A Bitch Named Karma. Stephanie Haefner

Чтение книги онлайн.

      Marcus took me in his arms and let me cry and snot on his thousand dollar suit. After arriving at his apartment and changing into the most comfortable pair of pajamas he owned, I plopped onto his bed. He brought me a half dozen pillows and a mug of cocoa spiked with Baileys. My angel in Armani.

      Marcus joined me in bed and we spent the day watching old movies and eating Chinese take-out. We also popped a couple bottles of wine.

      “How could I be so blind?” I asked. “How could I not know he was getting some ass on the side?’

      “I don’t know. Sometimes we’re oblivious to the obvious. I thought maybe he was cheating on you, but Brenda? That shocked me. Never would have guessed the piercings and tattoos would be a turn-on for him.”

      “Don’t even get me started on that bitch. It kills me because she never even liked the dickwad—her word, not mine.”

      I finished off my sixth or maybe eighth glass and felt the room spin just a little bit, like the slow final rotation on the Tilt-a-Whirl after the power had been cut. My judgment was clouded, I knew that, but Marcus looked pretty damn sexy lying next to me.

      After more than three full decades of friendship, Marcus knew everything about me, all my faults, all my idiosyncrasies, and he loved me anyway. He sat up in the bed, propped with expensive feather pillows. I snuggled into him, rubbing my hand over his defined pec muscles. The flicker of the black and white movie on the TV in front of us illuminated his face and without even knowing why, I kissed him. My tongue slid past his lips, making it much more than one of our friendly pecks.

      Of course he pulled away. “Lex, what the hell are you doing?”

      “Marcus, I want you,” I replied and climbed on top of him.

      “Come on, we’re just friends.”

      “You know it’s more than that.”

      I kissed him again, feeling far less hesitation this time. For a few blissful seconds, his arms wrapped around my body and I reveled in his delicious nibbles.

      But then he gently pushed me off of him and stared me dead in the eyes.

      “Listen to me. You are a mess. You’re vulnerable and you don’t know what you’re saying. You’ll hate yourself afterward.”

      “No, I won’t. Please Marcus, make love to me. I need you. You can’t tell me you don’t want me too. I know you’d be lying.”

      He lay there speechless and I knew there’d be no more fighting. I took my shirt off and crawled back to him. He pushed the hair away from my face and kissed me the way I knew he’d dreamt of for so long.

      * * * *

      When I woke the next morning, Marcus had already gone to work. I couldn’t stay there, in his bed, wearing only his pajama top. Embarrassment filled me as I recalled the evening—throwing myself at him, preying on his feelings for me. He’d always wanted our relationship to step past its platonic level. I was the one who’d decided it best to stay just friends. But now we’d had sex, a simple act of desperation for me—to him it probably meant the world.

      I had to get out of there and for obvious reasons, my apartment was out. The friend list was rather short. Non-existent, actually. Only pure hopelessness could lead my brain to even consider this last option. As much as I hated it, spending some time at my parents’ house was inevitable.

      Dressed in my dirty clothes, the ones I’d worn the day my life fell apart, I climbed into a cab. After a forty-five minute ride, I keyed into my childhood home and knew I’d hit the bottom. At least my next move would be up. It had to be, right?

      The house seemed empty, with the exception of the TV blaring in my brother’s room. Not much had changed. I lived less than an hour СКАЧАТЬ