Ivy Dawn and her sister are done with men, all of them. They’ve uprooted their lives too many times on account of the opposite sex, but that’s over now. The plan seems easy until a sexy, dirty-taking mechanic bursts in Ivy’s life and shakes everything up.

Brent can’t resist the one person who sees past his devil-may-care façade, and Ivy finds it harder and harder to deny how happy he makes her. But she has secrets of her own and when the truth comes out, she must decide if she’ll run again or if she’ll take a chance on forever.

Excerpt

She clenched her jaw shut.
He swallowed. “You looked like you were going to say something.”
“Sure I was. To Alex. But you’re not Alex.”
“No, I’m not. But I’m a great listener.”
“I’m sure,” she said drily.
His lips quirked. “Want to hear about what other things I’m good at?”
“Not particularly.”
“Because I can do this thing with my tongue—”
Good God. “I don’t do this.”
“Don’t do what?”
She waved a hand between them. “This. Flirting.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Babe, I haven’t even begun to flirt.”
She took a deep breath to calm her rising blood pressure. “Don’t do that either.”
“Jesus! Now what?” His exasperation might have been cute if she still had a heart.
“Nicknames.”
“Babe?”
“My name is Ivy. I-V-Y. Three letters. Two syllables.” Even she wanted to cringe at how much of a bitch she was being.
He was studying her now, his face a little less amused and more . . . thoughtful. She didn’t like thoughtful Brent. Amused, flirting Brent? Harmless. Thoughtful Brent, who tried to look deeper? Dangerous as hell.
He ran two fingers over his lips and then dropped his hand to the table, cocking his head. “You’re just thorns everywhere I touch, aren’t you?”
She froze at his words, like a deer in headlights because yes—yes, she was a whole lot of thorns because she’d learned long ago they were necessary to protect all her soft parts.
Brent wasn’t done, though; his voice was softer when he spoke again. “You born that way, or something make you that way, Ivy?”
She swallowed. Yep, Brent Payton was dangerous in a sexy-as-hell package. His words were seeping past those thorns, hitting all the spots where she was weak. So she gathered herself and clenched her fists at her sides. “You’re just acting like this because I’m the first woman who hasn’t fallen at your feet.”
He laughed at that. “Fallen at my feet? Nah, there are plenty of women who’ve told me to go to hell. My percentage is good, though. Maybe eighty-twenty.” He grinned that shit-eating grin. “But you got me curious now. I wanna keeping prodding until I find a place that isn’t a thorn. How long do you think that’ll take me?”
Shit, no; that’s exactly what she didn’t want. With those eyes that were smart and trouble at the same time.
She swallowed and straightened her spine. “You’ll never get close enough.”
He cocked his head. “No?”
“No.”
He hummed a little and leaned back in his chair again. He threw a peanut in the air and caught it in his mouth. Then he chewed, with those steel eyes daring her to look away. “Guess I gotta plan my attack better next time, huh? You better work on those defenses.”
She heard Alex’s voice as her sister made her way back to the lunchroom. Ivy smiled and lifted her chin. “Who says I’ll be the one who needs defense?”
He laughed sharply, like he was surprised. “Oh, babe, bring it.”
She gritted her teeth. “Ivy.”
“Babe. I call it as I see it, and you’re definitely babe.”