Page 77 of Sinful Temptations

I sighed. For years I’d never wanted to share any of those rotten memories. But if there was one thing I’d learned since I met Roman, it was that he was a good listener. And that he cared. And that he had the most amazing eyes I’d ever seen.

Bloody hell, maybe all that potent smoke in the air is already affecting me.

I wiped my eyes and leaned into his shoulder. The warmth from his body told me that no matter what I said, it was going to be okay. “It’s just this music . . . it reminds me of something in my childhood.”

He nodded as if picturing what I was talking about, but his silence left me no choice but to continue.

“It was when I was twelve. We’d been at a new trailer parkin the Adelaide Hills. It was only our third day there. Mother always made it her mission to get to know the neighbors quickly.”

Tarantula boy to our side suddenly shrieked and shot to his feet like his ass was on fire. Screeching, he dashed out of the teahouse. Not a single person raced after him.

Roman and I shared a what-the-fuck look, then he shrugged and squeezed my shoulder. “What were you saying?”

“Mother was always keen to meet the neighbors whenever we went to a new place. It wasn’t hard. Just pump up the music. Usually this type of hippy stuff.” I waved my hand indicating the twangy affront to our ears blasting from invisible speakers. “Anyway, she started dancing without shoes on the grass, and of course, she drew a crowd.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Yeah. Mother knew how to be the life of a party. Especially when there were men around.”

A memory reared its ugly head. Mother dancing in a flimsy white shirt that did nothing to hide her nipples. Her blue feather earrings slanting this way and that as she spun and twirled to the hippy music. The smoke from her joint pirouetting above her. Four men standing around, beers in hand, goofy looks on their faces, no doubt hoping they’d get into bed with her come darkness.

“Hey.” Roman placed his hand on my leg. “You still with me?”

“Yeah.”

The middle-aged man in a tie-dyed T-shirt to my left puffed out a perfect smoke ring and after it disappeared into nothing, I turned my gaze back to Roman. “Anyway, her dancing always attracted a crowd. It was Mother’s pot-smoking and sex that kept them there.”

“Oh, Dais.” He tugged me closer. “There’s something else. Isn’t there?”

“Yeah, later that night, after the music had died down, everything went quiet. But it was too quiet, you know?”

He nodded, but how could he know?

“In a trailer park, it was rare. There was always a TV on, or music, or kids crying or people yelling at each other. Anyway, I went in search of Mother.” I blinked up at Roman, hardly able to believe I was telling him this, yet at the same time glad that I was. Huffing out a sigh, I said, “That was the first time I found her passed out with a needle in her arm.”

“Oh, jeez.” His eyes bulged. “Daisy, I’m so sorry.”

“No need to be sorry.” I shrugged again. “She survived. She always survived. It was ironic that now though even with the hospital needles injecting her with life-saving medicine, that she wasn’t going to survive.”

“I can’t imagine what you went through.”

I shrugged. “I didn’t know any different. And I survived too.”

He pulled back, nodding. “Now I understand why you are so worried, and like I said, we don’t have to do this.ButI promise you, it’s not going to be like that. It’s not going to lead to anything else. It’s just a bit of fun.”

He studied me with those gorgeous honey eyes, and I knew I could trust him to look after me.

“If you want to stop, I understand.”

Did I want to stop? On the one hand it made me hypocritical to bitch about my mother’s drug habits when I was considering partaking in it myself. On the other, I was my own person, and by not doing it because of her stupidity, then she’d won. It wasn’t like I planned on making a habit out of it. “No,” I finally said. “We’re here now.”

He nodded and bumped his shoulder to mine. “You knowwhat? We’re going to give you a whole new memory about marijuana.”

I smiled but wasn’t as certain about his plan. “That’d be nice.”

“Anytime you want to leave, you let me know.”

“Actually . . . do we have to do it here?” I glanced at cow-ring chic. She was still staring at the ceiling. Tarantula boy hadn’t returned, and it was impossible to tell if she’d even noticed he was missing.

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