Romance Rivals

  ROMANCE RIVALS

  CHOLE MORGAN

  CONTENTS

  Description

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Epilogue

  Want More?

  About the Author

  Copyright

  DESCRIPTION

  The only girl that ever bested me is back in town and is hotter than hell.

  The worst part?

  She’s living next door and still hasn’t outgrown her need to prove who’s best.

  The only thing that’s changed is that body of hers.

  Her curves are dangerous and keep me up at night.

  The game has higher stakes now because I want so much more than bragging rights.

  I want her. Every part of her. And more than that?

  I still want to win. To be top dog and remind her who’s in charge.

  I am. I always have been.

  From enemies to lovers.

  Not sure it’s possible with my favorite rival, but there’s no way in hell I’m not giving it my best shot.

  CHAPTER 1

  KEITH

  I pulled my Land Rover into the driveway of the house I’d grown up in after a long day at work. I’d made all sorts of memories here when I was a kid and bought it from my parents dirt cheap when they retired early and moved out to Arizona to live out the rest of their days “soaking up the sun.”

  Like Irvine, California, didn’t have enough of that.

  Either way, I got the house and their four-year-old Land Rover for a steal. Sure, it was probably to try and help their twenty-five-year-old son out. Who had chosen a job they felt was beneath me. My words, not theirs. My parents would never actually utter those words. No, sir. Not my proper mother and certainly not my supportive father. But they weren’t at all impressed that I was an assistant football coach at the local college.

  I inched into the driveway, and my eyes drifted over into the neighbor’s yard. A fantastic ass was bent over some newly planted rosebushes. I shifted my car into park and had another long look at that rounded globe. The way it swayed side to side, like music was playing only for those who cared to listen.

  I licked my lips mindlessly as I pushed out of the car.

  There was nothing but a small strip of grass separating my house from my neighbors on either side. My neighbor, Sandy—whom I’d grown up calling “the neighborhood nosy” —insisted on planting those damn rosebushes. They went over her property line and into mine, something that sometimes rubbed me the wrong way. Only on my bad days, though.

  And today wasn’t a bad day. Because the ass I was staring at was not Sandy’s.

  I watched the figure straighten as I tried to figure out who the hell was in Nosy Sandy’s yard. I knew everyone in this neighborhood. I’d never lived anywhere else. I knew when people came and went. When people moved out and who moved in. And for the life of me, I couldn't place who that person was.

  Until she turned around.

  I scoffed. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

  Alison turned around, her bright green eyes piercing. Her strawberry-blonde hair glistened in the humid sun that beat down on our shoulders. Holy fuck, my childhood nemesis was back. And with curves I had been salivating over.

  No, thanks.

  “Just here on vacation. Which is more than I can say for you,” Alison said.

  Her appraisal of me rubbed me the wrong way. The way her eyes fell down my body, judging each and every turn. If I blocked out the scowl on her face, or her face in general, I’d be sauntering over to her, putting on my best charm and my brightest smile. Because Alison had grown into a thick, voluptuous woman with curves to spare and valleys my hands wanted to explore.

  Except, it was Alison.

  “How was that pricey college of yours?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer me, though. Simply harrumphed and went back to tending to the roses. She bent back over, and I groaned lowly to myself, trying to swallow it down before she heard. Holy hell, those thighs. They were toned but wrapped in a coat of softness my hands begged to feel. Heat dripped up the nape of my neck as I watched Alison stand back up and sigh. She bent backward, popping her back before letting out the softest moan.

  I had to bite down onto my lower lip to keep from saying anything.

  “You going to continue staring, Hometown Boy?” she asked.

  “Maybe when you call me by my name,” I said.

  Great. Someone else judging me for my life choices. Then again, I didn’t expect much else from the woman whose guts I couldn’t stand throughout my entire childhood.

  For as long as I’d known her, Alison considered herself superior to everyone around her. Just because her father was a prominent lawyer in the area and her mother was the picturesque stay-at-home mom, she thought she was somehow better than us. Her clothes were just a little fancier, and she always had a slightly bigger allowance than the rest of us.

  And damn it, she was a shit loser at board games.

  That woman wasn’t any better than the rest of us. The only thing that separated her from the pack was ten more bucks in her allowance and an expensive piece of paper from some fancy school up north.

  And the sloping, curving pathways of her body.

  Alison turned around, grinning. “Still as sensitive as you ever were.”

  “And still as bitchy as everyone saw you to be,” I said.

  “Aww, thanks for the welcome home. I appreciate it.”

  “Let your mother know her rosebushes are on my property.”

  “You mean your parents’ property?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Bought the house and the Land Rover from them two years ago.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Is that so?”

  “Tell your mother to cut back the bushes, or I’ll do it myself.”

  Then, I stalked into my house.

  I closed the door behind me and fished around for my cell phone. I walked through the small hallway, making my way for the fridge. I needed a damn beer. And possibly a pizza for tonight. I cracked open the top as I told my virtual assistant to “Call Hutch.”

  I needed to talk to my best friend.

  “Hey, hey, hey. Don’t tell me! Pizza night,” he said.

  I took a long pull from my beer. “Guess who’s back in town?”

  “Oh, shit. You’re kidding me,” he said, chuckling.

  “Not one damn bit. I just ran into Alison outside doing absolutely nothing to trim back her mother’s fucking rosebushes.”

  “Seriously. You’re still on the bushes?” he asked.

  “They’re in my yard! And we don’t have much yard to speak of around here.”

  “So, I take it you’re already putting out a restraining order on her?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Quit being an ass.”

  “Oh, come on. We know you hate that girl because she always kicked your ass at the CreamPuff Challenge every year. And you couldn’t stand her winning.”

  “Whatever,” I grumbled.

  I took another long pull from my beer as I leaned against the kitchen counter.

  “So, pizza or no?” Hutch asked.

  “Yes pizza, no you,” I said.

  “Oh, come on. I’m just playing with you!”

  “Even still, you’re a dick. But now that I have you on the phone—
”

  “Yes, Keith. I’ll be at game night on Friday. Like I always am,” he said.

  “The stakes are double Friday night. Make sure to come prepared.”

  “Double?”

  “Yep,” I said, popping my lips.

  “I wouldn’t miss that shit for the world. I need some more money in my pocket. This damn state sucks me dry every month.”

  “Don’t we all know it.”

  “And I can’t wait to hear the rant you’ll have prepared for me that night. I’m sure you and Alison will make fond memories before then.”

  “This is why you don’t get pizza,” I said.

  “See you Friday, CreamPuff,” he said, chuckling.

  “Little shit,” I murmured as I hung up the phone.

  Then, I took to ordering my dinner on my phone while I polished off my first beer.

  The first of three.

  Or, maybe four.

  CHAPTER 2

  ALISON

  I stormed into the house, ripping the gardening gloves off. I tossed them onto side table next to the couch and flopped down. The sun poured through the window behind my head, heating my shoulders and making me sweat down the nape of my neck.

  I crossed my arms over my chest as I sank into the cushions.

  “Something wrong, sweetheart?” my mother asked.

  I looked up as she came around the corner with two glasses of lemonade in her hands. She handed one to me and sat down, her back straight and her ass barely on the edge of the couch. I had no idea how she got comfortable like that. How she could possibly feel at home when it looked like an invisible board was strapped to her back?

  Then again, my mother had always been that way. Prim. Proper. Trim.

  I definitely got my frame from my broad father.

  “I just saw Keith,” I said, grimacing.

  “My word, are the two of you still at each other’s throats?” my mother asked.

  She handed me a lemonade, and I promptly took it. While my mother took delicate dips, I practically chugged the drink. I’d been out there with those rosebushes for damn near three hours, trying to tame them and get them trimmed so they didn’t look completely out of control. My mother wanted the rosebushes, but none of the maintenance that came with them, apparently.

  They looked like overgrown pubes when I first pulled into the driveway three days ago.

  “No, Mom. We aren’t at one another’s throats. There’s just a reason I called him Keith ‘Shithead’ Sheppards when we were growing up,” I said.

  “Sweetheart, don’t cuss. It isn’t ladylike,” she said.

  I withheld the need to roll my eyes at the statement—a statement I’d heard all throughout my childhood. It reinforced a pride in my charismatic and boyish tendencies but painted an undertone of the fact that what I did would never be good enough.

  I sighed. “He complained about the rosebushes. Apparently, even with trimming them back, they’re still over the property line.”

  “Oh, is that all the encounter was?” my mother asked.

  “I’ve spent two days cultivating those things because they’d gotten way out of hand. The least he could do is compliment the work before he insulted them further.”

  “That’s nothing to get your blood pressure up over, princess. Now, with how handsome he’s become? That’s something to get your blood pressure up over,” she said.

  I gagged before I gulped down the rest of my lemonade.

  “Would you like some more?” my mother asked.

  “No but thank you for the drink. Now, I’m going to go upstairs and scrub that last statement of yours from my skin. And my brain, if I can help it,” I said.

  “You’re being much too overdramatic.”

  “If anything, I’m not being dramatic enough.”

  I leaned over and kissed my mom on the cheek. She thanked me for going out there and tending to the rosebushes. I pushed myself off the couch and ventured upstairs, making my way into my bedroom. I was lucky to have the parents I did, even though their lives were practically a sham for the public. While my parents painted themselves as the idyllic couple, the truth was my father hadn’t lived in this house for years.

  My mother and father had separated the year I started my bachelor’s degree. Practically right after they got me moved into my dorm room.

  It didn’t matter, though. I mean, I still loved them. I still saw my father a lot. He just wasn’t at the house. Which was fine. Maybe. I don’t know, I didn’t really focus on it much. I threw myself into school and didn’t come up for air until I had obtained my master’s degree in Mathematics from Stanford.

  My mother was kind enough to let me come stay with her for a few weeks until I could get settled in my new place. I’d been accepted for a full-time teaching position at the local college right there in Irvine. Which was fine with me. I’d always loved this place, with its beauty and quiet demeanor.

  Just not my idiotic neighbor.

  I sat down on the edge of my queen-size bed. My room hadn’t changed much, if at all, from high school. Which made the entire thing feel sort of like a time warp. And with Keith’s same old “asshole shithead” routine, it really made me feel like I was back in high school.

  My sense of déjà vu was strong as I looked around my room.

  I got up from my bed and made my way to the closet. I needed a shower, but it could wait. I opened the doors and knelt down, digging around for that little box I’d made as a teenager. It was covered in stickers and marker doodles, the one girlish thing I kept all to myself. If my mother knew I’d made something like this, she would have exploited it and turned it into an entire room design. Anything to fit me into a more ladylike mold.

  I sighed as I opened the box.

  I smiled at the stack of blue ribbons, each one attached to a polaroid photo. All the competitions I’d won, with Keith pouting next to me. I smiled brightly at those moments. All the times I’d whooped Keith’s ass in competitions. From the CreamPuff Challenge to the races our neighborhood did to the eating contest we held in jest. And every single time, I beat him out for first place.

  There was a reason I graduated at the top of my class. I didn’t do well with people beating me. Ever.

  You get that from your father, you know.

  My mother’s words echoed off the corners of my mind. All my life, she had cemented two things. One, that I wasn’t ladylike. And two, that I was more like my father than she wished for me. I didn’t get why that was such a bad thing until they separated once they could get me out of the house. Truth be told, she couldn’t stand him. Which meant she couldn’t stand parts of me.

  Maybe that wasn’t true. But sometimes, it felt like it.

  I picked up the blue ribbon I had more of than any other ones. Every single CreamPuff Challenge I took part in, I’d kicked Keith’s ass. The challenge was open to all Wolf and Otter Scouts, which involved selling cream puff pastries to raise money for charity. Each year, Keith told me he’d beat me out. And each year, he failed.

  I worked my ass off to sell those puffs, just to prove to him that words didn’t matter, only actions.

  My father taught me that.

  Truth be told, had it not been for Keith egging me on the way he had, I probably wouldn’t have had such a fire underneath my ass. The only things I’d ever accomplished in life were accomplished because someone told me I couldn’t do it. I had one statistics professor in college that used his own damn statistics class to try and prove to me why there were more men in mathematics than women. That the odds were stacked against me, and I was better off choosing another degree because the statistics were stacked against me.

  Fuck him.

  And fuck Keith.

  I shoved the ribbons back into the box and slid it into the back of my closet again. My prized possessions. Physical reminders of what I could do when I really wanted to stick it to someone. I closed my closet doors and got up, making my way for the bathroom. I’d spent years away from home, barely coming
to visit on breaks and not celebrating holidays. Choosing to take classes instead of coming home and listening to my parents bicker and my mother tell me how “dresses would flatter my figure better.”

  But it seemed the only bitching I came back to was Keith and his opinion of my mother’s damn rosebushes.

  Your mother was right about one thing, though.

  I closed my eyes and sighed. As much as I hated to admit it, one aspect of Keith had changed. And my mother was kind enough to point it out to me. Not that I hadn’t noticed anyway. The second I heard his voice outside, it made my blood roil. But when I turned around and faced him, my stomach filled with butterflies. I damn near took off from the ground, they fluttered so hard. Keith wasn’t the scraggly, scrawny, peach-fuzzed teenager I remembered from our high school days. Not one bit. He’d let his dark hair grow out a bit, boasting of the softest curl. His light brown eyes sparkled in the sun, looking almost like a luminescent gold. He was taller than I remembered, at least six foot two. And holy hell, did he have some toned muscles. Just the sight of his forearms sent my nipples puckering against my bra. Despite the fact that he was still an ass.

  An ass with a very nice-looking one.

  In one respect, Keith Sheppards had improved.

  Because that man was officially hot.

  CHAPTER 3

  KEITH

  I stepped out back and drew in the wondrous smell of the smoker at the corner of my backyard. The annual End of Summer Block Party was about to commence, and I’d been smoking my ribs for the past six hours. I wanted them to have that perfect smoke ring, one that not even a photographer could photoshop onto that shit. My ribs had always been the talk of the party, and I smiled in anticipation for their debut.

  The smell that lingered in the air told me these would be the best ribs I’d ever smoked.

  I licked my lips as my mouth salivated. I’d never been one to lust over my own food. But this afternoon was a different story. I couldn’t wait for all the accolades that were sure to come my way this year. I mean, people had come up to me all day and told me they couldn’t wait to get their hands on my ribs. People were already trying to butter me up so I’d send them home with leftovers!