East Rising (Naive Mistakes #2) Read Free

my shirt straight (it was very
wet), hitched up my pants ( soaking ) and opened the door to the
main pub area, hoping to dart a beeline straight to the women's
bathroom. Only, when I opened the door, you guessed it, I didn't
walk straight into him, but almost.
    He was leaning back on a
railing (holy mother this dude was tall! ), legs crossed (oh so smooth)
and grinning, arms folded over his friggin huge chest. Not ripped, huge. Very
huge. "Rub against my cheek while you're screwing me"
huge.
    And that grin, that endless, toothy grin...
I knew, right then, right there, that I was going to come to hate
that grin, almost as much as I hated his emerald-beautiful eyes.
Hated the grin. Hated it so much. I despised that grin so utterly
that the damn thing, as I stood there, made me smile, and then
laugh, and then feel like a little girl in the hands of this
strong, clearly older, and exceedingly confident man.
    Just like I'd been with Conall.
    I was so screwed...

CHAPTER TWO

-1-
    Deep Baritone Dorian Brant
chuckled along with me, staring at my beer-sodden pub uniform,
dimples forming on his over-confident face. Damn!
    "I think I should..." I pointed behind me,
then ahead of me. "I think I should go, um, get changed..."
    "Or not," he said, and he
stared at me with no change of expression. "I mean, you definitely
need to get out of
those clothes. Definitely. That, you certainly have to do." He
raked my body with his eyes, slowly, from the top of my head to my
toes, his eyes lingering just a second by my legs. Why there
specifically? It felt like I was being eaten, and Vampire Dorian
was licking his lips of me now.
    A wave of "something" coursed through me and
I was suddenly very weak, and very uncomfortable. My smile
disappeared, his remained — just barely visible.
    I ran, not literally, but I
was outta there, to the bathroom. I splashed my face with water,
looked at the drops remaining above my eyebrows and on my golden
skin (at least England hadn't totally ruined my Mediterranean
look, yet .)
    "What the fuck are you doing, Leora?" I said
to myself. "Not again. Not again. So, he's cute, fine — " A
customer came out of a cubicle (red-bordering-on-pink hair,
excessive eye-shadow, milky skin) and smiled at me. She pulled out
some lipstick from her baby-sized purse, put it on, pursed then
smacked her lips. I stared at my hands on the countertop.
    "Guy troubles?" she asked.
    I nodded.
    "You'll manage." As she walked out, she ran
her fingers across my right shoulder, over my back, to the other
shoulder, slowly, sending shivers down my spine. Was that just a
pat-on-the-shoulder-move, or a seductive caress?
    The bathroom fluorescents showed up two or
three blackheads on my brow. I splashed my face again, took a deep
breath, and then wondered what the hell I was doing in this
bathroom without a change of clothes!
    Dani slammed through the door, out of
breath, eyes wide open, her mouth agape.
    "Him!?" she said, pointing in a direction
where Dorian would be right now, if there hadn't been any walls
between us.
    I nodded.
    "Fuck, luff! Forget this Conall
prick. This guy is
a fucking dream !"
    I could sense the lust dripping from her
lips as she said it.
    "You can have him," I said, now leaning back
against the countertop, shaking my fingers dry.
    "Fuck. That. Shit!" She ran out. A moment
later she was back with a change of clothes for me. "Here." She
threw them at me and they shocked me awake as they hit my chest, a
stray sleeve slapping my lower lip.
    "This isn't mine," I said to her.
    "I know, the shirt is
tighter. It's time you show off your cups a little, love." A li'le ...
    I shook my head. I couldn't fucking believe
I was doing this again. And in that moment, crashing waves of
questions and, perhaps, realizations, started slapping me.
    What was the purpose of
seeing Conall, really? Was it really for closure? And why hadn't I visited his
work, or gotten an address for him? Why hadn't I hunted the fucker
down, slapped him once across