Page 75 of Sinful Temptations

I wanted to ride on past, and would have, had Roman not stopped right in front of me. When he caught my bike, I couldn’t decide if it was to help me or if he was worried that I really would keep on riding.

“What are you doing, Roman?”

He flashed a cheeky grin and wriggled his brows. “Taking you somewhere new. Grab your things.” He nodded at my basket.

Clutching onto my bag, Roman took my bike from me, and while he chained it up, I fixated on the entrance to Stinky Skunk House. Everywhere was a mishmash of color and texture. Smoke billowed from the doorway, and Iwouldn’t have been surprised if the inside was on fire, but everyone was too stoned to notice.

People were everywhere. Male. Female. Young. Old. Hippie-looking and professional-looking. Stinky Skunk House didn’t seem to have a particular demographic.

There were hundreds of marijuana resellers all over Amsterdam, so I was curious why he’d chosen this one. It was well away from the main tourist drag, but its dingy appearance didn’t appeal to me one bit.

I held my bag to my chest. How the hell had I let this happen?

We’d been having such a lovely time.

Rubbing his hands as he sidled up next to me, Roman’s excitement was a polar opposite to my level of anxiety.

“What do you think?” He nodded at the entrance.

“I think this is nuts.”

“It’ll be fun.”

Shaking my head, I stared at the billowing smoke drifting up from the group of young adults at the front table. I had hundreds of memories of my parents and their pot parties and had seen enough fun times turn to shit when mind-enhancing drugs were involved.

Hell, I probably wouldn’t have been conceived if it wasn’t for marijuana.

“Come on, Dais.” He touched his hand to my elbow. “What are you afraid of?”

“I don’t know.” I glared at him like he had a joint in his eye. “What if I act weird?”

“You always act weird.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“So, what if you do? It’s just you and me. Nobody will be looking at you. Trust me.”

“Trust you. You’re the one who got me into sleeping with strange men.”

“They didn’t seem strange at the time.”

I thumped him on the arm. “You know what I mean.”

“Come on. You’re doing this.” He draped his arm over my shoulder, giving me an up close and personal whiff of his delightful cologne. How was it that he still smelled so good after two hours on a push-bike?

Lurching forward, I considered locking my feet but knowing me, I’d trip over my ankles and face plant. Just as we reached the door, a group of four men spilled out. All were younger than me. All looked and sounded like they were on another planet.

Without pause, Roman edged me past them and over the threshold, and my eyes took a few moments to adjust to the dim lighting. But the second they did, it was sensory overload. Nothing like I expected. Although I hadn’t really considered what the inside of a marijuana tea shop would look like.

Behind the front counter was a woman who had more metal in her face than our tour bus had in its engine. Her tattoos covered the majority of her flesh and the solid stain inching up her neck looked like she’d played tonsil hockey with a squid and lost.

On our left was a freezer topped to the rim with choc-chip ice cream. Just choc-chip.

Weird, but okay.

Following Roman, he led me to the counter and the woman didn’t even glance at us. She seemed deep in concentration as she sprinkled tiny balls of green onto an ancient-looking weighing scale that would be more suited to a spice market in Turkey.

Roman guided my attention to the menu board behind the counter and my jaw dropped. There were twelve different types of marijuana to pick from. Having grown uparound the drug, I thought I knew everything. But I had no idea it had varieties.

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