Page 24 of The Wrong Drive-
“It’s shit, I know,” I say as she forks a bite of the spaghetti.
She shrugs. “I’ve had worse.”
“Tell me what’s worse. Tell me the worst thing you’ve ever eaten.”
Emersyn cracks a smile. “Um, probably the time I ate at a seafood restaurant and the fish was undercooked.”
“You can eat fish raw,” I reason. “So, it might’ve tasted like shit, but at least it wasn’t going to kill you.”
She narrows her pretty jade eyes at my smirk. “Unless it hadn’t been stored right.”
“Well, glad you survived it.” I chuckle, my body feeling a lot lighter ever since getting some sleep. I know I can’t let my guard down, but I feel okay. No strong desire to murder her in a war-raged blackout.
My head is clear, and hell, I’m sharing my table with an attractive woman—one that I can’t stop fucking staring at. Maybe it’s the fact that we’re snowed in or that I haven’t been around someone in so long, but itfeelslike more than that. She charges the air around me.
“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever eaten?” She sets her fork down beside the nearly finished meal.
“Uh, I don’t know.” I shift in my chair. “My mom’s meatloaf probably.”
“Oh, that’s just mean,” she laughs, shocking my chest with her light and airy tone. “Your poor mother.”
“At six feet under, I don’t think she’s worried about it now.” I frown, killing my own goddamn good mood. Emersyn falls into silence for a few moments, and I start to hate myself all over again.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she finally says.
I ignore it, hating that phrase but choosing not to let her know that. She’s got no idea of my life. I scrape my fork across the plate. “What about your family?” Maybe if she just talks about herself, we can avoid the subject of me.
“What about them?” She leans her chin against her hand, her brows creased ever so slightly. The gesture is small, but it catches my attention. My cock strains as my mind flashes with her beneath me, making that exact same face as I press into her pussy.
Sleep didn’t fix that issue, apparently.
“Turner?”
“Sorry,” I grunt. “Uh, I just meant for you to tell me about your family. I don’t know.” I force my eyes down to my food, the sight of it instantly draining my arousal.
“Oh, well, my parents are still together after like forty years of marriage. I think they’re annoyed that I still haven’t met the right person yet. Well, I mean, I thought I had. They thought I had, too…” Her voice trails off, and I tip my gaze back to her, hating what I see.
“This must be the ex-boyfriend?” A pang of envy rattles my chest, and I’m reminded of all the ways that I fall short yet again. My body might be strong, but my mind is a fucking bomb waiting to explode—and take her with me.
“Yeah, Adam,” she gives me his name like I give a shit. “I thought we were going to his family’s cabin for him to fix things.”
“Hmm.”
“Yeah, it was a pipe dream,” she scoffs, shaking her head. “I was stupid for thinking it could be fixed. We’ve been rocky for almost a year, and I was grasping at straws. It’s been so tumultuous, and then my best friend called me on my way here—just to tell me that he told his brother we’re not going anywhere and it was all for looks.”
I nod, trying to empathize with something that sounds so…pitiful.“But you broke up with him, yeah?”
She holds my gaze from across the table. “Yeah. I broke up with him, and then ended up here. He told me he was coming to get me—and that he didn’t mean what he told his brother.”
“Ah, so you’ll be good with him then,” I say the words like they’re poisonous.
“No, I don’t think so. I’m getting too old to deal with the bullshit. I just want someone to really commit. I’m tired of the games.”
“Wouldn’t know anything about that.” I drum my fingers on the table and then push back, grabbing our plates.
She follows my lead. “So you don’t date, I take it?”
I smile with my back turned to her. “Hard to date anyone when you live alone in the woods.”And have an addiction to murder.
