The Darkest Link (Second Circle Tattoos) Read Online Free PDF

she looked as hot naked as she imagined.
    “Not today,” she replied with a wink.
    Gently, he took hold of her wrist, wrapping his thumb and forefinger all the way around it. “Does that imply someday?”
    “That kinda depends on how good you smell when you get out.”
    * * *
    The idea that Kenny was somewhere above her head, allowing soapy suds of water to run down his naked body was almost more than she could handle. But as the queen of bad choices when it came to men, and the possessor of an uncanny knack for falling in love, Lia tried to hold firm to her self-imposed moratorium on hooking up. Watching her friends and co-workers, Trent, Cujo, and Pixie, all fall in love over the last eighteen months had taught her a truly valuable lesson. Her idea of love was not the same as everyone else’s. She was starting to understand hers was born out of a desperation that was almost impossible to explain. Watching Pixie, and her boyfriend, Dred Zander, lead singer of Preload, grapple with a young baby and touring while growing as a couple had opened her eyes to the hard truth. She desperately wanted to be loved and needed by someone because she had been deprived of it for so long, and that had led her to accept any attention. Just the smallest hint of it set her world on fire, so certain that she was on the cusp of finding the person who was going to love her back, only to find she was alone in the strength of her feelings. There was a real difference between being wanted and being needed, and she craved the kind of love that left her breathless now that she understood what that was.
    Sitting in the glass-walled garage waiting room, she pulled out her phone and faced the messages from her father. Apprehension settled as heavy as bad seafood in her stomach. Twelve months in therapy had taught her to stop micro-scrutinizing the thoughts she had. Thoughts her father had put there. She dialed voice mail first.
    “Julianna. It’s your father. I was rather disappointed that you left before we had a chance to talk this morning. Please can you come to the house this evening?”
    There was that word again.
Disappointed.
He used it often. Forever he had told her how disappointed he was with her grades, her attention span, her fashion sense, her choice of career, her choice in men. Well, screw him and his disappointment . . . she was disappointed, too. Disappointed that her father had had barely five minutes a day to spend with her when she’d been in school. Disappointed that when she’d struggled with math, he’d bought her a calculator, instead of helping her figure it out. Disappointed that he still blamed her for the death of her twin, a boy. A boy that should have followed her older brother into the military . . . perhaps to West Point, or some other place that would make her father proud. Disappointed when on her eleventh birthday he told her he wished she’d been the one to die in the womb instead.
    “Julianna. I am getting tired of the radio silence. I am waiting for you to come to the house.”
    Message two. As cold and impersonal as the first. Reluctant to call him and get drawn into a debate, she entered a text message.
Had to leave. Speaking at a conference in Orlando in the morning. Back Sunday.
    Lia waited the obligatory ten seconds and watched with sickening anticipation as the little dots next to her father’s name bounced. Of course he’d reply now. She was relieved it was the dots instead of a call.
    Not good enough. Need to speak to you in person tonight.
    Well. He could fucking wait. She’d rather eat a hive full of bees than face him.
    Contractual obligation,
she typed.
Unable to change.
    Her phone rang, and she threw it into the bottom of her purse. She knew what he wanted to talk to her about. The first step in gaining control of her. Her father wanted to be governor, and that was about to cause her a world of hurt. She desperately hoped her father wouldn’t be chosen to run for office, but the