Summer Lovin' (Fun For the Holiday's) Read online

  SUMMER LOVIN’

  by

  J. Sterling

  SUMMER LOVIN’

  Copyright © 2022 by J. Sterling

  All rights reserved.

  Edited by:

  Jovana Shirley

  www.unforeseenediting.com

  Cover Design by:

  Michelle Preast

  www.Michelle-Preast.com

  www.facebook.com/IndieBookCovers

  Kindle Edition, License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Please do not participate or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-945042-39-3

  Please visit the author’s website

  www.j-sterling.com

  to find out where additional versions may be purchased.

  Thank you for downloading this book. I hope you enjoy my Fun for the Holidays collection!

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  Other Books by J. Sterling

  Bitter Rivals – an enemies to lovers romance

  Dear Heart, I Hate You

  10 Years Later – A Second Chance Romance

  In Dreams – a new adult college romance

  Chance Encounters – a coming of age story

  The Game Series

  The Perfect Game – Book One

  The Game Changer – Book Two

  The Sweetest Game – Book Three

  The Other Game (Dean Carter) – Book Four

  The Playboy Serial

  Avoiding the Playboy – Episode #1

  Resisting the Playboy – Episode #2

  Wanting the Playboy – Episode #3

  The Celebrity Series

  Seeing Stars – Madison & Walker

  Breaking Stars – Paige & Tatum

  Losing Stars – Quinn & Ryson

  The Fisher Brothers Series

  No Bad Days – a New Adult, Second Chance Romance

  Guy Hater – an Emotional Love Story

  Adios Pantalones – a Single Mom Romance

  Happy Ending

  The Boys of Baseball

  (the next generation of fullton state baseball players):

  The Ninth Inning – Cole Anders

  Behind the Plate – Chance Carter

  Safe at First – Mac Davies

  Fun for the Holidays

  (a collection of stand-alone novels with holiday-based themes)

  Kissing my Co-Worker

  Dumped for Valentine’s

  My Week with the Prince

  Spring’s Second Chance

  Summer Lovin’

  Falling for the Boss

  Table of Contents

  Other Books by J. Sterling

  I DON’T DATE CLIENTS

  THIS MIGHT WORK OUT IN MY FAVOR

  HE WAS GOING TO BE A HARD ONE

  DAMN GOOD AT HER JOB

  HOUSE-HUNTING

  HOT WOMEN TRAVEL IN PACKS

  I’M IN TROUBLE

  BART, THE ULTIMATE WINGMAN

  TWO WEEKS WITHOUT CREW

  SEXY TEXTING

  FORCING THE ISSUE

  SO F’N EGOTISTICAL

  HE’S HOME

  THAT’S HOW YOU KILL A MAN

  WHEN CONTRACTS END

  JOINT ACCOUNT

  MY BEST SEASON YET

  DIDN’T SEE THAT COMING

  EPILOGUE

  Other Books by J. Sterling

  About the Author

  I DON’T DATE CLIENTS

  SUMMER

  Staring at the folder on my desk, I sorted through the paperwork, reading his name for the hundredth time in bold lettering on the top. Crew Maxwell. He was my latest client, due to walk through my office door any moment now. For some reason, I was anxious. And I was never anxious when meeting for a new job. Always professional, unaffected by fame, I was damn good at what I did.

  When I was only twenty, I’d started my career as a personal assistant for celebrities before deciding that having my entire life revolve around someone else’s wasn’t all that appealing. My time never belonged to me. My own existence was always on the back burner, forced to take a seat and be quiet. So, when my best friend and real estate goddess, Seline, told me about a pro baseball player who needed help getting his life in order once he relocated here after being traded, I agreed to help him.

  But only temporarily.

  I’d learned pretty quickly that professional athletes were given basic information from the front office once they were sent to a new team, but other than that, they were completely on their own. There was no one dedicated to helping them find a place to live or get them situated in any way other than maybe a plane ticket and, if they were lucky, a hotel reservation.

  If the guy had a wife or a girlfriend, that kind of thing fell onto her shoulders. And even then, the women sometimes tended to be too overwhelmed to even know where to start. For the single guys, they had absolutely no help. And if they were traded in the middle of a season, they also had no time.

  That was where I came in—Summer Brady, short-term relocation specialist for professional athletes.

  I’d been doing this exclusively for the past five years. I had yet to hire any staff because, truthfully, I’d been too scared to choose the wrong person and have it all blow up in my face. Basically meaning, I needed to impose a no falling for or sleeping with the client rule and have it actually stick.

  Some of these guys were relentless, not used to taking no for an answer, and could be ridiculously charming. Not to mention the fact that just their profession alone made them incredibly alluring. Anyone who worked for me needed to be able to resist them on a daily basis. As long as I was a corporation of one, my actions, my behavior, and my ability to stick to my guns when all I wanted to do was drop my damn panties and get fucked on the floor sometimes was all within my control.

  That wasn’t to say I’d never been tempted or I hadn’t almost stopped my new business before it even began when I slept with that anonymous pro baseball player I first helped. He had been constant in his pursuit of me, flirting nonstop, and eventually convinced me that he meant all the pretty things that he’d been saying. Obviously, there was a part of me that enjoyed being wanted by him, and I actually saw us having a future together. And once our contract ended, like a fool, I slept with him.

  And never heard from him again.

  I had been slightly devastated.

  But I was nothing if not a quick learner.

  My business, my reputation, and my success were more important to me than getting dicked by a pro baller. And I meant that in more ways than one. A lot of the professional athletes that I’d met over the years were cocky, arrogant, cheating pricks. I witnessed firsthand how they played the women in their lives, and I vowed to never become a fool for one … again.

  Professional athletes could not be trusted. It was basically my motto, the only way I’d survived in this business for as long as I had. And even though Crew Maxwell was supposedly still single at the ripe old age of twenty-nine, had never been married, hadn’t fathered any children—that anyone knew about—he definitely wasn’t innocent. Crew had a reputation for being a player on and off the field. Typical, right? A habitual dater, he always had a woman on his arm. That man was never alone.

  Until now.

  Recently traded to LA’s football team, he was set to be our new starting quarterback in the fall. A trade that had taken everyone by complete surprise, myself included. No one had even remotely suspected that the team was planning on getting rid of our current QB, so when it was announced, it sent the front office scrambling and the local press into a frenzy. Apparently, no one had been tipped off, which was almost unheard of in this industry and this town.

  Snitches were everywhere, scooping stories before they were set to go public, always one step ahead. It was hard to keep a secret in LA, but the Crew Maxwell trade was one for the books. I hadn’t been prepared for it. For him, his reputation, and what I assumed would be a nightmare job to work on as soon as the team called and let me know they’d given him my contact information. Crew struck me as the type of guy who was used to getting what he wanted, no matter what it was. I wondered for a moment if anyone had ever told him no.

  No sooner did the question enter my mind than the six-foot-four tanned god knocked on the side of my door before stepping inside. He was wearing jeans and a black T-shirt that hugged the curve
s of his muscles, accentuating every single one of them. His dirt-brown hair was tucked neatly behind a backward baseball cap, and I wanted to ask him if he knew what a backward hat did to a woman, but I knew instinctively that he did. Crew knew exactly what he was doing and just how to do it. I tried to pull it together but got distracted by the deep shade of green of his eyes.

  I had known the man was sexy. I’d seen him all over the tabloids and in that People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive edition, but it was nothing like seeing him up close and in person.

  Good God, life wasn’t fair. No one should look that good without a filter.

  “Summer?” he asked, his Southern accent filling the room as he said my name.

  I hadn’t expected it—the accent—and it made me grin for a second and forget all about the kind of guy I thought he was. He sounded so innocent.

  I pushed to a stand, straightened my pencil skirt, and stepped toward him, hand extended. He took it, and electricity didn’t pulse through me, but heat did. Hot desire filled my entire being in an instant, waking me right up with that touch, as if asking if we were finally going to get laid in this century or not.

  “Crew. It’s nice to meet you. Can I get you something to drink?” I offered, and he shook his head.

  “I’m okay,” he said before walking over toward my desk and sitting down in one of the chairs.

  He was bigger than life, sucking all of the air out of the room simply by existing in it. It was suffocating and exhilarating, all at the same time.

  I walked back to my chair and sat down, pulling at his file once more. “Welcome to Los Angeles. And to the team,” I said with a smile.

  “Thanks,” he said, his tone smooth, his grin cocky. “Please tell me that you come with my signing package.”

  I swallowed hard as his comment slammed me right back into reality instead of whatever sex-deprived fantasy I had been about to get lost in. It was a pretty standard come-on. One I’d heard more than once before. It was like these guys had a manual for hitting on women; they all said the same shit.

  “I’m not for sale,” was the only comeback I could think of because, technically, I did sort of come with his package, but I wasn’t going to admit that. At least, not out loud.

  “Never said I wanted to buy you, Duchess.”

  “Duchess? Really?” I groaned. I would not be able to work like this with him if he was going to act this way. We’d never accomplish anything. “Turn off the charm for two seconds, so we can get through this,” I insisted, and the smirk that appeared on his gorgeous face was downright devilish.

  He put a hand in the air. “I’ll stop. I mean, I’ll try, but damn, Summer, have you looked in a fucking mirror lately?” he asked, and I swore my vagina just screamed his name from between my legs. “You can’t blame a guy for shooting his shot.”

  I actually started laughing out loud because that was something I hadn’t heard. “That was shooting your shot? Weak, at best.”

  He leaned back in the chair, still grinning like the damn Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. “Challenge accepted. I’ll do better next time.”

  I started to argue but decided there was no point. Crew was the type of guy who would go tit for tat and had to have the last word. If we began this pissing match, we’d never end it until one of us was underneath the other, getting fucked.

  I could think of worse things …

  “Okay, so I’m basically your temporary personal assistant. My job is to get you settled and help you with anything that you need. That includes finding you somewhere to live, among other things.”

  Crew was currently staying in an uber-fancy suite, but he couldn’t live there full-time during the season. That was usually the most difficult part of the relocation process—finding housing that worked and made sense. Even with my multitude of contacts, it could still be an issue, depending on whether they wanted to buy or rent. Los Angeles was a huge city, and most guys didn’t want to drive two hours each way to get to the field, but if they had a family and kids, it changed everything.

  “Ah.” He looked into my eyes and held them with a firm stare. “So, you do come with the package.”

  Dammit. I knew he’d call it out.

  “Short-term,” I tried to insist but couldn’t stop smiling.

  He was annoying but charmingly so. And so … fucking … hot.

  “How long is short-term?” he asked, his face pulling together as he waited for me to respond.

  “I can work with you for a maximum of two months, but anything after that, we’d have to hire you some permanent help.”

  “Who else do you work for in these two months?” He leaned forward, his elbows on the edge of my desk as he watched me with those dark green eyes.

  “Just you.”

  “So, you’re exclusive to me then?” he pushed, and I felt my entire body tingle.

  “I mean, I guess you could say that.”

  “A lot can happen in two months, Summer.”

  “Yeah, like we can find you someplace to live. Get your new life settled and into a routine that works best. So much can happen,” I said, trying my best to stay focused and get us back on track, and he just laughed.

  “Like me getting you into bed and tasting every inch of that fucking perfect-looking body. That can happen within two months too. Shit, that can happen every single day for the next two months.”

  Okaaaay.

  No one had ever been so forward before. At least, not this quickly. His hand disappeared to where I couldn’t see it, but I knew that he was adjusting his cock underneath his pants. That meant that he was hard. This man, who had walked into my office all of three minutes ago, was hard for me. I shouldn’t have been turned on, but I was.

  Part of me had wanted to strip out of my clothes and hop into his lap the moment the words left his mouth, but I held strong and convinced myself that I was only feeling that way because I hadn’t been properly fucked in months. The last time was a bad blind date that Seline had arranged, which only ended up in bed because I needed to dust off the cobwebs from my poor, unused girl.

  Looking back at the experience, I should have left them there.

  “I don’t date my clients. Sorry.”

  “Never?” he pressed.

  I could tell that he wanted to know if I’d ever broken the rule before. I had, only that one time, but I wasn’t about to admit that to him. I barely knew the guy; I sure as hell didn’t trust him.

  “Never,” I said, the lie flowing easily and convincingly from my lips.

  “Well, technically, I won’t be your client after sixty days.”

  On any other day, it would have been a good point, but per usual, I’d heard that line before. I wondered briefly how annoyed he’d be if I told him that he needed some new material. See, I’d heard it all. Every technicality, every loophole, every way that a man could attempt to get a woman into bed—it had all met my ears in some form over the years.

  I eventually learned that it was the challenge more than anything else for these guys. I was forbidden fruit, so to speak. Someone they were told they couldn’t have. Men, athletes especially, were competitive creatures. Dangle the carrot in front of them, and they’d not only chase it, but also devour it the second it was in their grip.

  All I had to do was remember the way things had unfolded in the past and see that we were following a similar timeline. Most of my clients disappeared pretty quickly after our time together was up. That was how I knew that it hadn’t ever been real for them in the first place regardless of how convincing they might have been to the contrary.

  Nothing they’d said was true. It couldn’t have been. Because one after the other, they all followed the same pattern of walking away, taking their pursuit of me with them. Any other woman might have had a breakdown over it, taken it personally, or wondered what the hell was wrong with them.

  But not me. I’d caught on pretty quickly that it was about the sex and little else. The way these men acted had nothing to do with me. It was about them and their dicks. They weren’t looking for a relationship or anything serious, even when they’d initially proclaimed to be. I was a game, and they not only wanted to play, but they wanted to win as well.

  “You’re not my type,” I lied once again because Crew Maxwell was the type for every woman with eyes. He was a freaking god. An Adonis. And I bet he fucked like one too.