In Bed with the Beast (Naughty Princess Club 2)

Chapter 1: My Daughter Is Being Hookerish

“Jesus, lay off the carbs!” my friend Ariel mutters angrily from below.

Her hands are on my butt as she grunts and struggles to help push me up into the window I left open before heading out earlier tonight. As my arms start to shake with the exertion of trying to pull myself into this stupid window, I wonder for the hundredth time how much longer I can keep doing this.

“Shut up and push harder!” I whisper back to her, managing to swing one of my legs up and over the windowsill, losing one of my shoes in the process and hoping none of our neighbors see me sneaking into the house wearing a fancy dress and call the police, thinking I’m some kind of well-dressed robber.

“OW! Son of a bitch, your shoe just hit me in the face! If you gave me a black eye I will murder you!” Ariel shouts up to me, smacking her hand as hard as she can against my butt while I continue struggling to pull myself the rest of the way inside.

After all of the stress of the last few months, it was nice to get out of the house tonight, put on a pretty dress and go to a fundraiser for the Animal Protective League. The library I run is on the verge of shutting down, I’m growing more and more discontent with the fact that I still live at home with my overprotective father, and I feel guilty for keeping my problems from my two best friends and business partners, Cindy and Ariel—but for one night, I was able to push everything aside. For a little while, I forgot about my own problems while I sipped champagne and got to witness Cindy and her boyfriend PJ, the owner of Charming’s Gentlemen’s Club, get a real life happily-ever-after right in front of my own two eyes. After the troubles Cindy went through, it was wonderful to see her find her Prince Charming.

The three of us became fast friends when we all realized we shared similar money troubles. Cindy was left high and dry when her ex-husband skipped town with the babysitter and took all their money with him. Ariel was forced to sell her antique store when her ex-husband screwed her over. And me? I’m still living in my father’s basement at twenty-five and running out of ideas on how to keep the town library I run open for much longer if I can’t come up with a way to raise money for it. We were all pretty desperate when we met.

We were dressed in princess costumes at the annual Halloween block party on the street Cindy and Ariel live on when one of Cindy’s neighbors approached us and hired us to perform at what we assumed was a little girl’s birthday party. It turned out we were actually hired to take our clothes off for a man’s birthday party (PJ being that man). Sure, that first party was disastrous and ended in one gentleman asking me to do something unmentionable with a balloon, and the three of us running and screaming out of PJ’s home, but I wouldn’t change anything about how it all happened. Deciding to start a home-stripping business called the Naughty Princess Club might not sound like a good idea for three women who have never taken their clothes off for money before, but it has turned out to be the best idea we’ve ever had.

And even though I haven’t started doing any of the stripping parties that our company has already booked, I still get a small cut of the money Cindy makes for helping with the administrative side of things. So far, it’s been enough to keep the doors of the library open, thanks to me being extremely frugal and not having to worry about any personal bills of my own, since I still live at home. Unfortunately, the bills at the library are starting to pile up, and soon that little bit of extra money won’t be enough. And even more unfortunately, I don’t know how much longer I can continue climbing through windows in the middle of the night after my dad has gone to sleep. It would be nice to sneak back in the house using my key like a normal person, but I learned a tough lesson when I snuck out a few weeks ago: Apparently, my dad likes to get up in the middle of the night and put the chain on the door. After sleeping in his car in the garage until he woke up to get the morning paper, and then sneaking back in when he was taking a shower, I thanked God he didn’t also make sure all the windows were locked during his nighttime safety check.