sigh and nod. That