Page 76 of Twisted Revelations

35

Luke

Usually, I would’ve eaten and excused myself once I was done, but not this time. The view was too magnificent, and I couldn’t help but marvel at it. I was used to being the weird, big guy who everyone stared at or pretended to ignore as they snatched glances at me. However, there was something different about the way Beverly stared at me.

She was a rare, majestic dark feline, but not one you wanted to pet. She was one you admired and became engrossed in studying. You observed her from afar because the danger of touching such a beauty was forbidden.

My hard stare was penetrating enough to make out that the inner circles of her eyes were a sparkling light brown, the larger outer band a light green with a darker green ring. The beauty of those eyes was contained by a canvas of a deeply toasted brown, so deliciously hued it teased my senses and tempted my tongue.

Her hair was styled in a thick above-the-shoulder bob that presented her face to the world, her neck long enough to bring elegance to the style. I was entranced from the moment I met her and fought with every breath I took to contain my need to soak her in, record the sound of her voice, and remember every line, detail, and curve.

She was life. Waves of her energy pinged against my senses and enticed me to breathe in her vivacity and allow it to live within me. Galvin’s heavy hand struck my arm, snapping me from my trance.

“This is the first time I’ve seen you look at anyone like that,” he whispered, leaning against my shoulder. He shook his head, a smile shining across his teasing lips. “I can’t say I blame you. With a view like this, I don’t plan on giving my eyes a rest,” he expressed, laughing before his gaze swept past the pie on his plate and landed back on Laura.

My attention returned to the one thing I wanted it lost on. Beverly. I didn’t feel like a sideshow freak under her sparkling gaze. Was I being presumptuous in thinking that she might have found interest in my presence?

Maybe I was fooling myself into thinking she was interested in me, but my brain had latched on to the idea. Some women bolted at the sight of me, some gawked rudely, and the ones that may have been interested were afraid to approach me.

I never took offense to the funny looks and sly comments. They feared my size and automatically assumed I was a bully. Without speaking a single word, I had the ability to intimidate people. They didn’t care to know and never took the time to find out I was more than my outside appearance.

At twenty-four, I’d engaged in a handful of relationships that fizzled out within a month. Too quiet. Too awkward. No personality. No depth. Their perceptions of me were right to a certain point. However, I’d had deeper and darker things done to me, so their shallow jabs didn’t worry me as much as they might have the next guy.

Either way, I never knew what to say to women because I’d never had enough time to figure out what they wanted. The ones I’d dated couldn’t summon enough patience or time to meet my personality, and I didn’t have the energy to chase after them when they lost interest.

As a result of my passive nature with women, my balls were royal blue, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it. There was only so much jerking off you could do before it became just another function that got you by.

At times, the idea of putting in an order for a mail-order bride came to mind, but I wasn’t desperate enough to proceed with that measure yet. I fought the crinkle at the corner of my eyes and the smile that threatened to bend my lips at the idea of me ordering a bride. The guys would never let me live that decision down, but they didn’t face the same problem as me. Women fell all over themselves for them, fought each other for them, and did shameless things to get their attention.

My gaze danced around the table until I found Megan. “Thank you, Megan. The food was delicious.”

“You’re welcome,” she replied, her smile always friendly. I liked Megan. She treated me like the guys did, accepting me right away, joking and chatting with me like she’d known me for years.

Talking to the guys was easy. Since I was the youngest in the crew, they treated me like their little brother. I was lucky in that aspect because they were a group that wouldn’t let me fail, no matter what.

However, and even with them setting me up on blind dates from time to time, it was my relationships with women I repeatedly struggled with. I wasn’t afraid of them. I simply didn’t know what they wanted and didn’t know the first thing about finding out.

Asking the guys for advice was out of the question. They didn’t need to know every detail of my life, especially not my troubles with the opposite sex. They’d taught me so much throughout the years, but I couldn’t let them know that something that came naturally for them was difficult for me.

After entering the living room, Ansel stopped me. We’d discussed him using some resources from mine and Galvin’s security firm since he’d volunteered to keep an eye on one of the cartel’s most prized possessions—Regina. During our chat, my attention was taken by the sight of Beverly heading toward the stairs.

Once Ansel and I were done, I headed up the stairs after I bid the few lingering in the large living room a good night. Galvin and I were prepared to head back home to Georgia in the early morning hour. We’d considered sticking around California for another week, but Ansel assured us that he could handle DG6 if they decided to come after Regina. Either way, he had us on speed dial.

Work was my saving grace. Galvin and I owned and ran a small firm that specialized in security contracting jobs with a small research and development team. I lost myself in my work so that the nagging loneliness that lingered would stop haunting me.

When I turned into the upstairs hallway, the soft thump of her body collided into mine. “Whoops,” she whispered and left a breezy warmth on my face. The air in my lungs stilled, refusing to go any further as the rest of me joined, sending me into a frozen state.

“Beverly,” her name finally floated past my lips and thawed my frozen state. She was tall enough that she wasn’t dwarfed by my height, and our collision had placed her directly in my hold.

One of my hands sat delicately on the side of her shoulder, the other on her waist. A fissure of energy shot into my fingers before zipping up my arms and settling into my body. Beverly was the perfect amount of woman; her body was a shapely mass of firm-softness and warmth.

She gripped the forearm of the hand I had on her waist. Up close, her complexion was an entrancing cinnamon-chestnut mix that was enriched with flowing melted chocolate. Her lips were so intricately lush that they sent my imagination soaring through the roof.

She glanced up as I glanced down and we stood in place, suspended in a magnetizing power that prevented us from letting go of each other. Her scent, her beauty, her warm and pleasing body was like the inside of one of my best fantasies. Rose petals sprinkled with cinnamon was the magical scent that surrounded me.

“Pardon me, ma’am. I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going.”

“Ma’am?” she looked at me with a pinched brow but didn’t await an answer before continuing. “No, I’m sorry. I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

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