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Your Bed or Mine?
Joss Wood
Breaking her man-ban!Tori Phillips has spent years looking for The One. Unfortunately she’s never been able to find the right one – and when she catches her latest Mr Wrong in flagrante with another woman she imposes a man-ban.But Tori suddenly finds herself regretting her promise when a slight misjudgement finds her in the wrong bed with her new roommate, irresistibly sexy Matt. Matt knows from experience how much trouble love can cause, so he’s steering clear of forever. But one night with sex-bomb Tori can’t hurt. After all, it’s only a fling – the hardest decision they have to make is her bed or his. Right… ?The Flat in Notting Hill: Love and lust in the city that never sleeps!
THE FLAT IN NOTTING HILL
Love and lust in the city that never sleeps!
Izzy, Tori and Poppy are living the London dream—sharing a big flat in Notting Hill, they have good jobs, wild nights out…and each other.
They couldn’t be more different, but one thing is for sure: when they start falling in love they’re going to be very glad they’ve got such good friends around to help them survive the rollercoaster…!
THE MORNING AFTER THE NIGHT BEFORE by Nikki Logan
SLEEPING WITH THE SOLDIER by Charlotte Phillips
YOUR BED OR MINE? by Joss Wood
ENEMIES WITH BENEFITS by Louisa George
Don’t miss this fabulous new continuity
from Modern Tempted™!
Dear Reader (#ulink_f22d1d09-6b7d-5ae8-9e01-c298cca8edef),
It was so much fun creating the world of The Flat in Notting Hill with my author friends Nikki Logan, Charlotte Phillips and Louisa George. E-mails frequently bounced between Australia, the UK, New Zealand and South Africa about the four linked books, and as we discussed the storyline we got to know each other a little better—that was a wonderful side-benefit of working with these lovely ladies. I’m sure our editors are quite glad that we live so far apart; I have no doubt that there would be a marked increase in ladies’ lunches and a sharp decrease in productivity if we were closer!
Tori, my heroine, has really, really, really bad taste in men, and I had so much fun writing about her journey to love and acceptance. She’s one of those heroines who wrote her own story; she kept surprising me and she frequently went off, did her own thing and left me scratching my head, muttering, ‘That was not what I’d planned!’ Matt, my hero, wasn’t much better at following orders but, because I’m shallow, he’d just smile at me, flash me his abs, and I’d forgive him anything.
If you’ve picked this book up as a stand-alone, grab the other three books in the continuity and find out how the other flatmates got their happy-ever-after.
With, as always, my best wishes
Joss
PS Come and say hi via Facebook: Joss Wood Author, Twitter: @josswoodbooks or www.josswoodbooks.com (http://www.josswoodbooks.com)
JOSS WOOD wrote her first book at the age of eight and has never really stopped. Her passion for putting letters on a blank screen is matched only by her love of books and travelling—especially to the wild places of Southern Africa—and possibly by her hatred of ironing and making school lunches.
Fuelled by coffee, when she’s not writing or being a hands-on mum Joss, with her background in business and marketing, works for a non-profit organisation to promote the local economic development and collective business interests of the area where she resides. Happily and chaotically surrounded by books, family and friends, she lives in Kwa-Zulu Natal, South Africa, with her husband, children and their many pets.
Your Bed or Mine?
Joss Wood
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
DEDICATION (#ulink_9b3e61ad-7937-53bd-98a2-8c6cec68e8a4)
To my son Rourke: gorgeous, smart and talented.
As you read this you’ll be about to start an exciting new chapter in your life, but everyone knows that you’ll be perfectly fine and that I’ll be the basket case.
So as you head off I’d like you to remember to be bold, be funny, be you!
Table of Contents
Cover (#ua64b948a-204a-5283-a9f7-1fa727feaa84)
Dear Reader (#u50e99379-de1d-5db8-b7b8-eb4e30fe93ee)
About the Author (#u566b53a0-5156-5c08-b83f-a1623a28aa4d)
Title Page (#ud5601b58-e29e-5ee2-b2bb-61fd9bcd4dda)
DEDICATION (#ue892fb83-3c77-537b-929d-dd96104fb258)
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ud80f8b98-2ec8-53f7-8612-86c8be602872)
‘UH-HUH…YEAH, BABY… Uh-huh…yeah, baybeeeeee…’
Oh, dammit, not porn, Tori Phillips thought, hearing the lusty moans as she closed the front door to Mark’s apartment at the end of a hellish working day. Not at sixthirty on a Friday night when all she wanted was a cup of tea, her soft pyjamas and a silly reality show. She wanted to pull her hair up into a messy knot, eat ice cream out of the carton and be reassured that there were people in the world more screwed up than her.
Please, please, no porn—and, while she was asking, could they have a sex-free night too? She was too tired to play the leading role in Mark’s Kama-Sutra-on-crack fantasies tonight.
‘Mark?’
‘In the bedroom.’
His voice, not deep at the best of times, always got a bit squeakier when he was excited and Tori twisted her lips in irritation. What was he watching, for goodness’ sake? She looked longingly at the cold kettle as she passed through the kitchen.
‘Uh-huh…yeah, baby… Uh-huh…yeah, baby…’
Definitely porn, Tori thought.
Damn. It.
That meant that Mark would be raring to go and she really, truly had a cracking headache. Barefoot in the passage of what was supposed to be her new home, Tori frowned, pushed open the door to the master bedroom and blinked. The TV on the wall was blank and the barnyard sounds came from the vicinity of the bed.
For a moment her brain couldn’t process what she was seeing…another woman with pasty skin, heavy breasts and a rather large bum straddled her boyfriend and was riding him like a demented fairy. Fairy because she had the ugliest, dullest pair of wings tattooed across both butt cheeks. Tori expected her to take off in flight at any minute…
‘Uh-huh…yeah, baby… Uh-huh…yeah…’
Dear Lord, Frantic Fairy came with a soundtrack. Four words, impressive…
Mark turned his head and caught her shocked look. He sent her a sly smile. ‘Tori! It’s about time you got home…we got tired of waiting so we decided to start without you. Get naked and Cinnamon will tell you what to do.’
Cinnamon? Seriously, that was her name? Tori shuddered and wished she could wash her eyes out with antibacterial soap.
‘C’mon, Tori, get over here,’ Mark wheedled, placing his rather small hands on those pendulous breasts. FF looked her up and down but didn’t break her stride.
‘Hey, honey, don’t be shy. I’ll be gentle.’
Uh…like, no, Tori thought, a thousand nos. Call her weird, but if girls didn’t—even her in fantasies—turn her on then there was no chance of her getting it on with a skanky-looking girl with tattooed fairy wings on her butt.
So, apparently there were some things she wouldn’t do for love. This was good to know.
‘Get over here, Vicky…it’ll be fun,’ Mark ordered, pumping his hips.
‘Don’t call me Vicky…’ Tori snapped. Like that was important right now. God. She glared at them both, tasting rage in the back of her throat. The urge to scream at them was overwhelming.
It took a lot of effort for her to keep her tone low and cool. ‘Give me a sec, okay…honey?’ She pasted a thin smile on her face. ‘I’m just going to grab some things and you can carry on. A little warning, though…he’s very quick off the trigger.’
The movement on the bed stilled as they both looked at her.
‘Oh, God, you’re going to be bitchy about this,’ Mark said. Anyone would think she’d caught him drinking milk out of the carton, not screwing a peroxide blonde with inch dark roots.
‘Maybe I should have run this by you before you came home…’ Mark conceded.
Tori lifted an eyebrow. You think? She caught his hips lifting and thought that she might be sick. ‘Are you really going to discuss this while you’re still on the job?’
It was like watching the footage of a really huge natural disaster, horrific but fascinating, Tori thought as Mark patted FF’s hip. She climbed off him and lay back on the rumpled bed, her long-suffering sigh audible from across the room. Mark sat up, his penis—his condom-covered penis…thank God for small mercies!—still ready to party.
So, apparently, he wasn’t completely stupid…
And it was equally apparent, she thought as she eyed his still small but straight-as-an-arrow erection, that she was the only one who Mark couldn’t get a hundred per cent hard for. After all the work she’d put into their sex life, that was possibly an even bigger slap in the face than the fact that she’d caught him doing another woman in their bed and expected her to join in.
Tori briefly closed her eyes before stalking past the bed to the huge walk-in closet, reaching for her overnight bag on the top shelf. She pulled it down and grabbed underwear, some T-shirts and clothes for the weekend.
‘What are you doing?’ Mark asked as she walked back into the room and headed towards the en-suite bathroom. She flicked him a glance. He’d swung his legs over the side of the bed and was looking irritated.
‘Making freaking cupcakes,’ she snapped. ‘What the hell do you think I’m doing?’
‘You’re overreacting, Vicky.’
Tori sent him a look that was designed to shrivel his balls. Damn, it didn’t work. Tori walked in the bathroom and swept her make-up and toiletries from the marble-top counter into the designer toiletry bag she’d bought Mark for his birthday. Walking back into the bedroom, she shoved the toiletries into her bag, picked it up and slung it over her shoulder.
Mark reached for a robe, pulled it on and ran a hand through his blond hair. ‘This is your fault, you know, you don’t give me what I need.’
‘You’re so full of it. God, Mark, but…what the hell?’
‘I told you that I like it often and I like it varied—’
‘Your often is ridiculous and your varied is halfway to weird! And this—’ she waved her hand towards the bed ‘—this is unforgivable! And, for your information, there is nothing wrong with missionary style on the odd occasion!’
‘You don’t love me enough.’
I don’t love you at all. The thought popped into Tori’s head and it surprised her. Didn’t she? She’d thought she did but then shouldn’t she be feeling a lot more devastation along with her overload of disgust?
‘You’re acting like a psycho and freaking out for no reason,’ Mark told her before yawning, not bothering to put a hand over his mouth.
‘Yeah, you really are hurting the vibe,’ Frantic Fairy solemnly agreed.
She had to get out of here before she killed someone. Seriously. Prison orange was so not her colour.
Tori narrowed her eyes in warning. ‘Screw you. Actually…’ Tori just looked at her lying on the bed—their bed, on the sheets she’d bought and paid for!—naked and checking the messages on her mobile ‘…just screw him.’
All she’d wanted was a cup of tea, Tori thought as she sat in the back of the taxi as it took her home. Home to Lancaster Road, to Poppy and Izzy.
Izzy might not be there, she reminded herself. Izzy was with Harry now, in love and so damn happy it sometimes hurt to watch them. But Poppy would be home…
She just needed to get home and she would feel better. They loved her, they always had, and right now she needed to be around people who did.
Love, her holy grail, her constant search. It didn’t have to be perfect, or a ballad or a fairy tale. She didn’t want a prince but she sure as hell would like to be someone’s princess.
But obviously not Mark’s any more.
‘You…’ Izzy’s voice was loud in her head ‘…are the ultimate bum magnet when it comes to men, Toz. You look around and choose the most screwed-up guy in the room.’
Maybe she did but there was always the divine hope that this man could be the one who could love her; intensely, absolutely, for ever.
She was a master of wishful thinking.
