Poet (Avenues Ink Series Book 3)

by A. M. Johnson

  I wanted to tell her that she was blushing, that she looked perfect standing in my favorite spot, in my favorite store, with the burn of my stubble on her chin. She brought her fingers to her lips and fought a smile as my eyes devoured every inch of her. She was the sin I wanted to commit.

  She dropped her hand and revealed that playful smile again. “Don’t look so smug.”

  I took her hand. “Smug?” I shook my head with a smile. “This is the face of a man in deep… deep trouble.”

  I didn’t miss how her own smile wavered. “Nah… I’m just a girl breaking the ice.”

  My brows lifted. “That was more than just an ice breaker.”

  “That’s just hunger talking.”

  Twenty-seven years of hunger.

  “I think maybe you’re right. You like Chinese food?” I asked.

  “It’s my favorite.”

  I threaded my fingers through hers, my smile a little out of control as I said, “Mine, too.”

  “This is your favorite restaurant?” I asked as my eyes drifted across his handsome face. His strong jaw was smattered with a shortly trimmed beard, and as my gaze caressed his lips, I remembered the feel of that beard against my chin. My eyes, though reluctant, turned toward the open room.

  When I allowed myself to look at him again, I tried not to fixate on his forearms as they flexed against the table. Kieran’s sleeves were pushed to his elbows, his black sweater hugged every muscle, leaving little to the imagination. Not that I had to imagine anything, not even twenty minutes ago I’d been pressed against that chest, that carved stone, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how I’d never wanted to let go. It wasn’t like me to make moves, especially first ones, but standing with him in his favorite store, and watching the light turn his blue eyes to crystal clear sky as he spoke about his love of books, I’d needed to feel what he was feeling. Taste what he was saying even if it was fleeting and reckless. Kissing him was the best thing to happen to me in a long-ass time.

  “It is. I usually do takeout though. My brothers told me I shouldn’t bring you here.” His smile was addictive, and I’d been inhaling it ever since we’d sat down inside the restaurant.

  His lips pulled across his face and heat bloomed inside my heart. I could still feel those lips.

  “Why?”

  “I guess it’s kind of a shit hole, but the food is amazing.” Kieran expertly twirled his chopsticks through his noodles as he watched me.

  “I like it here,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  I nodded.

  He’d brought me to a place with only four tables and a cheesy dragon painted on the back wall. He hadn’t tried to impress me with some fake, pretentious restaurant. This place wasn’t about fanfare, just good food. We were the only ones here, and there was no loud music for distractions, just the occasional bickering of the staff that floated through the kitchen door, rarely interrupting our first date Q and A.

  Kieran reached across the table and snatched one of my spring rolls with his chopsticks. “These are my favorite.”

  “Hey,” I scolded with a laugh, and he rewarded me again with that perfect smile.

  He swallowed his bite before he spoke again. “Liam thinks I’m addicted.”

  “I can see why. You just stole food off my plate.”

  He took another bite of the spring roll and smirked.

  “Liam is older than you, right?”

  “Yeah. It’s Liam, then Declan, and I’m the baby.”

  “That explains the manners.” I eyed my half-eaten spring roll on his plate as I scooped fried rice onto my fork.

  “I’d like to think that I’m just comfortable enough with you that we can share.” He shrugged his shoulders and leaned back in his chair. “How about you? Any siblings?”

  The fun, nervous energy turned gray as he steered the conversation toward me. Half-truths and lies. It was my M.O.

  “Just one, my sister, Maria.” My smile was small as I set down my fork.

  “Older or younger?” he asked around a mouthful of noodles.

  “Older. She’s thirty-five.” I dropped his gaze and looked around the room even though avoidance wouldn’t stop the lies, and I didn’t want to lie to him.

  “It’s a rough life being the last born,” he said, and the smile in his tone caught my attention. I turned to look at him again and mischief brewed in his eyes. “The last born is always the favorite.”

  I smiled even though it was deceptive to do so. I wasn’t the favorite, I was the black sheep. “You were the favorite?”

  His smile waned as he said, “I was.”

  Kieran wasn’t as good at hiding his feelings as I was and, as he turned to look around the restaurant, his shoulders seemed a bit tighter than they were a few seconds ago.

  “Kelly told me about your mom,” I said softly and earned his gaze.

  His jaw clenched as he set down his chopsticks. “It’s been hard. Some days it feels just like yesterday, and then others it feels as if she died years ago. I miss her.” His smile returned, but it was watered down. “I was lucky to have the time I did. Not everyone can say that.”

  Regret swarmed in my stomach. I’d thrown away so many years with my family, given up the chance to be a mother. The thought of him knowing how I’d lived, how I’d treated my loved ones, it made my dinner stir and sour in my belly.

  “I’m sure you made her very proud.” I reached for my drink and his eyes fell to my fingers.

  They were trembling and I hadn’t noticed. They stilled as I wrapped them around the glass.

  “The truth?” he asked as I sipped deeply from the cup. His gaze fixed on my fingers. “Some days… I feel like I failed her.”

  I set down my glass and looked him in the eyes. I wasn’t ready for his confession, I didn’t want intimacy I couldn’t return. But I was trapped by the sadness that swirled inside his irises.

  “Why would you think that?” I whispered.

  It felt like an eternity before he spoke. The room was overly quiet, like it too was waiting for his answer.

  “Kieran you don’t have—”

  “I was going to be a priest.” He didn’t register the shock in my raised brows. He was staring into his past, his eyes full of memories. “She was so excited, and I grasped a hold of that. Ran with it until it eventually became a part of who I was, whether I wanted it or not, and when I never went to seminary, never finished, I always wondered if I’d disappointed her.”

  I didn’t know him, but that look, that heavy weight… it was guilt and it matched mine.

  “I don’t see how she could’ve been.”

  His eyes came into focus. “That’s what Liam says.”

  “No matter what we do, at some point, we’ve disappointed someone, but it doesn’t mean that the things we’ve accomplished are any less worthy.” I gave him a small smile.

  “And here I thought I was the one who was good with words.” His lopsided grin reappeared, and I huffed out a laugh as the mood lifted.

  “You really wanted to be a priest?”

  “I did. I even majored in theology.”

  Our waitress came over and filled our water glasses. Once she left, I said with a smirk forming on my lips, “I don’t think priests are supposed to kiss like that.”

  His laugh was deep and I felt it in my bones. He raised his eyebrows as he asked, “Like what?”

  The warmth in my cheeks reached the tips of my ears, and his smile grew. That damn smile did things to me, made me want to say things I shouldn’t. His kiss was sex and fire and there was no way in hell I was uttering those words. I shook my head as I said, “Let’s just say you kiss like you’ve been in the confessional a lot.”

  Kieran actually blushed, and his confidence wavered like his Adam’s apple as he swallowed. “What if I told you I was a virgin?”

  I barked out a laugh. “I’d call you a fucking liar.”

  His lips lifted. “The kiss was that good?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I�
�m not answering that.”

  The waitress, thank God, dropped off our check. He reached for it and I let him. He handed the server cash and told her to keep the change. I was prepared to stand, ready to leave, but when he looked at me again, his eyes had filled with something I couldn’t place, and it pinned me to the chair.

  “What if I was?” he asked again.

  “Kieran…”

  “Would it change anything?” The humor had completely left his eyes. If he was a virgin… all the things I’d done, everything I’d been through… my stomach lurched.

  My mouth went dry, my heart beat too fast as I tried to find the lie in his eyes.

  It wasn’t there.

  “You’re a virgin.” It wasn’t a question and the air thinned making it hard to breathe. It shouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t have mattered to a normal woman. A woman with skin that hadn’t been tainted by foreign hands, and filth. “How?” I asked, unable to hide the fear in my voice.

  “I wanted to live the standard, test myself. If I never experienced sex, I figured it’d be a hell of a lot easier to give it up when I took my vows to become a priest.” The color in his cheeks deepened.

  “So, you’ve never…”

  “I’ve never had sex.”

  “Never?”

  “Never ever.” He chuckled.

  “That’s crazy.” The honest words slipped from my mouth before I could stop them.

  “You’re on a date with a twenty-seven-year-old virgin.” His smile was playful, and I felt anything but. He was an angel, and I was worse than the fucking devil. “Tell me what you’re thinking… you’re making me nervous.”

  I was thinking about every vile thing I’d ever done for drugs. How Chance had asked me to fuck strangers for money, but I’d only ever been able to talk myself into giving blow jobs in back seats, and that even though I threw up afterward, every single time, I did it over and over again because that was what I had become. I was thinking how absolutely tragic it was that I was sitting across from someone like him, someone I actually liked, someone who made me feel less like a whore and more like a human, and knew that if he could see me for what I really was it would be the last time I’d ever see him.

  I kept my thoughts to myself and made light of it. The last thing I wanted was for him to feel ashamed of something so brave, so honorable. “I think it’s cool.”

  His laugh was full and rich and my lips parted into a smile at the sound of it. “I do. It shows, if anything, you’re a fucking expert at commitment.”

  His laugh warmed into a chuckle and chased away my fear, if only for the moment. His light eyes danced as they held mine, and I wanted to fall inside of them, tell him all of my secrets, pray at his feet, and ask him to look past my soiled soul.

  He would’ve been an amazing priest.

  The waitress was standing behind the counter casting an irritated glance in our direction. “Should we go?” I asked.

  “Probably,” he said as he stood and pulled on his jacket.

  We headed to the door and he waved to the lady behind the counter. She gave him a fake smile and he laughed. “You’d think by now I would have won her over. I’m here like every damn day.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem?”

  He took my hand in his, lacing his fingers through mine. “Maybe.” His tone was lighthearted as he opened the door for me, and I stepped out onto the sidewalk.

  He paused when I shivered and released my hand only to take off his jacket. “Here,” he offered as he held it out for me.

  “That’s okay.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “You’re shivering.”

  His heat lingered and consumed me as I slipped it on. “Thank you,” I said, and he laughed when I looked up at him.

  “You’re swimming in it.”

  “You’re a giant.”

  “Nah, you’re just small,” he teased and pushed a piece of my hair behind my ear.

  Kieran stepped closer, towering over me. That unbridled confidence was back as he rested his hands on my hips. His powerful fingers wrapped firmly around my waist, and when I leaned my head back—let my eyes find his—I granted myself a moment of peace. I let my knees feel weak, permitted my heart to hammer until all I could feel was the pressure of his fingertips. I’d been sober for five years, and even though wanting him was dangerous, I did it anyway.

  “Are you going to kiss me again?” I asked, baiting him.

  “I think I might.”

  Kieran’s mouth captured mine just as a laugh had barely escaped my lips. I slid my hands to his shoulders and stood on the tips of my toes. His fingers pressed into my hips as I leaned into him. He kissed my top lip and then the bottom with a reverent simplicity. I liked that he kissed more with his mouth and less with his tongue. Like he was building to something, holding out. When his tongue finally swept along the line of my lips and dipped inside my mouth, I moaned for more. He moved softly, and I opened for him, letting him in. He held my face with his hands, and I no longer felt the night air, all I knew in these few blissed out seconds was that I’d never been as high as I was right now.

  He pulled away, licked his lips, and then kissed me again before resting his smile against my mouth. He leaned back, brushing his thumb across my chin, and then my cheek. My hands fell from his shoulders down to his chest.

  Kieran lowered his hand as he said, “I don’t think I’m ready for you to go home yet.”

  I pinned the corner of my mouth between my teeth, but my smile broke through anyway. I should go home, but like the junkie I’ve always been, I said, “I think there’s a coffee shop a few blocks north.”

  He took my hand from his chest, linking our fingers.

  “Lead the way.”

  “But I don’t want comfort. I want poetry. I want danger.

  I want freedom. I want goodness. I want sin.”

  Aldous Huxley~

  Her breath mingled with the air as it passed her lips. It was cold outside, but she’d said the coffee shop was “too loud.” Salt Lake was a quiet city on most nights. The culture steeped in dogma, and tonight wasn’t any different as we sat outside in chilled metal chairs. The smell of coffee escaped from the open door, along with the coveted heat, every time someone walked in or out. My hands, at least, were warmed by the thin paper cup. But the rest of my body, that heat was all her.

  “So, your family runs a restaurant?” I asked and noticed when she shifted in her chair. She didn’t like it when I steered the conversation toward her life, but I’d told her more about myself than I’d ever intended, more than I probably should have. And even if she’d taken my confession, my not-so-dirty little secret in stride, I wanted to know her and wanted her to trust me.

  “Yeah, Trujillo’s Kitchen.” The accent she tried hard to conceal dripped from her tongue.

  My smile couldn’t be stopped. “I like your accent.” Her eyes found the sky. “You shouldn’t hide it.”

  “I don’t.” Melissa leveled me with stubborn brown eyes and my lips spread past polite.

  I ignored her discomfort. “And you work there?”

  She exhaled and her breath danced across the small space between us. I wanted to drink it. “Once a week, or whenever my dad lays down the guilt hammer.”

  “We have that in common then?”

  Her brows tumbled into a V. “What?”

  “Family business. Guilt… it comes with the trade, I think.”

  She laughed and her shoulders relaxed. “But Avenues is your full-time job, at least I get a break from my crazy ass family.”

  “Are you excited to quit your other job?”

  “Hell, yes. I’ve been at The Western too long.” Her eyes drifted from mine and faded. “I’m ready for a new beginning,” she whispered only to herself, but I eavesdropped anyway.

  “I think being a bartender would be fun.”

  Her eyes and heart were somewhere else when she muttered, “It’s overrated.” She sucked in a breath and turned to face me, a shy smile bloo
ming across her face. “Irene’s means more.” My mother’s name clouded my smile. “I think it’s really cool what Kelly did, naming it after her.”

  I sipped from my coffee cup, hoping the warmth would melt the lump now lodged in my throat. Melissa hadn’t noticed my change of mood. “It was.” I licked the taste of nutmeg from my lips and let myself fall into her eyes.

  Her small hand fit perfectly on top of my thigh. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought—”

  “It’s okay, honestly.” I cleared my throat and she leaned back. The heat of her hand evaporating into the moment. “I like hearing you say her name.”

  Her smile was nostalgia and midnight. “It’s the accent… everything sounds better.”

  I chuckled at her attempt to lift my mood. “It really does.” The apples of her cheeks were covered in caramel and as I leaned closer, they turned pink. “Say something else.”

  “Like what?” She was nerves and fire.

  “Anything, but say it in Spanish.”

  “Anything?” Her smirk held secrets that I wanted to hear. She bit her lip for a moment, and I wanted to kiss her again. “La adulación no te llevará a ninguna parte.”

  The sentence was dipped in sarcasm. “Even with the accent I can tell you just insulted me.”

  “You can?”

  “Yup,” I said and played with a piece of her hair. “What did you say?”

  Her smile was wide, bold as she said, “Basically… that flattery will get you nowhere.”

  “I was right then.”

  Melissa’s laugh was that first sip of water after a run. The sound of it poured down my throat like I’d been sprinting in the midday sun. It wasn’t enough. I wanted to know what she sounded like when she cried, when she came, when she had nothing but anger and hate. I wanted everything. My eyes found hers and they smiled back.