Page 143 of Forbidden Harmony

Because you’re completely different? Becausehe’ll eventually get bored with you? Because you’re already in love with him andit’ll break your heart when he ends it?

She pushed those thoughts away immediately.She wouldn’t dwell on negative crap like that. It was like she told her students…positive thinking led to a positive life.

Maybe to other people she and Preacher werecomplete opposites, but she’d seen glimpses of the real Preacher. She’d seenSimon,the guy who was sweet and kind and brought her tea in bed and looked after herwhen she was sick. The man who made her laugh, made her come, made her feel alivefor the first time in her whole life.

Who cared what other people thought anyway?Let them gossip. Spending time with Preacher – that’s what really mattered.

* * *

“Why are we at a storage place?” Addie saidas Preacher punched in the code and the gate swung open.

She followed him inside and they walked inthe hot sunshine toward his storage unit. She was walking slowly, and he grinnedat her. “Hurry up, slowpoke.”

“My thighs hurt,” she reminded him. “Andit’s all your fault.”

“Technically it’s your fault for thinkingyou could fuck someone other than me. If you’d been my good girl, you wouldn’thave been fucked last night until your thighs hurt.”

She stuck her delectable tongue out at him.“Be nice, Preacher.”

“I am being nice. I got us an Uber insteadof making you ride the bike to Nan’s or to here, didn’t I?”

She shuddered and reached down to rub at onethigh. “Oh my God, I would have died.”

He glanced around. The storage place wasempty, with not even an employee lurking in the lot. He took her hand, linkingtheir fingers together as they walked. He didn’t want to admit how fuckingnice it’d been to have lunch at Nan’s with her. To sit in a booth and eat lunchand chat about the tattoos he would be doing this week and how Addison was bothlooking forward to going back to work on Tuesday and wishing she had a few moredays of holidays.

She’d done most of the talking, but he preferredthat. Hell, he’d enjoyed the cute stories she was telling about the kids shetaught and when, at one point, she’d apologized for her boring stories, he’d beenquick to tell her they weren’t boring. They should have been boring – he likedkids and wanted a couple of his own, but stories about other people’s kidsweren’t his usual thing.

But it didn’t seem to matter what Addisonsaid or talked about. She could read the fucking dictionary to him and he’d bemesmerized by her.

That’s what love does to a person.

He squeezed Addie’s hand so hard she made asoft squeak of pain.

“Sorry,” he said.

“That’s okay.” She smiled up at him and hestudied the way the sunlight turned her auburn hair a muted red.

“Your hair looks pretty,” he said a bitgruffly.

“Thank you.” Her smile widened and he couldn’tresist leaning down and pressing a kiss against her perfect mouth.

She returned his kiss, even parting hermouth when he licked at her bottom lip. He loved how responsive she was tohim, even when it was obvious that she was tired and sore. He pulled back andkissed her forehead. “Sorry your legs hurt, Sunshine.”

“It’s fine,” she said. “It was worth it.”

She followed him a few more feet to hisstorage unit. He unlocked the padlock and slipped the lock into his pocketbefore lifting the heavy garage door. She watched as he pulled the slip coveroff the SUV.

“You have a car?” she said.

“Yeah. Use it in the winter.”

“Oh, right. That makes sense,” she said. “Youcan’t ride the bike in the winter.”

He folded the slip cover as she walked aroundthe SUV. “It’s nice. Not what I expected you would drive.”

“What did you think I would drive?” hesaid.

She shrugged. “A muscle car like a Dodge Charger,maybe? Definitely not a Toyota RAV. It’s very… practical.”

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