Dead Man Walking (The Fallen Men 6)

I laughed at him, feeling giddy and lovely. The night was clear and cold, the leaves wavering orange and red like flames flickering in the dark. I was out with a boy who was far less boring than he seemed, and I thought I might let him kiss me when he dropped me off at home.

“Honey, if I hated every man involved with drugs, I wouldn’t have much of a home life,” I explained as I pulled him into my body against his car and wrapped my arms around his neck. “You obviously don’t know Entrance well if you think I’m your average good girl.”

“Bea,” he said slowly, pulling at the end of my curls. “Look at you. How could you be anything but?”

I arched a brow. “And you? Khakis and cocaine?”

He laughed then, eyes crinkled shut, chin tipped back, and I liked him even more.

Almost enough to forget about my years-long obsession with another man.

But not quite.

Even then, pressed tight to another man, I felt the chains around my heart tug hard as if I’d reached the end of slack and journeyed too far from him. I struggled to focus on the feel of Brett’s linen shirt beneath my hands, then struggled again wishing it was leather under my touch.

“I’m dressed up,” Brett was explaining. “It’s a costume party.”

“Oh?” I pushed him away slightly to study his outfit again. “Are you Chandler Bing or something? I think you forgot the sweater vest.”

Brett laughed again, and the sound warmed my chest. It felt good to have one hundred percent of his consideration after a life of living in my lovely older sister’s shadow. It was such a simple thing, one man’s undivided attention, the wrong man’s regard, but I stretched toward it like a flower seeking the light.

“You wanna get out of here?” he suggested in a throaty voice as he ran his fingers through the ends of my hair.

“Yes, I was coming to find you so you could drop me off at home.”

He frowned, and I laughed because he was so adorable and predictable.

“I was never going to sleep with you tonight, Brett,” I informed him with mock solemnity. “In that way, at least, I really am a good girl.”

I laughed lightly as he shook his head in bemusement. It felt astoundingly good to be wanted. So good, I was almost tempted to let him touch me.

Maybe I would have if I thought he would do it right.

Not light and tender, as befitting a virgin.

I didn’t want anything close to that.

Hard hands with rough calluses and strong teeth with a sharp bite. A man who would play my body not like an instrument, but like one of the weapons he wielded so well.

Brett watched me as I slid away and got into the passenger seat of his beautifully restored orange Camaro before he made his own way to the driver’s seat.

“So what does a guy have to do to get close to you?” he said as he settled in the car and turned the ignition. “Are you a three-dates-before-fucking kinda girl?”

I almost gagged on the cliché. “I’m not going to give you a road map, Brett. Where’s the fun in that?”

He slanted me a look but stayed quiet, obviously puzzling over the fact I wasn’t as easy to manipulate as he previously thought.

I leaned back in the leather seat and watched as the rain started to ping against the windshield, fat drops round as human tears. It rained often in the autumn and winter seasons in Entrance, but I was filled with a renewed love for the weather whenever it came. I was enchanted by the rain, the way it washed things clean and nourished the land. Growing up in the church as I did, my biblical teachings had lent the rain an almost divine connotation, and since I was young, I’d always believed it heralded good things. For God withheld the rain when He was wronged and let it shed after a show of faith.

“You’re not as good a guy as I originally thought,” I pointed out. “To me, that’s a good thing.”

His laughter was edged with bitterness. “You don’t wanna know how bad I am.”

I rolled my eyes. “Trust me, I’ve known worse than you.”

“There’s not much worse than my family in this town, trust me. We haven’t been here long, but you’ll learn. If you’re so turned on by bad boys, you got that in me. Runs in our blood.”

“Mmm,” I hummed, trying to stave off my laughter. “And what, may I ask, makes you all so bad?”

Brett faced me, then stalled at a stop sign before a four-way crossroads. There was something dark in his face, something almost feral that made a shiver rip down my spine.

“The Walshes,” he said after a long moment. “We make the best designer drugs from here to Saskatoon.”