TAUT Read Online Free PDF Page B

illuminated in the street light. It’s so thick the light comes across as a dull gray. I am fully planning on just handing the blanket over and telling her that it will self-heat once she opens the package and exposes it to oxygen. But instead my mouth says, “I have two beds in the room. You could sleep there. It’s the last room they have or I’d just buy you your own.”
    “What?” she says, rolling the window down another half an inch.
    “I, ah… I’m offering you a place to sleep for the night.”
    She stares up at me, blinking.
    And then I can’t stand her attention anymore and I pivot and walk away.
    What the fuck am I thinking? Stupid. What the fuck?
    I push my key into the door and slam it closed behind me. I throw the gym bag on the bed and rip open one of the blanket packages. It takes about fifteen minutes to fully heat up once the bag is open, so I set it on the bed and go start the shower. The water gets hot immediately and this is the first stroke of luck I’ve had all night.
    Luck. We are not on speaking terms, luck and I. Because my name is not Ronin Flynn. Luck loves him. Shit, if Ronin was in this predicament, he’d have broken down across from the Four Seasons, they’d tell him they only had the penthouse available, and he could have it for half price since it was sitting empty anyway. They’d send up complimentary fruit baskets and give him free spa passes to ease his worried brow.
    I laugh. The sad thing is that it’s closer to the truth than I’d like to admit. Ronin is like… walking magic when it comes to life. Everything he wants, he gets. People love him immediately. They don’t scowl at him because he conjures up memories of almost blowing people up on the golf course or electrocuting boys in the skate park bathroom, or for being the town freak who read every book in the library, even the dictionary and the encyclopedias.
    I have had my share of women, albeit on my own very strict no-touching terms. But Ronin has women throwing themselves at him everywhere he goes.
    It’s… it’s infuriating. He’s literally a professional liar, for fuck’s sake, and all they see is sweet perfection. But when they look at me they see freak.
    I’m a goddamned movie producer. I know famous people. I have a mountain home in Vail, a luxury condo in Denver, and a five-million-dollar monstrosity on Mulholland Drive in Bel Air. I take care of myself, I’m well educated, I’m not bad-looking. I’m sorta hot, actually. I know this, I have no trouble finding sex when I want it.
    And yet I get sluts. I swear. Sluts who don’t even blink when I tell them they can’t touch me.
    And Ronin? He gets Rook.
    She does not give one fancy fuck what Ronin’s part in our business is. Her exact words. Not one fancy fuck. She loves him, no matter what. Unconditionally. She rode a thousand miles on a motorcycle back to the place where the most horrific things happened to her, stole secret files, and almost got her legs burned off in a house fire to save his professionally lying ass.
    And I get no-name pets who want me to bend them over a couch and smack their pussy to make them come.
    It’s just… what the fuck? Why? It’s like I have a sign on my fucking head that says I like the weird ones.
    I might like to try a nice girl, or at the very least, a semi-nice one with a little freak to her.
    I admit, I’m not wholly dissatisfied with the naughty ones. But just once, just fucking once, I’d like the Sandy instead of the Rizzo.
    Holy fuck. I just used a Grease Rookism to illustrate my point.
    That makes me smile. But then I remember that Rook’s not mine and I just walked away for good. That action—walking away from her, slamming that door and driving off—that was the most painful thing I’ve ever done. And it still hurts. Like… in my chest. I’m not sure what it is, really. This feeling. It’s a little bit like when my dad died a couple years ago. But not really. It’s different.
    That was just…