"I'm not surprised you haven't heard. Not much in the way of grit is reported in that area."

"You talk like you know it."

"I went to Trinity," he'd said, then laughed as her eyes went wide at the reference to the exclusive private school. "Don't worry. No gang dollars financed my education. I was there from middle school through my sophomore year. Their scholarship program. It's all about community outreach. My brother really pushed my dad to get me in, and so Dad pretty much hounded the committee until they relented."

"That's great."

He nodded. "Yeah. My dad got his shit back together once he realized what Richie was doing to keep food on our table. And he made it his mission to make sure I didn't get sucked into the gang life. Not hard, because Richie didn't want me in it either."

"But Richie stayed in?"

"He stayed in," Spencer had acknowledged. "Despite my dad's pushing and prodding and fighting." He exhaled. "And that choice cost Richie everything."

The death penalty.

It had cost Spencer, too. He'd dropped out school after Richie's arrest. "I went off the rails," he'd told her. "I was angry at the world. At life. At fucking everything. Was lucky I didn't get tossed into foster care or into a juvie center. Or, hell, tried as an adult. You'd think I'd know better after Richie, but it was like I was trying to be like him. Basically, I was a fucking mess."

"But you got it together," she'd said, and he'd nodded. "I put all my energy into working with my hands. Carpentry. Bricklaying. Roofing. Framing. Electrical work. If I didn't already know it, I learned it."

Now, safe in Spencer's arms on the couch, she thought about the man she'd met only once behind a piece of Plexiglass. A man who'd been living in a cell for ten years by then. They'd spoken to each other across an old-fashioned handset, and Spencer had introduced her as his bride-to-be.

Richie's face had bloomed with the news. "You're doing good, little brother. Don't fuck it up."

Spencer had laughed and kissed her. "Never happen."

There'd been hope in the air that day. Richie's lawyers were arguing one more appeal in the morning. With luck, Richie would walk. At the very least, the family was hopeful that he'd be transferred off Death Row.

Brooke shuddered, the pain of the memory washing over her. That hadn't happened.

"You okay?"

"Only a chill," she lied, pulling the soft throw over them both. "I'm perfect."

He chuckled. "Yeah," he said. "You are."

She turned in his arms, then pressed her palm against his cheek. "Are you okay?"

For a moment, she thought he'd lie and tell her that he was fine. That he could handle it. But then he blinked, and she saw the tears in his eyes, and when he spoke, his voice was rough and raw, full of anger and pain and futility.

"I can't believe they're really going to do it. Three more months and then my brother will be gone."

Tears spilled down her own cheeks. "I know. I wish--God, I would give anything to change it. To make it better for him. For you."

They'd learned only yesterday--two days before the wedding--that the last of Richie's appeals had been denied, and his execution date had been set. And Brooke had never felt more helpless than she had when she saw Spencer take the phone call, then collapse into a chair, as if every ounce of strength had left his body.

"You do, Angel," he said as he stroked her hair, her cheek. "Don't you know that you make everything better?"

"Spencer." Emotion overwhelmed her, so intense that she almost couldn't breathe. She'd never in her life felt the way she did in his arms. Cherished. Loved. Beautiful. With Spencer, she beli

eved that everything was possible. That she could follow the life she craved and not the one her parents had planned for her. That she could actually make it work. And it tore at her heart that they both had to face Richie's execution--such harsh evidence that even in the arms of perfection, the world could go horribly, ridiculously wrong.

"Come here," he demanded, though he didn't give her time to respond. Instead, he buried his fingers in her hair at the nape and pulled her down to him. He took her mouth in a long, slow kiss. A kiss that tasted like sunshine and promised the world. A strong, magical kiss that had the power to push them through the pain of Richie's pending execution to the future of a life together.

A kiss that built in passion as they moved against each other, both craving the release. The connection.

She shifted so that she was straddling him. She wore a pair of his old sweatpants, cut off to make shorts, with nothing else underneath. Now, the soft material bunched up her legs so that her bare ass and legs rubbed against his jeans in a deliciously enticing way.

With Spencer, need always hovered close to the surface, and it rose now, the sweetness of that initial kiss giving way to a wild abandon, more intense and desperate today because of all they wanted to forget--Richie's execution, her family's disapproval, the frustration of a world they couldn't control.

Tags: J. Kenner Man of the Month Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net