Never Kiss a Stranger Read Online Free PDF Page B

taught me anything, it was the art of negotiation. If the seller makes the buyer think the deal is on the verge of crumbling, it places all the power into the hands of the seller, making the buyer want it even more.
    If I was going to give him my body to own, to possess, I needed him to really appreciate it. I needed him to realize property like me didn’t come on the market very often, if ever.
    “I’ll see you Friday,” he said.
    “That’s tomorrow.”
    “I know.”
    I strutted back to the table where Coco seemed irritated.
    “Sorry about that,” I said. “Ran into a friend.”
    “Since when do your friends look like Calvin Klein models?” Coco asked. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant you hadn’t mentioned you had a friend who looked like that.” She fanned herself. “Holy shit, he’s hot.”
    “I may or may not have hooked up with him last night,” I said coyly, pursing my lips and stifling the proud grin that wanted to plaster my face.
    “Wait, what? How did you meet?” The questions continued, but I drowned them out with thoughts of him and his penetrating gaze. “Addison, you have to tell me everything. This is so unlike you. I thought you’d sworn off anything with a penis since that asshole, Kyle.”
    “You know that dating app everyone’s using right now?” I asked her.
    She furrowed her perfectly sculpted brows. “Yeah, we just did a story on that not too long ago. It’s supposed to be for dating, but most people use it to find casual sex and hook-ups.”
    “I was doing a little shopping , and I came across him,” I said quietly. “It all just happened a lot faster than I thought it would.”
    Coco’s mouth hung open in disbelief. “So you met a random stranger on a dating app and had sex with him?”
    I nodded, rearranging the silverware at my place setting until the bottoms all lined up. “So unlike me, right?”
    “Addison,” she said, staring at me intently “Never kiss a stranger. Not in this city. You never know who you’re really kissing.”

 
     
     
     

    “Sorry, Aunt Laura,” I said, returning to the table. “I ran into someone I know.”
    “Yes, I saw that,” she said, studying me. “A very beautiful young woman.”
    I kept my face free from expression, not wanting to give her any food for thought. Ever since my mother died, my aunt Laura had made it her business to know every detail about my personal life. She’d also made it her mission to be the one adult in my life constantly nagging me to meet a nice girl, fall in love, and settle down.
    I tried changing the subject. “Where’s our server? I’m starving.”
    A tall drink of water with straight black hair sauntered past our table, immediately bringing up an image of my ex, Nicola “Nikki” DeSoto. Nikki was a half-Dutch, half-Spanish model-slash-actress with bee stung lips and a smile that hardened my cock in mere seconds. She was also bat-shit crazy and had ruined all future relationships for me. I’d never been so sprung for a girl before I met her. I’d have moved heaven and earth, crossed oceans, and climbed mountains for her. She’d made me feel like a million bucks. I was fully convinced that I was going to marry her someday.
    And then I found out she was nothing but a fucking liar. Addicted to sex and fame, she’d been sleeping her way to the top for the entirety of our relationship, all in the name of getting ahead. Never mind that she was lying in my arms at night and whispering in my ear about all the ways she loved me. She’d painted a beautiful portrait of the life we were going to live.
    Together.
    Forever.
    She promised.
    It turned out all of it was a lie. It’d been years, and I still couldn’t figure out how something that felt so real could actually be nothing more than a desert mirage.
    And then my mom died. The only woman who’d ever truly loved me decided her life wasn’t worth living anymore and took it upon herself to end her suffering. She’d battled