Crazy for Your Love Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Other Books by Lexi Ryan

  About Crazy for Your Love

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Contact

  Copyright Notice

  The Boys of Jackson Harbor

  The Wrong Kind of Love (Ethan’s story)

  Straight Up Love (Jake’s story)

  Dirty, Reckless Love (Levi’s story)

  Wrapped in Love (Brayden’s story)

  Crazy for Your Love (Carter’s story)

  If It’s Only Love (Shay’s story) – coming September 2019

  The Blackhawk Boys

  Spinning Out (Arrow’s story)

  Rushing In (Chris’s story)

  Going Under (Sebastian’s story)

  Falling Hard (Keegan’s story)

  In Too Deep (Mason’s story)

  LOVE UNBOUND: Four series, one small town, lots of happy endings

  Splintered Hearts (A Love Unbound Series)

  Unbreak Me (Maggie’s story)

  Stolen Wishes: A Wish I May Prequel Novella (Will and Cally’s prequel)

  Wish I May (Will and Cally’s novel)

  Or read them together in the omnibus edition, Splintered Hearts: The New Hope Trilogy

  Here and Now (A Love Unbound Series)

  Lost in Me (Hanna’s story begins)

  Fall to You (Hanna’s story continues)

  All for This (Hanna’s story concludes)

  Or read them together in the omnibus edition, Here and Now: The Complete Series

  Reckless and Real (A Love Unbound Series)

  Something Wild (Liz and Sam’s story begins)

  Something Reckless (Liz and Sam’s story continues)

  Something Real (Liz and Sam’s story concludes)

  Or read them together in the omnibus edition, Reckless and Real: The Complete Series

  Mended Hearts (A Love Unbound Series)

  Playing with Fire (Nix’s story)

  Holding Her Close (Janelle and Cade’s story)

  OTHER TITLES

  Hot Contemporary Romance

  Text Appeal

  Accidental Sex Goddess

  Decadence Creek (Short and Sexy Romance)

  Just One Night

  Just the Way You Are

  From New York Times bestseller Lexi Ryan comes a sexy friends-to-lovers romance. A family wedding with a fake boyfriend, meddling parents, and an obsessive ex . . . What could go wrong?

  The only thing worse than being single at my sister’s wedding is finding out that my ex will be there too. Not just any ex—the guy everyone expected me to marry, the man I came to Jackson Harbor to escape.

  Now I need a date, and fast. Enter Carter Jackson—the firefighter who’s dealing with an unwanted five minutes of fame ever since a shirtless photo of him saving a puppy went viral. He’s warding off propositions left and right, and he needs a fake relationship as much as I do.

  Sweet and sexy, Carter is completely off-limits. See, I have a rule. A no-heartache rule. Not only is Carter my friend and a known heartbreaker, but his job as a firefighter puts him in danger daily, and that’s something I just can’t handle.

  The commitment between us might be pretend, but the passion all too real. As crazy as it makes me, I have to keep Carter at an arm’s length. Even that might not be enough to spare my heart.

  Crazy for Your Love is the fifth book in The Boys of Jackson Harbor series. All books in this series can be read as standalones!

  For Rhonda, my editor, my friend

  Teagan

  He’s nervous. Carter Jackson, Jackson Harbor’s most eligible bachelor, viral internet sensation, and the face of female fantasies all over the country, is nervous.

  “If you keep pacing, you’ll wear a hole in the floor,” I say from my perch behind the curtain.

  Carter stops and spins to face me, those midnight-dark eyes narrowing. “You have to get me out of this.”

  I bite back my smile. I shouldn’t laugh. It’s not nice. But my hot friend’s predicament has been a laughter gold mine for me during the last month. Tonight is the first annual Jackson Harbor Brews for Shoes benefit dinner and bachelor auction. Two months ago, Carter agreed to be auctioned off for a good cause. At the time, it seemed like nothing. He was one of many firefighters who agreed to sell themselves for an evening of wining and dining. But one month ago, everything changed, and now the Jackson Brews Banquet Center is packed to capacity with crazy, screaming women from all over the country, ready to rip each other’s hair out to get the winning bid.

  “Hero, hero, hero!” The chanting gets louder and louder.

  “You want me to sneak you out the back?” I ask, grinning. “Save you from the scary rich women?”

  His eyes are wide as he strides toward me. “Think you can?”

  To say Carter is a ladies’ man is a serious understatement—he’s the biggest player I know. So why is he scared to let some women bid for a night of his company? I try not to laugh. I try, but it’s just ridiculous. A snort slips out anyway, and then my laughter follows.

  Carter scowls at me. “I hate you.”

  I hold up a hand. “Sorry. No, really. I get it.” I inch the curtain open and peer out onto the stage, where Molly McKinley is quieting the crowd and segueing into her speech about the good the Shoe Bus will do for the children of Jackson Harbor and surrounding communities. Beyond the stage is a sea of women, many pushing around each other to get closer to the front. “They do all look a little . . . intense.”

  Sighing, Carter drags a hand through his dark hair. It does nothing to ebb that rumpled, fresh-out-of-bed look he has going on. I wouldn’t admit it if someone paid me to, but I totally understand why women lose their minds over this guy. He’s hot. So hot. “They’re nuts.”

  On Labor Day weekend, Carter rescued a golden retriever puppy trapped beneath the trampoline float at the public beach. Some well-meaning bystander snapped a picture of him striding out of the water—bare-chested, his jaw set with determination, the sopping-wet pup curled in his arms. The Jackson Harbor Fire Department posted the image on their social media, and in the following forty-eight hours, Carter’s world exploded. The image went viral, and he became the face of every sexy firefighter fantasy out there. Carter did a couple of TV interviews, deciding to use his fifteen minutes of fame to speak to the public about life jackets and water safety, but his fifteen minutes lasted longer and stretched further than anyone expected. Suddenly, Jackson Harbor wasn’t only teeming with tourists here for the beach, but with women who made the trip for the scenery of the JHFD variety. Then when word got out that Carter was one of the bachelors up for auction tonight, Carter fever picked up anew, with tickets for the event selling out within five minutes of going live.

  “You should have backed out when Molly gave you the choice.
” I squeeze his arm through his suit jacket. “She would have understood.”

  “I thought it would die down by now,” he grumbles. “There are men and women literally risking their lives saving people every day, and all these ladies are losing their minds because I performed a puppy rescue that my niece probably could have managed.”

  My amusement fizzles away when I see the frustration in his eyes. As easy as it is to laugh about how any single guy would want the attention thrown his way the past month, the reality has been an endless invasion of his privacy at best. I slide off my stool and straighten his jacket. “I’m sure most of the women out there are completely normal. I doubt many of them plan to chain you in their basement.”

  “Somehow, that’s not reassuring.”

  Ava Jackson, Carter’s sister-in-law and one of my best friends, pokes her head through the door backstage, her new dark bob swaying around her jawline. “You’re up first, Carter. Are you ready?”

  There’s something close to terror in Carter’s eyes. He’s six foot two, two hundred-some pounds of solid muscle, and he’s truly afraid of these desperate single women. “Ready,” Carter says without taking his eyes off me.

  “You’ll be fine,” I whisper.

  “I hope you’re right.”

  “And if the lady who wins you turns out to be a serial killer, wave me down. I’ll be here all night.”

  “You do owe me a favor.”

  I frown. “I do?”

  He folds his arms. “Remember the night you mauled me in Jackson Brews and made me pretend to be your boyfriend?”

  Right. That. My cheeks blaze with the reminder. “I already said I’d help.”

  Out front, the music begins to play—Carter’s cue—then Molly says, “Now, to kick off the night, the man you’ve been waiting for, Jackson Harbor’s most eligible bachelor, Carter Jackson!”

  “They’re waiting.” I wink at him.

  Carter rolls his shoulders back and pushes through the curtain. I blink as he transforms himself with a smirk and a cocky swagger. He looks at home on that stage, as if doing this is his fantasy.

  “We’ll start the bidding at one hundred dollars,” Molly says. She beams at the crowd, a picture-perfect emcee with her fitted pink dress suit and sleek platinum hair. “Friendly reminder, ladies, your bid entitles you to the pleasure of Carter’s company for the evening, nothing more. This is a family event.”

  As the crowd laughs at her warning, I jog to the access door to take the back hallway around to the banquet room. I was only in the back to tease Carter, and I’ll be in the way if I stay through the whole auction. By the time I enter, a throng of women have pushed themselves to the front, and bidding has reached fifteen hundred dollars.

  “Fifteen hundred dollars for a couple of hours with my brother?” Shay asks, stepping up beside me. The lone Jackson sister is dressed like me tonight—little black dress, her dark hair pulled up. “Damn. Maybe he should leave the fire department behind and be a male escort.”

  I laugh, shaking my head as the women talk over each other with their bids. Carter is smoking hot, and if he weren’t a friend, I’m pretty sure I’d happily empty my bank account for a night of looking at that face and getting to feel his body pressed to mine.

  “Two thousand dollars to the woman in the pretty red dress,” Molly says.

  Carter struts across the stage and stops by Molly, who’s updating the bids as fast as her mouth can say the words. He scans the crowd and then stops when his gaze lands on me.

  “Excuse me,” he says into the microphone. His sexy baritone reverberates throughout the room, and the women at the front lose their shit, throwing their arms up and surging toward the stage like he’s some sort of rock star.

  “Marry me, Carter Jackson!” someone shrieks from the mass of bodies.

  Carter chuckles into the microphone and gently takes it from Molly’s hand. “Hey, everybody.”

  More screams of adoration. More desperate shrieks proclaiming love.

  “There are no words for this level of insanity,” Shay says.

  I grin. “No kidding.”

  “I’m sorry to interrupt the bidding, Molly,” Carter says with a bashful grin toward the banquet’s emcee. “I have something I need to do.”

  “Four thousand dollars,” someone shouts, and the crowd laughs.

  Carter draws in a deep breath. “Wow. Ladies, I’m humbled. I truly am. But I’m going to ask if we can do something a little unconventional tonight.”

  “What is he doing?” Shay asks.

  “I have no idea,” I mutter, even as dread curls in my stomach. Is he going to call in that favor now?

  “When I agreed to do this bachelor auction, I was a single man looking to meet a beautiful woman, but a lot has changed since I signed up to stand on this stage tonight.” The crowd laughs. “I started seeing someone. We’ve kept it a secret until tonight, but I have to confess, in the past two months, I’ve fallen in love.”

  “He’s what?” Shay says as the crowd reacts with a chorus of aww and a few gasps of protest.

  “Would the beautiful Teagan Chopra come on stage, please?”

  He didn’t.

  Shay snaps her head to me, her eyes wide. “You’re seeing Carter?”

  “I . . .”

  One by one, the members of the crowd turn away from the stage with whispers of “Who is she?” “Where?” “He has a girlfriend?” “I thought this was a singles auction?”

  “Teagan?” He crooks a finger at me and flashes that lopsided smile that makes even my knees go a little weak.

  My cheeks blaze. To all the world, Carter is smiling at his girlfriend, but I know him well enough to see the truth in his eyes. “You owe me,” that smile says. “Don’t let me down.”

  My journey from the back of the room to the stage is miserable. Thousands of eyes are on me—judging, speculating, criticizing—and the whispers feel like razor blades to my flimsy confidence. If this is Carter’s way of calling in a favor, I’ll be sure to never ask anything of him again.

  When I step onto the stage, he takes my hand and grins. “Isn’t she beautiful?” he asks the crowd, and he’s treated to agreeable, if reluctant, applause.

  I lift onto my toes so I can whisper in his ear. “I’m gonna kill you.”

  He gives me that signature Carter Jackson cocky grin, and I’m sure the whole damn crowd thinks I whispered some dirty promise. He brings the mic back up. “Since I wouldn’t feel right letting someone bid on me when there’s only one woman I want to spend my night with, I’m going to bid on myself.”

  I snort, and he flashes me a look.

  “Molly, I’m proud to donate five thousand dollars to the Shoe Bus in exchange for spending my evening dancing with the woman I love.” He squeezes my hand tighter, as if he’s afraid I’m going to run away. To be fair, if I weren’t so paralyzed by shock, I might. He pauses dramatically and turns to face me, and the crowd is really into it now and cheers loudly. I spot a few angry faces pushing toward the exits, but he’s laying it on thick enough that most people are smiling. “What do you say, Teagan?” he asks so softly that the mic almost doesn’t pick it up. “Would you spend your night with the man who can’t keep his eyes off you?”

  “You’re killing me,” I say, and the mic picks it up, making the crowd laugh.

  Grinning, he passes the mic back to Molly and pulls me into his arms. I have no choice but to let him. Okay, I do have a choice. I could snatch that mic out of Molly’s hands and tell everyone that he’s a big, fat liar who is, in fact, single as a Pringle. But if I do that, tonight’s fundraiser might go all to hell, and as irritated as I am with Carter right now, I like him too much to sacrifice him to an angry mob of lust-crazed women.

  And you do owe him, the little voice in my brain chides.

  Fine. One very public night with Carter Jackson in exchange for him pretending he was my boyfriend for five minutes last year. Totally fair.

  The band smoothly transitions into Etta
James’s “At Last,” and Carter leads me into a dance onstage. I’m well aware of the heat of his body against mine. The smell of his aftershave fills my head and makes me forget this is Carter, my friend, not some guy who’s going to take me home and ravish me.

  “Thank you for the incredibly generous donation, Carter,” Molly says as the song plays. “And thank you everyone for coming tonight, and of course a huge thanks to our sponsor, Jackson Brews. Don’t fret, ladies. Carter’s only the first of many bachelors ready to wine and dine you tonight. Stick around for your chance to bid on more men from the Jackson Harbor Fire Department, followed by dinner, dancing, and door prizes!”

  “I cannot believe you used me to get out of this,” I growl in his ear. “Who knew you’d be so afraid of some handsy women?”

  He chuckles and runs his big palms down the sides of my sexiest little black dress. A hot shiver races up my spine. “I thought it was genius. Thank you for playing along.”

  I pull back enough to scowl at him. “You owe me so big.”

  “How do you figure? You were returning a favor, remember?”

  “I had to get onstage in front of hundreds of people.”

  The band plays the closing chords of the song.

  “Thank you,” says their vocalist. “And thank you to the beautiful couple on stage. You two look amazing together. Don’t they?”

  The audience applauds.

  “See what I mean?” I mutter. “This is hell.”

  “Teagan, shut up and kiss me.”

  Carter

  I think I just stunned Teagan speechless, but now I have her in my arms.

  Teagan Chopra. Teagan, who’s all mouth-watering curves and wicked humor. Teagan, who’s best friends with my brothers’ women and has become a fixture in my life.

  Teagan, who’s friend-zoned me so many times that I vowed to stop fantasizing about her. But the moment she looks up at me with those big, dark eyes, I know my embargo on Teagan fantasies has been shot all to hell.