Page 31 of Lush Curves

She felt like a princess. Sam’s princess. And she was hesitating about sharing that with anyone. Even her best friend.

She wasn’t totally surewhyshe was hesitant, but she thought that it had something to do with an expression that she’d heard once, about how exposing monsters to the light turned them to stone. She thought that was true, and she also thought that it worked in reverse: that exposing beautiful secrets to the world at large took away their light, their purity, their rarity. Made them just one more random story out there, added them to the mindless noise and mess and confusion, led to them losing their fragile uniqueness and delicate beauty.

She didn’t want that, didn’t want to turn what had happened between her and Sam into idle gossip passed on in a diner kitchen. She wanted to protect it, keep it safe and warm and almost sacred – and right in this moment, the only way that she could think how to do that was to stay silent, and keep it to herself.

Just for now. Maybe just for a little while longer.

No way that Talia was going to letthathappen though; one look at her face told Annie that. So here she was, standing in a kitchen that reeked of fried food, oil spitting and hissing on the grill as Damon cooked more home fries and bacon, scrambling to figure out how much to spill and how much to stay mum about.

“So?” Talia said impatiently. “So why didn’t you sleep with him?”

Carefully, Annie set the stack of plates next to the sink, shot a look at Damon to see if he’d heard. The man never said more than twelve words in the average nine-hour shift, but just because his mouth was crazy glued shut didn’t mean that his ears weren’t wide open.

“OK, look,” Annie said quietly. “I didn’t because he said he wanted to wait.”

“Wait?” Talia’s voice was raised pretty high, and Damon glanced over. “Wait forwhat? The zombie apocalypse? The wind to change? The freezing-over of hell so you can go skating?”

“No!” Annie hissed. “He wants to wait until it’s right.”

“Right for who?”

“For me. OK, Talia? Right for me.”

“For –” Her friend stopped dead. “Wait. You got issues with this?”

“Some.”

“Ohhhhhh.” Talia stared at her unblinking, unmoving, unspeaking. Then she said, “You want to talk about it, sweetie?”

Now it was Annie’s turn to stare. She’d known Talia for thirteen years, and she knew everything about the woman’s life, from her childhood back in Louisiana to this exact second in time as they stood in this kitchen in Colorado. They’d spent countless nights sharing a bottle of cheap white wine or gut-rot whiskey and talking until the sun came up, so Annie knew all about Talia’s nightmare upbringing that wasn’t so different from her own.

She knew all about Talia’s marriage, which also wasn’t so different from her own – except for the fact that Talia had left her deadbeat, alcoholic husband, instead of waiting for him to leave her, the way that Annie had done. Of course, Talia had left in the middle of the night, and she’d been nursing three broken ribs and a fractured cheekbone and could barely see out of a swollen black eye when she’d run for her life… but she’d left.

So it was a surprise to Annie that Talia could surprise her still – but she did, and she did pretty often. In this second, the smart-ass, sassy, hard-boiled, feisty Talia was gone, and she was shy and compassionate and uncertain. Shehadthis side, naturally, but she thought of it as weakness and she rarely showed it, even to Annie.

Here it was, though, in all its sweet, gentle glory, as Talia stood there not demanding or pushing anymore… just worried and genuinely wanting to help.

Unable to stop herself, Annie hugged her friend. Talia was startled, but returned the embrace.

“I don’t need to talk,” Annie said. “I’m OK.”

“Yeah? You sure?”

“Yeah and totally and really. It’s all so sudden, you know? I just need an adjustment period, and I need to get to know him. I – I have a few trust issues where men are concerned, and I have some baggage to set down on the floor and walk away from. I just need a bit of time.”

“He knows how you’re feeling?”

“Yeah. He gets me, Talia, reallygetsme. He’s not going to rush me or make me do anything I don’t feel ready for. He’s – well.” How to sum up Sam in a few words? “He’s great.”

“OK, then.” Talia gave her a smile. “I’ll stop asking, alright? You tell me what you want when you want. I’ll spring for the wine. Hell, I’ll even pay more than six bucks for the bottle for once.”

“Youknowit.”

“Orders up!” Damon bellowed, effectively using most of his speaking quota for the shift. Both women jumped, then laughed. And they went back to work.

Chapter Six

Matt ‘King’ Kingston stood in Dangerous Curves, glaring around the bar. No realreasonfor the glare, since nothing was going on that remotely deserved it, but it was King’s normal expression most days. It had a preventative effect on the rough clientele at Curves, for damn sure, and more so when King was flanked by Jax and Mac, since all three men were towering and glowering. Throw in Aidan Carter and Luke Rhodes pouring drinks behind the bar, and Dillon Saunders and Curtis Manning bouncing, and even the drunkest, rowdiest, most brain-dead motorcycle club member, or ex-con, or drug dealer, or general idiot, paused in whatever stupidity they were contemplating and decided against it.

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