Beautiful Boss (Beautiful #9) - Christina Lauren Page 0,35

world: Holly Root (agent extraordinaire), Adam Wilson (editor with the best margin notes and YouTube links), Kristin Dwyer (our precious, also our publicist—hehe), and everyone in our Gallery family: Jen Bergstrom, Louise Burke, Carolyn Reidy, Liz Psaltis, Diana Velasquez, Theresa Dooley, the amazing sales force (seriously, we want to buy you all dinner and drinks), and each and every person who had to correct our Oxford commas and/or question our “sexclamations” with a professional tone. You deserve a bonus. There’s one for each of you in Adam’s office.

We would be a mass of inarticulate garbage without Erin Service and Tonya Irving. Our social media would be a barren landscape without Lauren Suero steering the ship and Heather Carrier making things pretty. Our families keep us smiling, and we keep each other sane, but you, sweet reader, make all of this the best job in the world.

Turn the page for a sneak peek of

Wicked

SEXY LIAR

Book Four in Wild Seasons

from Christina Lauren

“A hypersexy, sophisticated romance that

perfectly captures the hunger, thrill,

and doubt of young, modern love.”

—Kirkus Reviews

Chapter ONE

London

THERE ARE A number of things that happen when you haven’t had sex in a while: You inadvertently emit a sound during the kissing scenes in romantic movies—a noise that falls somewhere between a snort and an audible eye roll and which almost always elicits a pillow being lobbed at you from the other end of the couch. You can name at least three online adult toy stores from memory, accurately quoting their shipping rates, reliability, and speed. At least two of these stores auto-fill after only a single letter is typed into the URL bar, and you are always the roommate expected to replace the batteries on the remote control, hand vacuum, and flashlights.

Which is ridiculous when you think about it because everyone knows the best sex toys are corded or rechargeable. Amateurs.

You become good at masturbating, too. Like, really good, Olympic sport good. And by that point, having sex with yourself is the only option because how can any man possibly hope to compete with your own hand or a vibrator with 120 volts and seventeen variable speed settings?

The side effects of a less-than-social vagina are particularly noticeable when you’re constantly surrounded by three of the most disgustingly happy couples around. My roommate, Lola, and her two best friends, Harlow and Mia, met their significant others in a totally insane, it-never-happens-in-real-life weekend of debauchery in Las Vegas. Mia and Ansel are married and barely come up for air. Harlow and Finn seem to have mastered sex via eye contact. And Lola and her boyfriend, Oliver, are at that stage in a new relationship where touching is constant and sex seems to happen almost spontaneously. Cooking turns into sex. Watching The Walking Dead? Obviously arousing. Time for sex. Sometimes they’ll just walk in the door, chatting casually, and then stop, look at each other, and here we go again.

TMI alert? Oliver is loud, and I had no idea the c-word was used quite so readily in Australia. It’s a good thing I love them both so much.

And Lord, I do. I met Lola in the art program at UCSD, and although we didn’t really start hanging out regularly until she moved in as my roommate last summer, I feel like I’ve known her my entire life.

Hearing her feet dragging down the hall, I smile. She emerges, hair a mess and face still flushed.

“Oliver just left,” I tell her around a spoonful of Raisin Bran. He’d stumbled out less than ten minutes ago, sporting a dazed grin and a similar level of dishevelment. “I gave him a high five and a bottle of Gatorade for the road because he has to be dehydrated after all that. Seriously, Lola, I’m impressed.”

I wouldn’t have thought it possible for Lola’s cheeks to get any pinker. I would have lost that bet.

“Sorry,” she says, offering me a sheepish smile from behind the cupboard door. “You’ve got to be sick to death of us, but I’m about to leave for L.A. and—”

“You are not apologizing because you’ve got a gorgeous, sweet Australian guy banging you senseless,” I tell her, and stand to rinse out my bowl. “I’d give you more shit if you weren’t hitting that daily.”

“Sometimes it feels like driving all the way to his place takes forever.” Lola closes the cupboard door and stares off, contemplating. “That is insane. We are insane.”

“I tried to convince him to stay,” I tell her. “I’m leaving for the day and have work