Low Down & Dirty
Addison Moore
Addison Moore
Edited by Paige Maroney Smith
Cover Design: Gaffey Media
* * *
Smashwords Edition
Copyright © 2017 by Addison Moore
http://addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com/
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.
All Rights Reserved.
Smashwords License agreement
This ebook is for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this ebook with another person, please purchase any additional copies for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
he hard work of this author.
* * *
Copyright © 2017 by Addison Moore
Created with Vellum
For Lisa.
You are much appreciated and you are well loved.
The fact you can be low down and dirty will be our little secret.
Contents
Books by Addison Moore
1. Worst. Day. Ever.
Levi
2. All the Dirty Details
Levi
3. Drop Everything
Levi
4. Nail It
Levi
5. That’s so Raven
Levi
6. Key Largo
Levi
A Note from the Author
Books by Addison Moore
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Books by Addison Moore
For up to the minute pre-order and new release alerts
✦Follow Addison on Bookbub! http://bit.ly/2mLl95b
✦Like on Facebook http://bit.ly/2kk7sFw
Romance
* * *
Low Down & Dirty (Low Down & Dirty 1)
Dirty Disaster (Low Down & Dirty 2)
3:AM Kisses (3:AM Kisses 1)
Winter Kisses (3:AM Kisses 2)
Sugar Kisses (3:AM Kisses 3)
Whiskey Kisses (3:AM Kisses 4)
Rock Candy Kisses (3:AM Kisses 5)
Velvet Kisses (3:AM Kisses 6)
Wild Kisses (3:AM Kisses 7)
Country Kisses (3:AM Kisses 8)
Forbidden Kisses (3:AM Kisses 9)
Dirty Kisses (3:AM Kisses 10)
Stolen Kisses (3:AM Kisses 11)
Lucky Kisses (3:AM Kisses 12)
Tender Kisses (3:AM Kisses 13)
Revenge Kisses (3:AM Kisses 14)
* * *
Burning Through Gravity (Burning Through Gravity 1)
A Thousand Starry Nights (Burning Through Gravity 2)
Fire in an Amber Sky (Burning Through Gravity 3)
* * *
Beautiful Oblivion (Beautiful Oblivion 1)
Beautiful Illusions (Beautiful Oblivion 2)
Beautiful Elixir (Beautiful Oblivion 3)
* * *
The Solitude of Passion
* * *
Someone to Love (Someone to Love 1)
Someone Like You (Someone to Love 2)
Someone For Me (Someone to Love 3)
Young Adult Romance
Melt With You (A Totally ’80s Romance 1)
Tainted Love (A Totally ’80s Romance 2)
Hold Me Now (A Totally ’80s Romance 3)
* * *
Parnormal Romance
(Celestra Book World in Order)
Ethereal (Celestra Series Book 1)
Tremble (Celestra Series Book 2)
Burn (Celestra Series Book 3)
Wicked (Celestra Series Book 4)
Vex (Celestra Series Book 5)
Expel (Celestra Series Book 6)
Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7)
Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 8)
Elysian (Celestra Series Book 9)
Perfect Love (A Celestra Novella)
* * *
Ethereal Knights (Celestra Knights)
Season of the Witch (A Celestra Companion)
* * *
Ephemeral (The Countenance Trilogy 1)
Evanescent (The Countenance Trilogy 2)
Entropy (The Countenance Trilogy 3)
* * *
Celestra Forever After (Celestra Forever After 1)
The Dragon and the Rose (Celestra Forever After 2)
The Serpentine Butterfly (Celestra Forever After 3)
Crown of Ashes (Celestra Forever After 4)
Worst. Day. Ever.
Harlow
I can peg this entire catastrophe on my incessant need to find a man. Well, that and my incessant need not to sound like a loser to Raven, my old college roommate who’s setting the advertising world on fire, jet-setting, meeting amazingly gorgeous underwear-clad men while I sit in a cubicle all day selling windows. Okay, I don’t actually sell the windows—I place orders, take stock, pick up the phone, and make sure the barista at Starbucks gets everyone’s coffee correct. Right there is the difference between Raven and me. We both spent four years at Whitney Briggs University majoring in business, both graduated with honors, and here we are three years later—on extremely uneven playing fields. But that’s beside the point. I spent the bulk of the morning exchanging spastic text messages with her because this just so happens to be the shittiest, shit, shit day ever. Like for instance, my shitty car needed a jump just to get me to the shitty urgent care clinic this morning. And now I’m on my way to pick up a prescription for this shitty sore throat—which up until an hour ago I thought was a complete work of fiction. But after that, I plan on commandeering this shitty day into port by way of crawling back into bed with a quart or two of ice cream. Cherry Garcia. Lots and lots of Cherry Garcia. The only bright spot in this day is the fact my landlord is finally getting around to inspecting that leak above my closet. No more moldy running shoes, no more sopping wet yoga pants, which means I’ll have to refresh my bucket full of excuses to evade the gym.
“Next, please?” The pharmacist tech leans over the counter before flagging me in. I’ve had my feet firmly planted on the courtesy mat while the sweet gray-haired granny in front of me got a refill for her gout. The courtesy mat itself consists of a pair of shoeprints with the words, Please, wait here. You’re next! Respect patient privacy. printed above it. Although the granny in question plagued with a merciless bout of gout also happens to be a bit hard of hearing, thus the amplified expository on the state of her dilapidated health.
I step forward to the counter and casually glance back before doing a double take as a tall, dark, and handsome knight in shining pharmaceutical armor takes my position at the plate. He’s somewhere in his twenties, about my age, within bedding range for sure. He has his light pink Polo on standby for margaritas with the collar up, and he’s exuding that whole eighties yuppie vibe I find so startlingly sexy. Damn. Why couldn’t he have stepped up sooner? We could have had a rousing conversation regarding our impending first date rather than me getting a brief yet comprehensive education on all things uric acid.
“Name?” the pharmacy tech barks, and I come to. She’s tall and wiry, and her hair is trying quite successfully to escape that bun she’s swept it into. Her glasses hang low on her nose, and they magnify her eyes the size of silver dollars.
“Harlow Hartley,” I say it loud and clear in the event the smoki
ng hot collar popper has his radar up. He’s a preppy for sure, but who doesn’t like a spin in a spanking new Beamer once in a while? Emphasis on the spanking. I graze my teeth over my bottom lip and give a little wink his way. He perks right up and smiles wide, exposing a rather deep dimple embedded neatly in the base of his chin.
Dimpled chin. Huh.
I spin back around as the pharmacy tech comes back to the counter with a small white bag that looks every bit like it should be coming from a bakery rather than this treasure trove of diseases. Although, to be fair, this treasure trove of diseases happens to be planted smack in the middle of Kragger’s Grocery Store in the heart of downtown Jepson, just a few measly blocks from the disease-riddled hovel I call home. Have I mentioned Raven lives in a high-rise uptown? She has the world eating out of the palm of her gilded little hands, and she damn well knows it.
I check my phone to see if she’s responded yet. I told her all about the fact I called in sick with a sore throat, and my boss over at Windows-R-Us politely informed me I’d need a medical excuse to return to work—thus, the impromptu visit to the urgent care center. Only there wasn’t anything urgent about it. That whole sore throat thing was actually more of a hangover thing due to the fact I spent last night trolling the Black Bear Saloon, my old college hangout where I lost many a dollar trying to make the frat boys holler. It turns out the Black Bear is still brimming with frat boys, only now they all look like they should be running around on a middle school playground. How the hell did I get so old so fast, anyway?
“So, have you taken this before?” SALLY, as her nametag shouts my way, drones the words out as if they had the power to put both her and me to sleep.
“I’m sorry, what?” I straighten a moment, trying to keep myself from going horizontal.
“I said, have you taken this before?” Her voice rises several octaves the same way it did for poor Gout Granny. “Maxie Gel? It’s a vaginal ointment to treat bacterial vaginosis.”
A shadow appears to my right, and it’s Preppy Frat Boy leering at me with that come hither smile.
“Shit,” I hiss under my breath before returning my attention to SALLY, the bearer of bad vaginal news. “I’m sorry. There must be some mix-up. I saw the doctor this morning for a sore throat. I promise you, it’s the only part of me that he burrowed his fingers into.” I turn to the Greek god to my left and whisper, “Wrong orifice!”
“Whelp”—Sally demonstrates her strong command of the King’s English—“that’s what he gave you. This ointment needs to be administered for seven nights. Now, there are only five injectable applicators. You’ll have to reuse two of them. Be sure to clean them good with soap and water before injecting them into your vagina.”
Oh my hell. I shrink about three inches. My ears are still humming from the fact she’s left her voice at top volume. It’s becoming increasingly clear that deep down inside, Sally is a bitch from the bacterial circle of hell.
She juts her chin out. “Do you need the pharmacist to come up and demonstrate how to insert them?”
“Shit!” A bite of heat lights up under my arms at once. “No, for God’s sake, no.” I glance to the cute preppy who has suddenly decided this is a fine time to take a step back. I lean over the counter with a heated rage coursing through me. “I’m good,” I assure binocular eyes before she drops trou at the pharmacist’s command and shows me how it’s done.
“Are you sure?” She reaches down and hoists up a plastic model of the female lower forty-eight, and I die a small pink plastic vaginal death. As if her megaphone of a mouth didn’t echo throughout the four corners of the grocery store, she now has visuals for the hearing impaired.
I glance back and note the line behind me is swelling with ogling men of all ages. Figures. And to think, I actually hit a bar last night in hopes to find one of these mythological creatures.
I turn back to Sally and glare at her a moment. “I’ve used the aforementioned ointment before. I’ve actually used Monostet, so I’m familiar.”
“Oh, Monostet is for yeast infections.” She blasts those last two words through her vocal cords in the event the astronauts up on the space station hadn’t been clued into the sad and desperate state of my vagina just yet. “What you have is BACTERIAL.”
Dear God, talk into the loud speaker, why don’t you.
I give a few tired blinks as I struggle to hold together what’s left of my sanity.
“Oh?” I try my best to sound ultra-cheery, but that sarcastic scary bitch that lives deep down inside of me is about to unleash—and heaven help poor SALLY if she does, because that scary bitchy side of me loves to bypass the jugular and head straight for humiliation. “And here I thought I’d give up on my favorite sugary feast.” A forced laugh steams from me, sounding far more maniacal than it does cute ex-sorority girl. “Chocolate.” I turn to Preppy God and mock giggle. “I guess I’m back in business!” Whew. It looks as if that sarcastic scary side of me has decided to sit this one out. Lucky for both Sally and Preppy Frat Boy—and most likely me.
That dimple in his chin inverts ten times deeper, and on a whole it’s becoming obvious I have no way to read a dimple-chinned man.
“No, heaven’s no. It’s not from sugar.” Sally chortles along with me. “It’s from fecal contamination.”
Kill me.
“Usually wiping back to front.” She wags a finger. “Somebody doesn’t know how to wipe her bottom!”
Oh my dear God, kill her instead!
My body slaps with an insufferable amount of heat, and I can feel my cheeks ready to burst into flames—both sets.
“I assure you I know how to wipe my bottom,” I grit the words through my teeth, just daring her to challenge me on this. “I’m front to back all the way.” Throw me a fucking bone, Sally. Can’t you see we’re practically standing in the armpit of the Kragger’s Foods Frat? There has to be at least a dozen men circling the outskirts, suddenly interested in how this fecal contaminated chick flick ends. “And are you sure that prescription is for me?” My God, all the man did was run a swab down my throat.
“It’s for you.” She winkles her nose. “Well, this kind of infection could be due to sexual activity, too.”
“That’s it!” Ha! Redemption! I slap the counter so hard my fingers nearly snap off before turning to face my favorite preppy frat brat. “I have lots and lots of sex.” I shed a cheesy smile, and he grimaces in response. Oh, go to hell. “Loads of it,” I snip before turning back to Sell-Out-Sally here who has no problem roasting a fellow sister over the sexual flames. “I should have known it would come back to bite me in the butt so to speak.”
The lunatic ringing up my order sniffs. “Yeah, anal will do it every single time.”
Anal? As in the no-fly zone? Gah! Gah! Gah! Abort the mission and run like hell! Abort! Abort! Abort!
My entire body begs to dissolve in the boiling cauldron of sweat that my yoga pants have turned into. Good God, I’m going to forgo the Cherry Garcia and speed straight to the first cheeseburger drive-thru I see and eat my weight in animal fat. My humiliation has just hit DEFCON 1, and I need to bolt before Sally here tosses me onto another landmine.
I whip out my credit card and run it through the machine while Sally dutifully staples a pamphlet to the outside of the bag that cheerily reads My Bacterial Infection and Me.
“Lovely.” I snatch it from her as I toss my credit card into my purse in haste. I’m usually—ironically—anal about placing it right back in my wallet where it belongs, but at this point I couldn’t care less if I dropped it on the street and someone purchased a house with it. Right about now, I’d welcome just about anybody to hijack my identity—and my quite literal shitty bacterial infection, too.
“Remember”—she lifts a finger as I plot my escape—“no back to front sex for you, missy—at least for a week. And since you like anal so much, I suggest you use a condom.” She makes a face. “Things tend to get a little messy down toward the exit.”
I glare at he
r for an inordinate amount of time. Nobody in their right mind loves anal so much.
“Listen here, SALLY”—that scary bitch that lives deep inside of me is good and ready to unleash all seven circles of hellish rage on the poor, dimly-witted, goldfish-eyed, anal-loving freak in front of me—“nobody in their right mind loves rear play that much—or anal as you so indelicately insist on calling it. You are a dumb twat, and you should have your girl card revoked for embarrassing me like this in front of God, and Super Preppy, and a handful of random damn nosy Kragger’s shoppers!”
The crowd around me gasps. Sally gives me a few solid blinks, and I gird myself for a much-deserved rebuttal.
Come on, Sally. Make my day.
Her mouth falls open. “Oh, and if you get this prescription renewed here, you can get up to two dollars off your next prescription!”
“Great.” My voice pitches in that unnatural way it’s prone to do when I get my balls caught in a vise. Oh, wait. I don’t have balls or a vise. That must mean I simply hate Sally. On second thought, I think I just found my hairy nutsack.
“Coupon, huh?” I force a tight smile. “Well, too bad I don’t foresee racking up any frequent flyer miles with my vagina. See ya never!” I bolt from the counter as if my vagina just conducted a bank heist.
“Wait!” Preppy calls after me. “How about coffee? I hear it can take care of that rash!”