Page 1 of My Favorite Temptation

Chapter 1

Walker

Freedom.

It’s something I’ve dreamed about for the last fifteen years. Sometimes I’d convince myself that it was never coming, that the damn judge that decided to ruin my life for doing the right thing in an awful situation would find another charge to slap on me to keep me locked up longer. In fact, even right now, as the officers are giving me my belongings and handing me my release paperwork, I can’t let myself believe this is happening.

But it is happening. They’re letting me walk out of the prison as a free man.

I take my first breath of air on the outside since I was eighteen, my first one in fifteen years. As it fills my lungs, I wonder what’s changed. From my phone calls with my best friend, Josh, and the letters from his little sister, Bella, I know the world’s different. That's fine, though. I’m different too, hardened by my time on the inside. I know I can adapt to anything.

“Walker!” a familiar voice – Josh – calls, pulling my attention to the left. “You got big, damn.”

“Wasn’t much else to do in there but work out,” I say, pulling my shoulders back and feeling my pectoral muscles stretch the shirt I was wearing when I was taken into custody. I walk toward him and take in his mostly-unchanged appearance. He’s not as lanky as he used to be, and his brown hair is cut short. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

He laughs, grabbing my hand and pulling me in for a side hug – probably the first we’ve ever shared – and says, “Maybe physically.”

“Hi, Walker,” a feminine voice I’ve never heard before says.

Josh releases me, and I look for the source of the sound, something so beautiful and soft that I instantly feel the need to protect whoever made it, to keep her safe from a world that I know is dangerous and unforgiving. I find her, and my heart skips a beat.

Standing in front of me is a short little thing with shoulder-length blonde hair and big brown eyes. Her body is petite, but her breasts are huge, threatening to spill out of her shirt. This has to be Bella, but she looks so different from the two times I met her in person. She’s no longer a little girl; she’s a woman, gorgeous and feminine. When I read her letters, I tried to picture what she might look like now, but I never could have guessed she looks like that. My cock twitches in my boxers.

“Bella,” I say, my voice gruff. “You’ve grown up.”

She giggles, and I want to bottle it up and keep the noise all to myself. “I have,” she agrees, walking toward me with open arms.

When she hugs me, it takes all of my willpower to stop myself from squeezing her tight. Her soft body against mine is intoxicating. I have an overwhelming urge to kiss her, and if Josh wasn’t right here watching us, I might. I want her in a way I’ve never wanted anyone else before.

I do my best to put a stop to the thought as soon as it pops into my head. Sexy or not – and she definitely is – she’s also my best friend’s twenty-one-year-old sister. I didn’t get released just so Josh could kill me.

“We should get out of here,” he says, interrupting my thoughts and prompting Bella to step out of my grasp. “I’ve got a flight to catch.”

“You’re not sticking around?” I ask, keeping my tone flat to hide my excitement.

A stipulation of my parole is that I have to stay in the area. When I got locked up, my parents stopped talking to me, so I’m staying in Bella’s spare bedroom for a few days while I get my bearings. I thought Josh would be staying with us for at least a night. Learning that I’m going to be alone with her feels better than my release.

“Nope,” he says, pulling a set of car keys out of his pocket and leading us to a rental car. “Wall Street stops for no one.”

“He’s always working,” Bella tells me conspiratorially, walking closer than necessary, the back of her hand brushing mine. “Sorry you’re stuck with me and not your best friend.”

“Don’t be,” I say, intentionally bumping her hand with mine, delighted when she doesn’t pull away. “You’re one of my closest friends.”

“I am?” she asks, looking at me with wide, sparkling eyes.

“Of course you are,” I say as Josh gets into the driver’s seat of the black sedan. I lower my voice before leaning in close to say, “Those letters you sent were the only things that kept me going in there.”

“Really?”

Instead of answering, I hold open the bag I carried out of prison, flashing the thick stack of envelopes sitting on top, held tidily together with a rubber band.

“You kept them?” she whispers, blinking rapidly as emotions swirl in her expression.

“Every last one.”

Her face breaks into the most stunning grin I’ve ever seen, and she surges forward to hug me again. I accept her embrace, cradling the back of her head with my free hand. She’s so sweet, so full of life.

I really don’t know what I would have done without her words of encouragement during all those years in my cell. It started a few years after my arrest – letters filled with stories about her friends at school, her favorite books, school plays. What she got out of writing to a con, I have no idea, but I’m glad she did. Her letters reminded me of a different time, back before I got myself mixed up in a world of hurt. It was nice to know that there was still good in the world, even if I wasn’t getting to see it.

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