The Sovereign Era (Book 2): Pilgrimage Read Online Free PDF

voice. “Funny-strange. Not funny-ha-ha.” She considered. “Well, maybe both.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Have you ever met Cordelia? I think she used to go out with that friend of Crystal’s…K.C.?”
    I shrugged. There were a lot of people in orbit around Car’s band, and they were all a few years older than me. They kind of blended together.
    “No biggie,” Lina said. “I guess a few nights ago, Car was the only one here, and he was playing bass along with the radio, or whatever. There were like, barely any lights on in the house, and, y’know, Car was all into it.”
    Yeah, yeah.
    “So he finishes playing a song, or the radio goes to commercial, I don’t know. Thing is, he looked up from his bass and nearly shits his pants because, there in the doorway of his office…just, standing there…is Cordelia.”
    I couldn’t deny that was a little funny. I liked the image of Car freaked out. That made me feel confused and guilty. I liked Car!
    I didn’t like Car having a history with Lina.
    Or maybe I didn’t like not knowing exactly what that history was.
    Or maybe it was both. The jury was out on whether I really wanted to know the details, or not.
    That all went through my head in a crowded split second.
    “What’d Car do?”
    Lina laughed. “He’s all, ‘Oh…hey…Cordelia…I didn’t see you there.’ And she’s all, y’know, all sultry and weird, like, ‘You don’t have to stop. I like watching.’”
    That made me laugh out loud.
    “No!”
    Lina’s head bobbed up and down. “Yes! So he’s all, ‘Well, I was gonna finish up anyway…it’s kinda late…’ and gets her out of there.” She spread her arms in the universally recognized “ta-da” gesture. “And that’s why Car keeps the door locked now.”
    “He…wait.” I felt my mood flip, like a physical thing, like something happening just outside of my skin. “He needs to keep the door locked in the middle of the afternoon when he’s here with another person because Cordelia might come in and try to jump his bones?”
    Lina frowned. “I guess so? We were playing the music really loud.”
    “I know.”
    She squinted at me and turned her head a little to the left. “Nate?” A beat. “You’re freaking out.” She patted the couch cushion next to her. “Come back and sit with me.”
    I obeyed. I didn’t want to feel how I was feeling. I didn’t even understand it.
    She took my hand and kissed it. “You didn’t have any fun at the thing, did you.”
    I shook my head. “There were moments. It’s always a good time to make Byron’s dad look like an idiot. But…yeah, no.”
    “I’m sorry, baby.”
    I shrugged. I looked down at our intertwined hands.
    She leaned close and whispered against my ear. “Would it help to know you were super sexy on TV?”
    She gave the whorl of my ear a light lick that sent a jolt of electricity down my side and into my leg. I was hard before the lightning reached my toes, grouchy mood be damned.
    “Sexy…?”
    “Yup.”
    She reached up and guided my chin until we our foreheads touched. “We’ve got the house to ourselves for a little while,” she whispered, “and I’m pretty sure the door is locked, Nathan.”
    There was the slightest bit of chiding there, but I guess I kind of deserved it.
    “Pretty sure…”
    I didn’t resist when she pushed me back on Carson Meunetti’s dead parents’ couch.

From The Journal Of Nate Charters – Five
    Maybe it was the frustration of the day. Maybe it was the way Lina’s hair, longer than I’d ever known it, slid across my bare chest. Maybe it was the edge of annoyance in Lina’s first kisses.
    Maybe it was the intensity of sensations against the warm animal scent of our skin against the couch; Lina’s sweat, her breath, the taste of her saliva; the tangy bite of her on my hand when I slid it out from between her legs.
    Maybe it was being bare-assed naked with my girlfriend in Carson Meunetti’s living room, knowing the odds were good my