Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81009 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 405(@200wpm)___ 324(@250wpm)___ 270(@300wpm)
Pepper was over at a booth behind us, talking to someone. I waited for her to finish so I could get her attention and order my cheeseburger through her. She’d get it out here faster.
“Here ya go, baby,” Amethyst purred close to my ear as she pressed her tits against the side of my head while bending down to hand me my beer.
I started to tell her to go order me the burger when Pepper stepped away from the table, and my eyes drifted over to the woman in the booth.
The band began playing a Guns N’ Roses song while the women with us started to cheer, yet it was as if the sound went from loud to being sucked out of the room. Leaving me sitting there in complete silence. I stared. This wasn’t the first time I’d thought I saw her or imagined what she looked like now, but it was the first fucking time the eyes were the perfect shade of cornflower blue, and the Marilyn Monroe beauty mark was there on her creamy, flawless skin.
Memories that I had shut away began to pound me like unforgiving ocean waves even though I tried like hell to hold them back. Then her gaze drifted from the band onstage to connect with mine. She stilled, then stiffened. It was her.
The fucking quickening of my heart didn’t lie. It had only ever done that shit once. For one girl.
Twenty-One Years Ago
My steps slowed as I approached the front porch of my mom’s house. The sun was going down, casting a shadow over it, and I’d not noticed the porch was occupied until I almost reached the steps. Salem Gray was sitting on the swing. The sight of her did shit to me that I wasn’t familiar with, and it only seemed to get worse every time I saw her.
I was nineteen, and she was fifteen years old. My mother had made that very fucking clear the night I met her. She followed me out to my truck and let me know that Salem was living with her due to an abusive situation at home. Salem was her most promising art student in all her twenty years of teaching. Mom had big plans for Salem. She’d said that Salem was broken, but she was going to help fix the girl and I was going to ignore the bashful smiles she flashed at me.
Well, Momma, it’s fucking hard to do. Your little brilliant artist is stunning, and I’m a man.
I preferred to only see Salem with Mom present. That way, Salem wouldn’t bat her long lashes and pull that plump bottom lip between her teeth as she flashed her cornflower-blue eyes at me. Yeah, that shit was on purpose. She knew she was a fucking stunner, and it worked.
I would just nod, say hello, and keep walking. Not stop to encourage conversation.
The last time, she’d asked about the tattoo on my back that continued to cover my right arm. When I told her it was a phoenix rising from its ashes, she asked to see it. I pulled up my shirt and took out my right arm so she could see the full piece. She asked what the ashes represented, what I’d risen from, and I explained that it wasn’t me. It was my mom. Before I could lower my shirt back, her fingertips brushed over my skin, sending electric bolts right down to my fucking cock. I had told myself no more letting her get me alone.
She would turn sixteen in a month, and she’d mentioned needing someone to let her practice driving outside of driver’s ed at school. My mom could do that. She had done it with me. But when I told her exactly that, the crestfallen expression on her face was painful. My chest tightened uncomfortably, and I’d been real damn close to offering to help right that fucking minute.
She was dangerous.
Nod, say hello, then get the fuck inside.
When I stepped onto the porch, it only took one glance in her direction for my cock to twitch.
Jesus, Mom, could you not make her wear more clothing?
I realized it was September in Florida, which meant it was hot as fuck, but still. The shorts were tiny, and there was no bra under that crop top she was wearing. Her smile spread across her face, and those eyes of hers lit up, as if seeing me had made her fucking day.
Inside, Rome. Get the hell inside the house.
“Hey.” One word, but even her voice was sexy. It had a thick Southern drawl to it, which wasn’t common in this part of Florida.
I nodded my head once. “Hey,” I replied, then opened the screen door to get my ass away from her.
As I walked inside the door, the scent of home and Momma’s cooking met me. I relaxed some, but not entirely.