by Heather Long
Brazen and Breathless
Untouchable Book Six
Heather Long
Copyright © 2020 by Heather Long
Cover by Crimson Phoenix Creations
Editing: Bookish Dreams Editing
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For all the people trapped in this house with me.
This is how I saved your lives.
You’re welcome.
Series so Far
Rules and Roses
Changes and Chocolate
Keys and Kisses
Whispers and Wishes
Hangovers and Holidays
Contents
Brazen and Breathless
Foreword
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
True Colors
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
14. Chapter Fourteen
15. Chapter Fifteen
16. Chapter Sixteen
17. Chapter Seventeen
Red Flag
18. Chapter Eighteen
19. Chapter Nineteen
20. Chapter Twenty
21. Chapter Twenty-One
22. Chapter Twenty-Two
23. Chapter Twenty-Three
24. Chapter Twenty-Four
25. Chapter Twenty-Five
Trials and Tiaras
Afterword
About Heather Long
Also by Heather Long
Brazen and Breathless
It’s a new year.
It’s a new me.
Or maybe I should say a new us.
We’re out there. We’re not hiding the fact that I’m dating all of them. PDAs are back on the table. The final semester of high school kicks off with a bang. I have to keep my eye on the prize though—make every AP class count, keep my grades up, and find a way to balance life with my guys. My best friends. My boyfriends. My lovers.
The battle with Maddy is still on the table. So is figuring out our future. It’s one thing to say we’re sticking together, now we have to make it happen.
I never thought it would be easy. Apparently, we don’t do easy.
But am I ready for this?
All I know is I’m not giving them up without a fight.
Ninety some odd days to go, and we graduate. We can do it, right?
*Please note this is a reverse harem, and the author suggests you always read the forward in her books. Contains some bullying elements, mature situations, and is recommended for 17+. This is the sixth in a series, and the story will continue through future books
Foreword
Dear Reader,
Thank you for picking up Brazen and Breathless. If you haven’t read the first five in the Untouchable series, I caution you to go and grab those right now and read them first.
Kicking off the sixth book is kind of surreal. At the same time, there’s an inescapable joy at welcoming Frankie and the boys back from their vacation. They’re in a much better place.
I talked about found family and friends in the last book. It definitely still applies, but this is also about coming into your own. Frankie has been coming into her own for a while, healing, and letting her confidence out to shine once more. A lot of changes have happened over the last few months, but the best one I think is where she’s not hiding who she is anymore and she’s definitely not afraid to stand up for herself.
It’s an awesome thing for me, the author, to explore.
This series wouldn’t be complete without the enormous support of Blake Blessing, Rebecca Royce, Alyssa Muller (even if she is #TeamMadAtHeather), and Sara Vermillion. They’ve been tremendous as cheerleaders (and in Sara’s case, cracking the whip), as sounding boards, and sometimes even telling me to take a break because I was pushing too hard. I flove them to pieces.
I’ll be honest, I’m always pushing too hard so these folks keep me in check :D You should thank them, too.
One of the best parts of an ongoing series is there are so many more people to thank along the way. Thank you Katrina for the gorgeous covers, you helped me bring Frankie to life. Elisabeth and Stephanie, thanks for reading and all your comments not to mention the pictures, the videos, and the painting (OMG the painting is so awesome). Thank you to Laura, Jenna, and Sloane for listening to me gripe. And thank you Tate for the ending here. Just making sure everyone knows the bus goes both ways.
Thank you to every single reader who has given this series a shot and to those who left reviews. Thank you to the readers who recommend the series to their friends and to every single person who has reached out to me about it. I see and hear all of you. Thank you to the readers who make the beautiful collages and cast who they see as the characters in this series.
I get such a thrill for every single one I see.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
One last thing, for those who are not on my newsletter or in my group, this series is slated to be ten books long. We’re just over halfway there.
And as always, the housekeeping notes:
For those of you who have never read a reverse harem before, first let me thank you for picking this up and giving it a shot. Second, a reverse harem means the heroine will not make a choice in this book or any other between the guys in her life. It may take her a while to reach that conclusion, but it’s the journey that drives it. There are many ways to frame this kind of relationship, currently reverse harem fits it very well.
Also, this is the sixth book in a series. If you haven’t read the first five, I encourage you to pause here and go grab them. While there may be no specific happy endings at the end of each of these books, there will be one to the whole series, that I promise you. Some of these books will have cliffhangers, largely due to the size of the story, but the happy ending has to be earned as part of the journey.
Thank you again for reading Frankie’s story and I truly hope you enjoy it!
xoxo
Heather
Chapter One
Crazy in Love
Being back at school exhilarated me. From the moment we walked into the cafeteria together, to when I gave Ian and Jake quick kisses before heading off with Archie for first period, my spirits remained high. Were people staring? Yup.
Did I care?
Nope.
Archie kept giving me these sideways looks and biting back smiles.
“What?” I asked, raising a brow as my phone dinged.
He chuckled as he slid his arm around my shoulders and took over piloting while I glanced at my phone. “Nothing. Just happy that you’re happy.”
“Well you need to be happy for you, too,” I retorted, giving him an elbow. The text on my phone was from Coop, with pictures of my kisses with Ian and Jake. Well that didn’t take long. Only he also sent a pouty face.
I laughed. I’d given him a kiss when he said he had to run to the library before class. Archie snorted as he glanced at my phone. “Next time kiss Rachel, too, then he can really pop a blood vessel.”
I elbowed him again, but it barely had any impact as he chuckled and then pressed a kiss to my temple before turning us into class. I fired off a quick text to Co
op that promised I’d make it up to him later.
A minute after we were in our seats, Rachel’s text hit my phone.
Rachel: Brace yourself. They already hit Snapchat and Instagram.
I scrolled back to Coop’s text and the two pictures he’d sent. They weren’t bad shots really. I saved them to a file on my phone and then tabbed back over to Rachel’s message.
Me: Fuck ’em.
Rachel: That’s my girl.
My phone buzzed twice more, both messages to our group chat.
Archie: You snooze you lose, Coop. Don’t whine cause you had to go to the library. You could have asked F to go with.
Coop:
Jake and Ian piled on, but I just grinned and shut the screen off. It was going to be a great day.
My mood held through calculus and all the way to French. It faltered a little when I realized Mathieu wasn’t present. He always beat me to class, but he wasn’t there. That kind of sucked. Rachel quirked a brow at me as she dropped into her desk. “Problem?” she mouthed, but I shook my head.
Madame cleared it up when she reminded all of us that Mathieu had gone home, his semester abroad ended in December.
Oh. My. God.
I was the absolute worst kind of friend. I had completely forgotten I wouldn’t see him again. I hadn’t even said goodbye. Man, I sucked.
Rachel nudged me with a foot, and I shook my head. “Just…I didn’t even think about the fact that he wouldn’t be back.” I’d breezed out of that last class with him with a half-wave, and I was off. Since we’d been able to blow off classes on the actual last day, we hadn’t bothered to show up.
She let out a little huff of laughter and rolled her eyes. I flipped her off with my hand hidden behind my book so Madame wouldn’t catch it, and Rachel snorted again. Bitch.
But we grinned at each other and then dove into class.
Seriously, though, it kind of bugged me all the way through AP Lit, and I was chewing on the thought when Ms. Fajardo asked me to stick around for a couple of minutes after class. Apparently, I wasn’t doing a good job of hiding my concern, because Coop shot me looks all the way through class and then lingered with me as the others left to head to lunch.
With a roll of her eyes, Ms. Fajardo just shook her head at Coop before focusing on me. “I just have a packet for you to review so you can get me any questions you have.” She held out the folder, and I stared at her blankly for a minute.
As I took it, I stared at it and then her. “I feel like I’m forgetting something.”
“The internship.”
Oh. Shit.
Coop snickered at me. The asshole. “Sorry, Ms. Fajardo, Frankie’s still recovering from our holiday break. I think she might have had too much Christmas cheer.”
I totally didn’t wait to flip him off with one hand behind my back before I opened the folder.
Amused, Ms. Fajardo said, “It’s fine. You got all the paperwork in, and since you have the temporary emancipation order, we were able to get it all finalized without involving your mother.”
Good.
“So, just take that home and read it tonight. Email me any questions, and we can talk tomorrow. Orientation is next week, so you’ll be signing out on Wednesday for that. Then likely Wednesdays and Fridays for the next few weeks.”
“Thank you,” I told her. I really had forgotten all about this. Fuck, that was going to add to the pile I already had.
“And on that note,” Coop said, hooking an arm around me. “I better go feed her before the hamster wheel burns out. I can already see the lists she’s typing in her head.”
With another laugh, Ms. Fajardo waved us out, and I hugged the folder to myself as we walked. “I can’t believe I forgot about this.”
“I can,” Coop teased. “We had a lot more fun things to think about than…” He cut his head to the side. “Business opportunities. Since when do you care about business opportunities?”
“It’s the scholarship and grant money,” I reminded him. “I’d like to keep all my options open.”
He grunted, then pressed a kiss to my temple before pausing in the hallway to nudge me against a locker.
“Coop,” I warned him.
He just grinned, the little shit. “Frankie. PDAs are back on the table.” Then he kissed me with enough ferocity, it threatened to burn right through my clothes.
“Mr. Brennan. Miss Curtis.” The prim voice intruded right through the lustful haze slapping me right back to Earth.
Wearing the cockiest smile, Coop lifted his head and glanced at Ms. Phillips. We’d had her for ninth grade humanities. “Hey, Mrs. P.”
“Good afternoon, you two. Off you go, and I’ll pretend there was nothing to see here.” The warning was unmistakable, but so was the indulgent smile on her face. I had to be about fifty-eight different shades of red, but Coop just grinned.
“Sure thing. We’re going to be late to lunch anyway.” He gave me a mock glare. “You really need to stop dragging me against walls, Frankie. We’re at school.”
Asshole.
I narrowed my eyes, and he waggled his brows.
If he wanted to play that way, game on.
“Sure thing,” I retorted as I ducked under his arm. “I’ll make sure I just trip you next time and grab Rachel. She won’t complain.”
I made it all of three steps before he had an arm around me. “I don’t know whether to spank you for that or get turned on, ’cause that’s kind of hot.”
“Keep it up, Cooper. I’ll do it.”
He laughed. “No you won’t, because you wouldn’t want to lead Rachel on.”
“You and your logic can bite me,” I told him as we pushed out the doors to where Jake and the guys waited with the SUV.
“That can be arranged,” Coop said with a grin.
“Why are you two always late?” Jake asked, glaring at us over the edge of his sunglasses. I slid my own on as our phones pinged.
“I apparently assaulted Coop in the hallway when I tripped him, and his mouth landed on my lips.”
“Well,” Jake said. “All right then. Asshole can ride in the back, Baby Girl gets shotgun.”
“Hey,” came the complaint from Archie and Ian, but Coop just laughed as I circled around to the passenger side.
Girlfriend perks.
I could get used to this.
At lunch, I sandwiched between Archie and Ian as we grabbed pizza at Joe’s. It wasn’t as busy, and we could get all the individual slices we wanted. Ian kept one hand on my thigh the whole time, and Archie wanted to see the folder as soon as Coop told them what it was.
He was flipping through it, with me reading over his shoulder. Most of it was pretty straight forward—we’d be doing internships at different businesses, some would rotate us to give us a feel across the board, but it was all about leadership and negotiations.
“Why are you doing this again?” he asked, giving me the side eye. Ian had begun rubbing my thigh, just gentle circles with little massaging squeezes that did nothing for my thought process except to utterly derail them.
“Like I told Coop, it’s about the scholarships and the grants.”
“You got that huge one, babe, you don’t need to pile more responsibilities on your schedule.”
Not that he didn’t have a point but…
“It’s up to her whether she does that or not,” Jake jumped in. “But if you’re looking for our opinions. I’m with Arch.”
From being my hero to joining forces with the opposition. I wrinkled my nose. “I know I have a lot on my plate already.” Four boyfriends were a lot. “But it’s a good opportunity, and it might help me whittle down what I want to do.”
You’d think I had that all in the bag, but I didn’t.
“Is it a good opportunity? That’s two days a week you won’t be at school, which means you’ll have to double up on your homework to keep up with assignments.”
Okay, Jake had a point.
“But stuff l
ike this looks great on college applications.”
Thank you, Coop.
“And if we hadn’t already submitted them, that would be a huge perk.” Course, he couldn’t resist tacking that last bit on.
Ugh.
“Stop all siding against me.”
“We’re not siding against you,” Archie countered, and Ian gave my thigh a squeeze before he nudged my plate toward me. I’d only eaten one slice. I picked up the second one with a half-pout. “We’re all Team Frankie here, right, guys?”
“Definitely.” Ian gave me a little pinch when I rolled my eyes at him. “We’re all Team Frankie, and you have a lot on your plate. If you want to do this, we’ll support you, but cut us some slack. That’s two days a week we’re not going to see you at school, and then you throw in you going back to Mason’s…”
Fine. He had a point, too.
Ugh.
“I would hate to give up on it just because I was afraid of a little work.”
“Is it really giving up if you forgot about it?” Coop challenged.
“Yes,” I mumbled, then took a bite of the pizza, and Jake grinned at me.
“Then, we figure it out.” Jake winked, and Archie nodded.
“I’m going to look more into this program though and ask Grandpa…” He flipped to the next page. “Make sure this isn’t a lot of dog and pony showing with no substance. If you’re going to spend time on it, then they need to make it worth your investment.”
It was a done deal as far as he was concerned. “Tell you what,” I offered. “If you and Grandpa Ted come up with something that says this is a bad idea, I’ll ask Ms. Fajardo to get out of it.”