Page 60 of Play Dirty (Brooklyn Dawn 1)

As she already had.

“What are you writing? That flower blather?”

The open expression on her face vanished, and I wanted to saw out my tongue. This was why I wasn’t fit for human consumption.

It’s better if she hates you, remember?

Since she wasn’t inclined to share, I sat down on the bench—at the other end—and opened my own notebook. A sheaf of staff paper covered with scattered words and notes fell at my feet. I picked it up and sorted through the pages, recognizing Logan’s handwriting and the lyrics to one of All The King’s Men’s bigger hits. On a page beneath that was another song, barely just begun.

Light in the night, I see you shine.

Swallowing hard, I flipped the stupid pink topped pen between my fingers before I started to write.

Cracked sidewalk, petals left to ruin

No sunshine down that far

Careless footsteps

Drowning all I see

Killing every part of me

Light in the night, I see you shine

Coming through the cracks

Hold onto me

Oh, hold onto me

Like I’ve clung to you

“Fuck.” I tossed the ridiculous pen and the notebook and the pile of papers, scattering them across the stage like a child having a fit. One landed face up on Lindsey’s boots.

Saying nothing, she set aside her own notebook and rose, still comfortably naked, and gripped the shirts over her shoulder as she bent to retrieve the items I’d flung.

She read what I’d written before setting the notebook and pen back down on the bench. “The hope in this feels false.”

“Thank you for your insight.”

“You’re trying too hard.” She shifted on her bare feet—bare everything—and peered at me through the tangle of hair falling into her face. “You can’t write about hope if you don’t have any.”

My face heated as if she’d doused me in gasoline. “You can’t begin to know what I have.”

She moved toward me with a purpose that both unnerved and aroused me. I swallowed as she flicked open the button on my jeans and tugged me out of my boxers, her grip tight enough to make me curse.

“What about now,” she murmured, lowering her focus to my eager cock. “Tell me you don’t have hope inside you that I’ll wrap my mouth around you and suck until you come down my throat.”

I laced my fingers through her hair and drew her head down with just enough force to cause her pupils to widen. “What are you hoping for, duchess? That I won’t force you…or that I will?”

She didn’t rear back. Didn’t react at all except to move her jaw in a way that let me know she wasn’t scared of m

e or my threats. If I wanted to be rough, she’d dish it right back out.

My hand relaxed in her hair, and I threw back my head to haul oxygen into my starved lungs.

Damn her, she was right. I still knew how to hope. Hope for a blow job from a silk-throated angel was still fucking hope.

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