Flirting With Disaster by Matthews Josie

Author:Matthews, Josie [Matthews, Josie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sexy, collections, Romance, contemporary romance, Short Stories, Chick Swagger, Flirts, A Noble Pass Affaire Novella, Romantic Collection and Anthologies, contest
ISBN: 9780996555012
Published: 2015-09-14T22:00:00+00:00

Ten

“If the facts don’t fit the theory,

change the facts.”

Albert Einstein

The damp, dank darkness of Beck’s room suited his mood. A mood that had plagued him for the past two days, ever since he’d argued with Jude about love and then left Ava standing in the lobby with her unanswered questions.

He didn’t believe in love. But that wasn’t what this was.

Jude wanted sex. She’d stated as much. What was all this crap about love?

Women. Women and castle curses.

Jesus H. Christ. Sure, she was amazing, but Beck didn’t deserve amazing. Not after killing her parents, plaguing everyone around him with angst and suffering.

He’d tried to redeem himself by setting up her secret trust account. Angel Wings was another Hail Mary in his search for redemption. But his soul still choked on his guilt.

He lifted his soda to his lips and stared at the Jack Daniels sitting across the room next to his Beretta 9mm. The warm wicked liquid called to him, beckoned him to numb the need he’d come to expect whenever he thought of missing out on love.

A life of happiness.

Jude.

She was light to his dark, heaven to his hell. He needed her to be his salvation, but he refused to bring her down with him if he fell off the wagon and became the heartless man he used to be. He refused to do that to Jude.

They hadn’t touched each other since she’d been in his room, but he could think of nothing else. It was ludicrous, eerie. The past two nights, they’d been drawn together by fate and circumstances he didn’t understand. A chance meeting on the patio at two in the morning. A mutual urge for an indoor swim at three. It seemed forces beyond their control were pushing them together.

He’d shown her how to use a Dremel to carve gourds into lanterns, how to use curly willow to weave chair seats and how to make the perfect cheesecake—a recipe his mother had taught him before she’d given up on him. They’d played hide and seek in the darkness and Jude had found him every time, and he’d taught her how to swim in the shadows of night in the indoor pool.

They’d become friends over toasted marshmallows, but he wanted more. And more meant he would have to face his demons, take a huge risk and trust himself. Tell her the truth about his role in her parents’ deaths. About his disease.

Every day he lived to deflect the memories and the self-loathing. Pushing away everything he might destroy by working himself into an exhausted stupor.

Jude should be one of those things he pushed away.

If he let his failures, his offenses invade his soul, alcohol was his only balm. A destructive one. In the past, he’d immersed himself in the world of acting, of make-believe. A place where he could spend most of his waking hours being someone else, avoiding temptation, the guilt and shame. But acting had been a diversion to replace the alcohol, a busy life to

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