A Little Bit Dirty, page 1
A Little Bit Dirty
Willow Winters
Contents
Also by Willow Winters
A Little Bit Dirty
Prologue
1. Brianna
2. Asher
3. Brianna
4. Asher
5. Brianna
6. Asher
7. Brianna
8. Asher
9. Brianna
10. Asher
11. Brianna
12. Asher
13. Brianna
14. Asher
15. Brianna
16. Asher
17. Asher
Epilogue
Also by Willow Winters
About Willow Winters
Copyright © 2022 by Willow Winters
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Cover Design by Lori Jackson Design
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All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Also by Willow Winters
Small Town Romance
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Tequila Rose Book 1
Autumn Night Whiskey Book 2
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Tequila Rose World Standalones
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A Little Bit Dirty
Kiss Me in this Small Town
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Contemporary Romance Standalones
Knocking Boots (A Novel)
Promise Me (A Novel)
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Tell Me To Stay (A Novella)
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Second Chance (A Novella)
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Burned Promises (A Novella)
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You Are Mine World
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You Are My Reason (You Are Mine Duet book 1)
You Are My Hope (You Are Mine Duet book 2)
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You Know I Love You
You Know I Need You
* * *
Tell Me You Want Me
* * *
Valetti Crime Family Series:
A HOT mafia series to sink your teeth into.
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Dirty Dom
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His Hostage
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Rough Touch
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Cuffed Kiss
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Bad Boy
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Those Boys Are Trouble (Valetti Crime Family Collection)
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To Be Claimed Saga
A hot tempting series of fated love, lust-filled secrets and the beginnings of an epic war.
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Wounded Kiss
Gentle Scars
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Read Willow’s sexiest and most talked about romances in the Merciless World
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This Love Hurts Trilogy
This Love Hurts
But I Need You
And I Love You the Most
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What I Would do for You (This Love Hurts Trilogy Collection)
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A Kiss to Tell (a standalone novel)
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Possessive (a standalone novel)
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Merciless Saga
Merciless
Heartless
Breathless
Endless
* * *
All He’ll Ever Be (Merciless Series Collection of all 4 novels)
* * *
Irresistible Attraction Trilogy
A Single Glance
A Single Kiss
A Single Touch
* * *
Irresistible Attraction (A Single Glance Trilogy Collection)
* * *
Hard to Love Series
Hard to Love
Desperate to Touch
Tempted to Kiss
Easy to Fall
* * *
Not My Heart to Break (Hard to Love Series Collection)
* * *
Shame on You Series
Tease Me Once
I’ll Kiss You Twice
* * *
Love the Way Series (A Merciless World Spin Off)
Kiss Me
Hold Me
Love Me
* * *
Extended epilogues to the Merciless World Novels
A Kiss To Keep (more of Sebastian and Chloe)
Seductive (more of Daniel and Addison)
Effortless (more of Carter and Aria)
Never to End (more of Seth and Laura)
* * *
Sexy, thrilling with a touch of dark Standalone Novels
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Broken (Standalone)
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Forget Me Not (Standalone novel)
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It’s Our Secret (Standalone novel)
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Collections of shorts and novellas
* * *
Don’t Let Go
A collection of stories including:
Infatuation
Desires in the Night and Keeping Secrets
Bad Boy Next Door
* * *
Kisses and Wishes
A collection of holiday stories including:
One Holiday Wish
Collared for Christmas
Stolen Mistletoe Kisses
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All I Want is a Kiss (A Holiday short)
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Highest Bidder Series:
* * *
Bought
Sold
Owned
Given
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Highest Bidder Collection (All four Highest Bidder Novels)
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Bad Boy Standalones, cowritten with Lauren Landish:
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Inked
Tempted
Mr. CEO
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Simply Irresistible (A Bad Boy Collection)
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Forsaken, (A Dark Romance cowritten with B. B. Hamel)
* * *
View Willow’s entire collection and full reading order at willowwinterswrites.com/reading-order
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Happy reading and best wishes,
Willow x
A Little Bit Dirty
From USA Today and Wall Street Journal best-selling romance author Willow Winters, comes a second-chance story with a filthy-mouthed, possessive hero, not willing to lose the love of his life again.
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I’ve got a thing for men who work with their hands.
I thought I’d learned my lesson by now. But here I am, back in the small town I grew up in, staring down the man who broke my heart years ago.
I intended to tell him off.
My plan was to flip him the bird and prove to both of us that he hadn’t ruined me.
I sure as hell wasn’t going to sleep with him.
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Until he tells me he’s sorry.
Until he gives me that smoldering look I still dream about.
Until he whispers just beneath the shell of my ear … His breath trails down my neck and he leaves an openmouthed kiss right there, in that sensitive spot.
“You have no idea how much I’ve missed you.”
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My treacherous heart wants more. More of him. More of us. But there’s a reason it didn’t work before and when you don’t learn from your past mistakes, you’re bound to repeat them.
Prologue
Asher
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Five years ago
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“I think you’re stuck now,” Robert comments with a smirk. The pull tab of the aluminum can snaps and the sound is finished off with the familiar fizz that’s a constant on the top floor of the hangar. He takes a sip of his drink and then looks back at Brianna. Motioning toward her with the cheap beer can, he laughs and says, “She’s got you tied down, and the whole town knows it.”
The smile that grows on my face is easy. My girlfriend has this quirk of knowing the moment I look at her. Doesn’t matter if we’re at school, in her backyard or in the hangar, she just knows. The second my eyes land on her, she turns around as my gaze moves from her flowing skirt, trailing up her body to her face. She stares back at me with those gorgeous green eyes of hers, a soft simper playing on her lips.
Readjusting in my seat I give her a short tip of my chin which makes her blush, and she turns back to the group of girls.
She’s sweet, shy and petite and no one would know it, but she’s damned determined. She gets what she wants and right now, she wants me. Bri peeks at me while the group laughs and there’s this look in her eyes that’s been there for a few months now. It’s a look that makes everything else fade into the background, and I swear it silences everything to the point where I can only hear my heartbeat.
A second passes and then another that slows the whole damn world down. I could get lost in her, and I think it’s the same for Bri.
“For Pete’s sake, get a room,” Renee chides and it takes me a moment to realize Robert had gotten up to give Magnolia a kiss. She’s all sorts of red and even though I notice her through all the laughter on the top floor of the hangar, I can’t keep my eyes off Bri. I play along, hollering out and joking, “We’ve got a room in the back!”
Bri never stops looking at me, and I can’t stop looking at her either. She might not like the att ention, but one day I’m going to kiss her in front of everyone in this small town too. There’s no doubt in my mind. I love her, and she’s going to be my wife.
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Present time
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I wish I could go back to that moment. Where we were only naive kids but at least knew what love was. If I could go back and get down on one knee right then and there, I would. ’Cause she would have said yes. She would have been mine and then when my world collapsed, she wouldn’t have let me push her away.
If only I’d known I was going to lose her, I’d go back and I would promise her my forever. She loved me then … I still love her now.
“Hey, you hear me?” Robert’s voice comes through the receiver of the phone and I clear my throat before telling him, “Yeah, I heard.”
Brianna came back to our small town.
“I just wanted to give you the heads-up,” he tells me as if anything at all could prepare me for this.
Brianna
Fate hates me. It wants to embarrass me, humiliate me, shame me, hurt me.
That’s the only conclusion I can come to as I slam the car door shut in frustration. Even that is done weaker than I’d like on this far too hot morning. It only closes with a dull thud and no one seems to notice that my world is crumbling.
Turning over the ignition a dozen times didn’t even give me a tick, a purr, not a thing. The keys jangle in protest as I throw them into my purse and stomp up the cobblestone street back to the bakery’s awning so I can at least be in the shade. My heels nearly slip and I struggle to keep my composure.
All I can think is now I have to see him. My heart races quicker with every passing second.
Practically falling onto the wooden bench perched on the stone walkway in between the bakery and the florist, I take in a steadying breath and attempt to find any solution that keeps me far away from Asher.
Instinctively, I dial my sister’s phone number again and it rings rings rings; all the while I glance down the street. Her children are young; I love them to death but they are a handful, so I’m not surprised if she’s busy wrangling them up. Or maybe she’s already at work. It’s nearly eight fifteen now. The shops have opened their windows, and the streets are only occupied by a few cars … the town is coming to life.
And inside I am dying.
There isn’t another mechanic around for at least two hours. My car is dead in front of Melissa’s Sweets and I’m stuck here, in a long-sleeved dress that’s already damp under the armpits. It’s autumn and beautiful in South Carolina, but not cool enough for my favorite burgundy cashmere drop waist dress. It’s my good luck dress … or at least it’s supposed to be.
Dropping my head back, I let out a frustrated groan. I could sit inside the bakery and commiserate there, but right now, I just want to be alone.
It’s my first day of work. Luckily, it’s in my mother’s realty office, so I’m not too concerned. More embarrassed than anything. I’m sure everyone knows my parents gave me the job simply because I’m their daughter. They wanted me to come home and a job is the stability I needed after going into debt studying business at college. I knew I could get ahead if I took the handout. Yet here I am, first day, and running late.
Freaking great.
The call to my sister is met with her voicemail. Just as my mother’s phone was.
I’m quick to check my texts and Renee’s last message reads: Just call him.
“Him,” as in, Asher.
Renee’s a good friend, and honestly I’m surprised she’s even awake. She’s a bartender and the last of my contacts I texted … simply because I thought she’d be sound asleep.
I text back in a flurry: Isn’t there anyone else?
Her answer is immediate: It’s a small town. You know that.
The response strikes me like a blow to the heart and I know exactly why. It’s me, not her.
For the longest time after we broke up, that’s what I told myself. That we were only together because Beaufort’s a small town. Because options were limited. I lied to myself and I knew from the very moment that thought registered it was nothing but a lie. He was my first but so much more than that. He was the one who made me smile and laugh when things were hard, or even when they seemed impossible. Asher was my partner in it all. He was the one I wanted to hold hands with until the day I died. My best friend. He was my everything.
And then one day, I was nothing to him.
I almost text Renee that I’m more than aware it’s a small town and that’s why I almost didn’t come home. Almost. But the same reason I wanted to stay away is exactly why I’m back here in Beaufort. It’s small and filled with gossip, and everyone knows everyone else’s business. At the same time, all of my family is here, along with all my friends who I’ve known since before I can remember.
… and the first and only man I’ve ever loved. The one who broke my heart. My fingers play with the small charm at the end of my necklace. My nervous habit has always been to fidget with it and I’m quick to lower my hand. Inwardly I’m still fiddling with the pendant I always wear.
Tears prick at the back of my eyes and I’m quick to shut that down. I knew it would be hard coming home. I knew it would hurt even. I just don’t want to deal with it. Definitely not alone.
I hesitate to ask, but I can’t help myself so I text Renee: Could you come pick me up?
If I’m going to have to call him for help, I at least want Renee here. She’s the strongest of us all. No nonsense and she also knows everything. There were rumors when we split. Plenty of people said lots of things … but Renee knows everything. She knows every sordid detail and she still loves me.
