Vote Then Read: Volume II

by Lauren Blakely

  “I knew he was an idiot,” Theo said, eating a fry. It was unfair how hot he looked just eating a stringy potato. All thoughts flew out the window, stuck on his pillowy lips. As if he knew what I was thinking, he grinned crookedly, arching a brow.

  “Where are you living?” he asked suddenly, eyes hard.

  I paused.

  Oh my God—where was I going to live?

  “I was sleeping at the motel. I don’t really know where I’m going to live.” I charged the room on my credit card, but my mom was going to cut that off soon.

  I set down my burger.

  “Abs,” Theo said. “What are you thinking?”

  I could barely hear him.

  What was I going to do?

  I have nowhere to go.

  Was this what a panic attack feels like? I couldn’t breathe. Don’t get me wrong, I would do it again in a heartbeat. I’d always choose Theo, always. I just… I’m scared. My life had always been comfortable and easy. I’ve never had to worry about material things.

  I was homeless.

  I had no money.

  “How comfortable was the beach?” I asked Theo. “It probably got cold in the winter. Oh my God, you didn’t have internet. Or maids. Or running water.”

  “Of course Abigail Crowne is more worried about maids than running water,” he said.

  My wide eyes found him, unable to laugh at his obvious joke. Sometimes it snowed in the winter, covering the sandy beach in a blanket of beautiful white powder. I always thought it was magical.

  But not if I was sleeping in it.

  “Was it warmer under the pier?” I asked.

  His fingers were at my chin, drawing me to him. “Hey. We’ll figure it out. I’m not letting you sleep on the beach.”

  “But—”

  “I can’t promise you servants, Abigail, but I promise you will always be comfortable and always be protected.”

  My heart rate slowed as I stared into his green eyes. I believed him.

  “Maybe…” Theo dropped my chin, warring with something in his mind. He shook his head, and it was my turn to press him.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “It’s stupid,” Theo said. “I shouldn’t have even thought it.”

  “But you did. What was it?”

  “I wondered if maybe we can stay with my mom. She gave me her number and for a moment I thought she was going to ask me to stay with her.”

  “Your mom?” I gasped. “You saw your mother?”

  “Abigail Crowne?” someone said, at the worst fucking moment. To our left, a crowd of teenagers was looking over. I looked at my unfinished burger, at Theo’s barely touched fries.

  “It’s Abigail Crowne and her new husband!” another said.

  Theo grabbed my hand, pulling me off the rubbery chain-link table. Holding hands, we ran out of the diner. For once, the thought of marriage hadn’t filled me with dread.

  Married to Theo.

  What a dream.

  After escaping the gathering crowd at Crowne Drive-In Diner, we walked hand in hand along bluffs, below us a sandy shore.

  “So you met your mom?” I asked.

  “Briefly. I got distracted by your marriage announcement.” Theo shot me a crooked grin.

  I buried my face in my free hand. “Oh my God. I’m so sorry.”

  He pulled me to his warm, solid chest, back to the ocean. “Never apologize for what led me back to you.”

  The wind and waves whipped a small flurry, and I buried my head deeper into his hard pecs. Was it possible I was really safe? Finally with Theo, after everything? I never wanted to move from this warm embrace, but then he spoke.

  “You were right,” Theo said and I lifted my eyes to his. “About the diary. All this time, my mother was trying to find me, hoping I would find her. It was a map.”

  My heart cracked like an egg for Theo. In all the years I’d known him, this was the dream I’d hope would come true. As if he could see the words in my head, Theo pulled me to him and grasped my chin.

  “I should’ve listened to you, my princess and my reject, my lying, fire-starting, romantic…” He pushed a strand of hair behind my ear with one finger, eyes throbbing with tenderness. “My perfect contradiction.”

  Theo was the only person in the world who knew exactly what to say to make me bloom. Which made sense, I guess, because he also knew exactly what to say to destroy me.

  I stood on my tiptoes, angling to kiss him. I could taste the buzz of him on my lips, our static electricity already dancing when suddenly I remembered.

  “Grim has your mom’s diary now!” I said. “My sister gave it to him.”

  Theo’s brow wrinkled, but not with concern, like I’d expected. “My mom had it when I found her. He must have given it to her. She said she was given it looking for me.”

  “What? Why would he do that?”

  “You know the Horsemen will do any job, for the right price.”

  I briefly thought to my sister, to her debt. Had she needed a job from the Horsemen?

  “My mom’s wife is the mayor of Crowne Point,” Theo continued, pulling me back. “There isn’t much she can’t afford.”

  That was why she looked familiar. She was one of the many faces I’d been forced to mingle with. They all blurred into one blob after awhile.

  “What about you, sweet girl? Can you really give up your entire family?” He arched his head forward, eyes digging, unwilling to let me gloss over this.

  “Yes… but my mom didn’t seem angry with me. She said see you at Christmas. I don’t know, she might not totally have excommunicated me.”

  I could tell he was worried, unsure if that was good or bad, unsure what that meant for us.

  “Whatever happens,” I said. “You’ll be with me, by my side. I made that clear.”

  Theo dragged me the last few inches to his lips.

  Kissing Theo was addicting. I loved everything about it. Standing on my tiptoes as his arm anchored my lower back, tugging me higher and pressing me flat against him, so I felt him. His flat abs, his hard cock.

  I got lost in his soft lips and the firm pressure he applied, his skillful, teasing tongue.

  The free hand he wove to the base of my neck, pressing me harder against his lips.

  A smattering of raindrops fell, and I opened my eyes, breaking me out of his trance. My arms were wrapped around his neck, and I saw the bracelet he’d given me for the thousandth time that night. I realized something then, something so important I’d yet to give Theo.

  “I need to go back to the motel,” I said against his lips, breathless.

  “Now?” he asked, lips at my neck, then jaw, kisses leaving a trail of fire and need.

  “Now,” I breathed.

  He groaned, biting my lip, but let me go.

  When we got back to the motel, he eyed my room number with mild amusement.

  “What?” I asked.

  His lip curved. “I’m 302.”

  I looked at the white painted wood number on my door: 301.

  “We’re next to each other?”

  Of course we were next to each other.

  All Theo did was grin.

  I opened my pale-blue door, and Theo followed me. I placed a hand on his chest.

  “Stay here.”

  He grinned wolfishly, taking another step, pushing me back into my room. I stumbled over my own feet.

  “I want it to be a surprise,” I all but begged.

  His eyes gleamed, but he raised his hand, stepping back onto the whitewashed porch that wrapped around the motel.

  I fished around my room, looking for my box. Despite being a motel, the room was beautiful, with a weathered seaside decor, queen bed, and valet if you needed. In any other town, it would be a four-star hotel, but this was Crowne Point.

  Theo was leaning against a railing overlooking the ocean, arms folded. When he saw me come out, he stood off it.

  “My mom told me to take what I wanted from my room…” I said, s
uddenly nervous. “This is the only thing worth saving.”

  His green eyes flickered from my eyes to what I held in my hands.

  Too silent.

  The waves too loud.

  “I fixed it…” I trailed off, fiddling with the bracelet. I still felt hopelessly vulnerable. I’d fixed it without any certainty he would come through and catch me. Holding it in my hands reminded me of when my heart beat raw.

  Theo wrapped his arm around my waist, thrusting me to him.

  His lips were on mine, sucking my breath from my body, thrusting his tongue into my mouth. Any inch I gave him he took and demanded more. More breath. More tongue. More lips. More.

  He finished with a quick bite of my lower lip.

  I could barely breathe.

  “Do I get to wear it?” He arched a brow. I could only nod at his beautiful face, sliding the bracelet on his wrist.

  Seeing those restrung pastel pieces back on his wrist, only missing the one F now on my bracelet, something clicked into place. The final broken part of us fit back together.

  He kissed me again, pushing me back into my room. The door slammed shut behind us on a seaside summer night. I wrapped my arms around Theo as he carried me to bed.

  My best friend. My tormentor. My bodyguard. Now my fiancé.

  My everything.

  40

  ABIGAIL

  Two months later

  I tried to focus on the girl talking to me as we walked to our next class. I had just finished my first of the semester, attending the college Theo had applied to for me. College. I was mid-conversation with her when all of a sudden I was yanked by the wrist into the girls’ bathroom.

  I stared at the door a moment, lips parted, before turning into the eyes of Theo. He leaned against the sink, one leg propped, green eyes bored.

  “I was talking to someone,” I said at last.

  “Tough shit, Reject.” He snatched my wrist, spinning me around so I was pressed between him and the sink.

  I looked around at the pink tiles. “Did you go in the wrong bathroom, dog?”

  He kneed open my legs. “No one’s going to think twice about your bodyguard accompanying you.”

  “You’re not my bodyguard anymore.”

  “Hmm… tyrant? Tormentor?”

  “Nope,” I said.

  “No?” He leaned over, biting my neck. “Best friend?”

  “Closer…” A smile twerked my lips.

  Theo engulfed me. His muscular arms on either side of me, his green-eyed stare digging into me, his big hands on the sink, finishing the cage. My space, my air, everything.

  “Husband, then?”

  Warmth filled my gut almost as much at the word, as the way his lips soothed his bite. Husband. Theo Hound was my husband.

  “Shouldn’t you be in class?” I all but breathed.

  I wasn’t the only one pursuing their dream. Theo was finally getting his degree in social work so he could help children like himself.

  “I have a surprise for you,” Theo said, voice gravelly. He pulled back, eyes dark in the way I loved. The way that said he was about to fuck me in a bathroom, and I was going to let him.

  But then he stepped away.

  He grinned at my face, tracing his knuckles along my jaw. “If we don’t go now, you’ll miss your next class.”

  I seriously contemplated it, but in the end, I let him lead me out of the bathroom.

  After a short taxi ride, we arrived at a tall, jutting skyscraper in the middle of Manhattan. After the doorman opened one of the gilded double doors, I followed Theo, confused and a little wary, into a polished foyer.

  “Are we meeting someone?” I asked.

  He looked at me with a small smile. “I’m not ruining the surprise.”

  We rode the elevator to the top floor. The doors opened on an empty, vaulted ceiling apartment sweeping what appeared to be the entire floor. It had views stretching all the way to Central Park.

  After the doors nearly closed on me, Theo dragged me to the center.

  “I would’ve asked if we were burgling, but…” I gestured at the lack of furniture, the barren hardwood. “What is this place?”

  Theo watched me softly. “Every hero needs a lair.”

  “This isn’t a lair, it’s—wait, this is your place?”

  He came to me. “Our. It’ll be nice not living with my mom.”

  My palm pressed to his cheek. “I don’t mind.”

  “I’d like to fuck you anytime, anywhere,” he practically growled. “I don’t need to feel like a teenager, waiting to fuck you in my bedroom when my mom is gone.”

  I smiled, remembering the past two months.

  “I like fucking you in secret.”

  Then his lips were on my neck. Theo never stopped touching me now, like he’s making up for years he could’ve been. Sometimes it was an innocent touch, a hand on the back of my neck, a kiss on my forehead. Sometimes it was ravenous, wild, teeth and tongue and bruising hands.

  And… yeah… it’s a little uncomfortable when you’re living with his mom.

  “Not to mention…” He gripped my hand, dragging me out of the main room to the only decorated room.

  I nearly lost my breath.

  A nursery.

  Theo embraced me from behind, surrounding me with his warmth, his palms landing gently on my belly, nearly encapsulating the entire thing. He buried his nose into my neck, lips warm on the flesh when he spoke.

  Theo kissed up and down my neck. “It’s gender neutral.”

  Gray-and-yellow chevron walls, a softly colored crib with a mobile hanging above, even a fully stocked library next to a rocking chair. Swans dangled from the mobile, laces tied the crib together in pretty bows, and a Crowne Point blanket hung over the rocking chair.

  They were little bits and pieces of us, of our relationship, incorporated into our future. I blinked away tears.

  “If you don’t like it—”

  “I love it.”

  Theo, who always acted so uncaring, but always cared the most.

  We were so young, and probably not ready in any sense of the word, but nothing had ever made more sense, had never been more right, until that little stick said pregnant. All my insecurities, my need for love, vanished. I said I would give all the love I’d always needed, the attention I’d always craved. I would make sure he or she would grow up never knowing that void.

  Theo was the same. That fear of abandonment, that ache of being left, they would never know it. Every hurt lashed on us had been leading us to this moment.

  It was perfect and right and whole.

  “We’re close to your school, and just two hours from Crowne Point, so you can still visit your family on the holidays and get Crowne Drive-In Diner on the weekend, and when you finish, you can open up that shop you’ve always dreamed about, because you will open up your shop—” He ended abruptly, as if realizing he was rambling.

  “How can you—err, we—afford this?”

  Theo was quiet, and I pulled out of his embrace, coming to a conclusion. His mom lived in a swanky house, nothing compared to what I’d grown up in—but then, I was the one percent of the one percent.

  “Wait…” I bit the inside of my cheek to stop from smiling, but it was pointless, because a mischievous smile lit up my face. “Theo Hound… are you a trust fund kid now?”

  He barked a laugh. “Hardly.”

  “Theo Hound, who always made fun of us. Theo Hound, who always looked down on us. Theo Hound is now one of us—”

  He gripped my cheeks, pulling me in for a harsh kiss, cutting off my words.

  When he pulled back, I was dizzy.

  “Now I’m the poor one,” I whispered.

  He caressed my cheek. “I’ll be sure to treat you as well as you treated me.”

  My eyes grew even wider, and he grinned. He pulled me into an embrace, into his chest. I turned my head on his soft shirt, taking in our new apartment.

  “This feels like a happily ever after,�
� I said suspiciously against his chest.

  “No way,” Theo said, and I lifted my eyes to his. “This is a happily ever after, Abigail.”

  I let that sink in as he wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me tighter against him. Theo’s heartbeat thrummed steadily against my ear.

  “Truth or promise?” I asked against it.

  He grinned against my forehead. “Promise.”

  “Promise you won’t break my heart?” I asked.

  “Promise.”

  THE END

  NEED more of the Crownes? Grayson and Story’s book, Stolen Soulmate, is now available! If you thought Heartless Hero was intense, Stolen Soulmate has been called not only “hot as hell” but “a true masterpiece.”

  Copyright 2016 by Piper Lawson Books

  Line and copy editing by Jenny Govier

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations, or locations are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

  Prologue

  Ava

  December

  I fucking love New York.

  The city streets might have been freezing, but inside it was hot.

  The club was three stories. The top two had wraparound balconies overlooking a crowded dance floor. An enormous chandelier hung from the center, pulsing with light to the music.

  “This place is unreal!” I shouted at my best friend, Lex.

  We were dressed to the nines, two twenty-one-year-olds high on the city. We’d flown to the Big Apple over winter break to pitch our clothing designs to the magazine editor Lex interned with. But we were also there to celebrate the end of the fall semester at our San Diego college.

  Right now, I needed to flirt.