The One That I Want (Scorned Women Society Book 3) by Piper Sheldon (e book reader android txt) 📕

me closer. I had to wrap my legs around his waist to let him get as close as he needed.

He gasped as though he couldn’t fight back the pain. “To go out like that …” His voice broke off again.

“He’s still the same man he always was. How you and Skip remember him. That’s who he is.”

He nodded against me.

“Sometimes I think …”

“What?” I prompted.

“I sometimes think that it would be better to go off in some tragic accident than how he went. Or from suffering from cancer like my mom went.”

I held still. I had wondered what caused his reckless behavior. I wondered how a man so confident and put together would go and do these things so clearly set on hurting himself. It made sense now. My poor, sweet man.

“Fuck. You’re probably thinking how awful I am,” he said when I didn’t respond right away.

“I was thinking about how amazing you are.” I grabbed his face and pulled it up until he could see how seriousness I was. I held his gaze and let the words flow out of me. “I was thinking how you’ve dealt with so much sadness, so much tragedy and you still treat everyone you meet like they’re special. You make people feel wonderful just by giving them eye contact. I was thinking that your dad must have been the most amazing father to have raised a son who is as wonderful as you are.”

His mouth crushed against mine. There was no hesitation. His tongue explored my mouth which opened as soon as he touched me. We kissed with the abandon we felt that first night in Denver. Every ounce of angst and pain were transformed in a minute to pure burning lust.

He pulled back, still holding my face. His eyes shifted back and forth between mine, full of something I’d never seen. “Roxy, I—”

Just then the sky opened with a crack of thunder and lightning so close it made my hair rise.

I yelled as the first drops of rain landed on our heads. Within moments the rain was pouring down in buckets.

“Oh, come on!” Sanders yelled over the crashing rain and another clap of thunder. Water was already collecting around him. His arms were spread out and he pretended to backstroke.

Water poured over me, making me shiver. “Let’s go. This is dangerous!”

“The rain out here hates me,” he yelled. He swung out his arms and legs like making a snow angel, splashing water in small waves over my ankles.

“Sanders!”

I watched him and realized he was laughing. It was like the rain was cleansing him. This man who had locked away so much was being reborn. He was beautiful and brave and he had my heart completely.

Chapter 22

Sanders

Roxy tugged at my hands, slipping as she tried to grip them. “Get up,” she shouted over the rain.

I groaned and rolled to standing, arms spread out, face toward the sky. The rain washed over me. I closed my eyes and felt every drop. Heard the sound of it slapping the ground around me. Smelled the dirt growing wet. I was alive.

Thunder cracked and I ducked. I intended to stay that way for a while.

“Come on!” Roxy yelled.

I let her pull me in a run back to her car. I didn’t mind the rain. Wait, scratch that, I was starting to think Green Valley’s weather was the ultimate cockblock. But the rain had cleansed me. I felt changed. I felt whole and more like myself than I had in years.

I never intended to share any of that with Roxy. But she pulled it from me. I was in awe of her for knowing exactly what I needed. Could it be possible that I could feel this way and it didn’t make me a terrible person? Out loud, it sounded so obvious and ridiculous. But when it’s only a dark thought in your head for so many years, it’s hard to trust yourself. I thought I had to be something more than I was. But maybe I could just feel what I feel and it didn’t make me a bad person.

She opened the back door of her little car and gestured me in. She dove in after me and closed it behind her.

I smiled at her, water dripped off her nose and had plastered down her hair. Under my flimsy coat, her thin T-shirt was soaked through, so her hard nipples were visible through the material. But it was her face that held my attention. She was smiling at me like I was something special.

“Hang on,” she said, reaching over me to grab the bag on the floor by my feet. “I have some extra clothes in here in case I go to Stripped—”

“Go where now?”

“—and I think there’s a towel ... here it is.” She handed me one end of a large purple towel. It was fluffy and soft, and when I buried my face in it, it smelled as good as she did. I couldn’t wait to spend a weekend between the sheets of her bed, knowing that they’d smell just like this.

“What sort of fabric softener is this?” I mumbled as I wiped my face.

“What?” she asked with a laugh, lowering the towel from my face. “You mumble a lot.”

“I do no such thing.”

Slightly dryer, we sat still, taking each other in. We had changed together. We had crossed a river and there was no going back. The bridge was flooded. She was where I needed to be.

She shivered. “Hang on. Again.” She leaned forward to the front seat. Her wet jean shorts gave me a spectacular view of her thighs dripping with water and covered in goose bumps.

The car rumbled on and a blast of heat moved through the small space. An acoustic guitar strummed as a rich, deep voice sang quietly of orange skies and love. It was loud enough to be heard over the rain but soft enough to change the atmosphere inside the car from playful to romantic