Page 488 of The Tempted

Great, she was sticking around.

“I never saw it firsthand before is all,” she added, softly as her teeth dug into her bottom lip and continued staring at me.

I leaned over the bar, so she could get a better look at me and see how truly fucked I was. I wanted to scare her, to make her run the fuck away from me before I lost the little control I was hanging onto.

“Get out of here Lace, run the fuck away and don’t turn back,” I warned her, leaning back and refilled my glass.

“I have nowhere else to go,” she whispered.

Her broken voice and the words she uttered forced me to look back at her and through my hazed eyes I noticed the pain in hers. Lacey was the girl who lit up a room with her smile but, staring at her now, seeing how tortured her eyes were, made me wonder if the smile was a mask. And then Jack’s voice worked its way inside my head, reminding me that today was Jack Jr.’s birthday and he went off on a mission to wallow in his own misery.

“If Lacey comes around or calls…”

“Shit,” I mumbled. “Buying her an ice cream cone and pretending the world is a giant playground don’t work no more for her.”

He smiled proudly. “Girl’s all grown up.”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

God or whoever the fuck was responsible, made it real fucking hard for me to ignore Lacey had grown up. He gave her a fucking body that made you want to drop to your knees and worship. Jack would’ve shot me dead if he knew the thoughts that sometimes ran through my head or the way I couldn’t help but look at her.

She was fucking beautiful.

And sweet, so goddamn sweet.

Fucking lethal was what she was.

Wasn’t that what I was looking for?

“Your pretty little face doesn’t belong here,” I grunted, reaching across the bar to tuck a strand of her brown hair behind her ear.

I was jonesing.

Not for drugs, not even alcohol.

I was jonesing for her.

For Lace.

I snapped my hand back, tore my eyes from her as I walked around the bar, taking a seat next to her. She lifted my glass to her lips and took a sip, cringing immediately.

“How do you drink that?” she asked in between coughing, shoving the glass back at me.

“Why the sad eyes?”

“Do you always answer a question with a question?”

“Cut the shit,” I clipped, reaching out for her again, this time lifting her chin with my index finger.

Touch.

I wanted to touch her.

Ineededit.

I shook my head, raging against the need, trying to convince myself that it was the drugs fucking with me. I wanted to believe that deep inside me I was a good guy, that I had morals, maybe not many but enough to know touching her was fucking wrong.

So fucking wrong.

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