Heavy Issues Read Online Free PDF Page A

baked potato to death. “Just perfect.” She recklessly pointed the knife at him. “You didn’t lose any time jumping the gun, did you? Just out of curiosity, do you already have a tariff in mind? Do I get a certain discount for being so pathetically desperate? Or is it the other way around? The worse the case, the bigger the bucks? Or am I just a charity fuck?”
    What the hell? “What tariffs are you talking about?”
    “You’re asking me out in hopes of getting laid,” she said through clenched teeth.
    “No, not just that.” If her murderous glare was anything to go by, that was a wrong answer. Yep, definitely not the smoothest guy around. But fuck it, he’d never been gun-shy when it came to talking sex. He was very up-front about his intentions, about what he had to offer and what he didn’t. That was not about to change now.
    “The opportunistic pig heard me the other day, and now he thinks I’m easy. And desperate. Just perfect!”
    “I don’t—”
    “I hope you had the decency to keep quiet, or should I expect more propositions from other parties?”
    “What? No. Of course not.” Easy and desperate? Propositions from other parties? “What are you talking about?”
    “Or you thought first come, first served, huh? Or maybe it’s a bet.” She suddenly stopped as if something had dawned on her. “Oh, wait, this is a prank, right?” she asked, turning her head and looking around. “Where’s the camera?”
    Camera? Fuck, this whole conversation was getting out of hand. He wasn’t sure what he’d done or what exactly they were talking about, but he was fucking it up. He’d missed a right turn somewhere, and now they were heading toward a wall.
    “You’re making no sense, sweet thing.”
    “Don’t ‘sweet thing’ me,” she retorted. “You heard all that stud-for-hire talk, and surprise, surprise, here you are, ready to do humanity a favor, sure I’ll open my legs for you at the word go.”
    Cole’s jaw went slack. A stud for hire? What the hell?
    “Listen, Christy…”
    She wasn’t listening to him, and her voice was rising. “Let me tell you something, Mister… Mister…Hot Pants. Despite whatever conclusions you’ve drawn about me, I’m—”
    “Let’s rewind here.” He cut off her rambling. Man, asking Christy out was so not going how he’d envisioned it. “Why don’t you tell me what you think I heard? So we’re sure we’re on the same wavelength.” Because at the moment, she was in short-range FM and he was in deep-space transmission for all the sense their conversation was making.
    She blushed. “What? Do you get your kicks from hearing me say again that my sex life has sucked big-time up until now? That I don’t want to date, that what I want is to get properly laid? That I’ll hire an escort and be done with it?”
    Wow. She was going to hire a professional escort to get laid? Sure, like that was going to happen anytime soon. Over his horny dead body.
    He felt his anger rising even more. “So why the fuck are you giving me shit for asking you out? For suggesting we could have some fun together?” Women were so fucking contradictory.
    “Why the fuck am I giving you shit?” she repeated, looking incredulously at him. “I can’t believe this!”
    Neither could he.
    He’d known giving in to his cock where this girl was concerned was nothing but trouble.
    The atmosphere was quite loud in the diner, but some heads had begun to turn and direct their questioning glances toward them. He didn’t care a damn bit about being proper, but this was definitely not the place to have this conversation. He flagged Penny.
    “I see. Thanks for cluing me in to your plans. Now let me clue you in on mine.” He turned to Penny. “Please make my lunch takeout. Hers too,” he added, handing her Christy’s plate before Christy could protest. “Or what, do you really want to continue this conversation here?” he asked pointedly, looking around at all the curious faces