Page 158 of The Complete Truth Duet
Manuel groaned with pain as he walked to the couch and sat down, breathing like he’d run a marathon, not walked six steps.
And Drew—well, he was peppering kisses on the top of Catalina’s head like they were long-lost loves and not standing next to the body of her husband.
“Catalina, honey,” Manuel called. “I don’t want to see that shit. I spent the last twenty-four hours with that prick. I’m tired. Get on the phone and call the police and let them know that your father just killed your husband.”
What the damn shit fucking hell was going on!
Drew
I should probably start at the beginning.
So there we were, two of my fingers buried in her tight pussy. Her round tits and dark nipples were swaying as she arched her back off the black leather seat of my rental.
Okay, wait, that’s not really the beginning. But those were the parts that made my cock twitch the minute she opened the door that day Cora, River, and I had arrived at her house.
The beginning would really be that same night, four years earlier, when she walked into the bar. I tagged her immediately. Honestly, I think every person in the bar did. And not because she was gorgeous—which she fucking was. But rather because the bar was a filthy little hole in the wall and she strutted in looking like a senator’s wife.
She was wearing a black knee-length skirt that clung to her ass in all the right ways and a cream silk top that bordered on the line between sexy librarian and eighty-year-old grandmother. But, with a chest like hers, it was leaning heavily toward librarian. Her long, toned legs were capped by black pumps, and her fingers were perfectly manicured with white tips. But, even without all of that, her plump lips had been enough to command my attention.
I watched her for the first hour as she toyed with the ends of her long, brown hair. She downed three martinis while alternating between nervously checking her phone and staring at the door.
The second hour, I decided to make an approach while silently declaring that whichever douchebag was stupid enough to invite a woman like that to a place like that and then stand her up was my new favorite dumbass in the world.
I’d been going stir-crazy while sitting in the hotel, but I had a few more hours to kill before Lisa was supposed to meet me there. And what better way to kill time than with a beautiful woman.
I hadn’t said hello before she scooted down two stools.
I’d given her space, but only physically.
I started conversations, and just as quickly, she shut them down.
But then it only became a challenge to me, and considering that talking was my forte, it wasn’t but about thirty minutes before I cracked her.
Well, almost cracked her. “Leave me the fuck alone” was still talking.
She’d told me that she was waiting for a friend. And every time the door to that bar opened, I prayed like hell that friend did not come through it.
It took me a little while, but eventually, I got her talking—two more martinis aided me in that task.
And then I was fucking done for.
She was so damn funny—a real ball-buster. I loved every minute of her snarky retorts and teasing side-eyes. I swear to God I laughed more with that woman over the span of the next three hours than I had in my entire life.
And when she started looking through her phone for the number of a cab company, the thought of her leaving hit me far deeper than it should have.
I asked her to stay.
She told me no.
I asked her to let me drive her home.
She told me no.
I asked her to come back to my hotel room.
She told me no.
I asked her for her number.
She told me…no.
But, as we waited together outside in the dark parking lot, I didn’t ask before I dipped my head and took her mouth in a kiss that changed my entire life.
Because it happened at the exact moment I failed the only woman in my life who mattered.
We watched her cab come and leave, laughing and making out like high schoolers in the front seat before moving to the back.
Penn was blowing up my phone the entire time I was inside her.
And when I finally picked up, I kicked her out of my car so fast that I didn’t even remember if she was dressed.
Her name was Cat and she was the biggest regret of my life.
I’d never been brave enough to admit that I was a thirty-one-year-old man fucking a random woman in the back of my car the night my sister was murdered half a mile away from me—not even to Penn.
Somewhere in my self-loathing and desperate need to place blame for what had happened, it’d all become her fault.
