AllFreeNovel
Share Us
That’s real good, baby. Keep on admitting that shit. I need to hear it.
“She hasn’t seen my cock since I was fifteen, but she grabbed my damn crotch awhile back and felt the piercing.”
“Guess I should have shot her,” Briar replied lifting her chin a slight fraction.
“Some would consider that reaction a touch psycho,” I pointed out even if her saying it was fucking hot as hell.
She licked her lips, then held her shoulders back as she met my gaze. I took another step toward her.
“I guess I need to be,” she said. “You know, be a touch psycho. If I’m in love with one.”
It took all my self-control not to go grab her and throw her over my shoulder and run.
I took the next few strides until I was in front of her, not taking my eyes off hers. Needing to make sure I wasn’t reading this wrong. “Did you come here, looking for me?”
She nodded, and relief poured through me. My damn knees felt like they might give out from the force of it. She was here for me.
“Why?”
“I realized something.”
“Go on,” I urged, feeling anxiety creep in.
What if this wasn’t what I thought it was? I couldn’t watch her walk away from me again.
“I can’t live without you. Even if you’re psycho. You’re my psycho.”
Unable to hold back anymore, I grabbed her hips, jerking her against my body, and covered her mouth with mine. The first taste of her, and I shuddered. She slid her hands up my arms and squeezed, pressing closer to me. There was nothing I wouldn’t do to keep her with me.
She broke the kiss, but didn’t pull away from me. “We still need to talk about things. Draw some lines,” she said, breathless from our kiss.
“I won’t have anyone ever shoot at you again,” I replied.
“It’s more than that. No more lies,” she said, looking up at me, pleading.
“No more lies,” I told her.
“No more manipulating the situation so you get what you want.”
I ran my hand under her shirt and up to cup her breast. “I can’t promise that. But I’ll try.”
“I don’t have anything to hide, so if you want to see all my calls and texts, I don’t care. But don’t keep any from me. That’s not okay.”
I pressed a kiss to her lips, needing to feel them against mine again. “Okay,” I agreed.
“And what did you do with the money?”
I kissed her jawline. “High-interest savings account in your and Dovie’s names. I figure one day, she can use it when she goes to college. The other nine thousand you should have gotten from the diamonds you pawned is also in there.”
She grabbed my face, stopping me from kissing further down her neck. “What do you mean, the other nine thousand?”
God, she was beautiful. Breathtaking. Mine.
“You got gypped, baby. I went and got the rest of the money they should have given you.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Before or after I told you about my pawning the jewelry?”
I smirked. “Before.”
She let out a soft laugh and shook her head. “You knew the minute I did it. I should have known.”
“Thank fuck,” King’s voice called out, and I pulled her to my chest as I looked over her head to see him coming outside the stables. He pointed at us. “That what I think it is?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t mess shit up this time.”
I dropped my eyes back to her. I’d spend the rest of my life making sure she never walked away from me again.
• Twenty-Seven •
“You might have helped give me life, but you’re going to hell, knowing I was the one who took yours away.”
Briar
One Year Ago
I swirled the stirrer in my drink as I watched him. Loathing his appearance. His hair was thinner than when I’d seen him last. The way he leered at the young waitress made it clear that he still thought he was the attractive man he’d been in his youth. To hear him tell it, his mother had thought the sun rose and set at his feet. She’d called him her beautiful boy. He had reminded me often how lucky I was that he was a handsome man. That women threw themselves at him.
Bile rose in my throat as memories that I had tried to lock away in my head began to seep out. Things he’d said to me. How he’d started calling me by my dead mother’s name.
I set my glass down on the bar as another man stepped in front of me, smiling down with a crooked grin.
“Please tell me you’re not waiting on someone,” he said, some pointless attempt to be charming.
“Yes, I’m afraid I am.” I gave him a tight smile, annoyed by yet another male getting in my way. I hadn’t come to this shithole to pick up some skanky one-night stand.
“Think I could change your mind?” he told me, placing an elbow on the bar and giving me a cocky smirk.
