Twisted Up Read Online Free PDF Page A

pretty much a straight shot on I-20 West until we get closer to Dallas.”
    “So you mean it’s a pretty boring drive until we get closer to Dallas.”
    “Not at all. I have you to keep me company this time and you have me. I’m much better than a boring flight to New Orleans.”
    She had no doubt about that. He would make the trip interesting if nothing else, but then there was a whole lot of something else. Lust simmered between them at all times, but there were other things, important things too. Questions that needed answers floated invisibly in the air.. Communicating had never really been a problem for them, at least not in the short-novel-sized letters they would email to one another. They’d been pretty good at talking on the phone too from time to time, whiling away the hours. They’d had their own inside jokes from the bar, but things changed once she was well and truly divorced.
    That night was crystal clear in her mind.
    “Look who I found wandering around outside in the rain.”
    Ella had been a little down that day. Her boss offered her a new position, one that would have her traveling all over, training front desk staff at new hotel properties and her marriage was gone, her divorce final, and loneliness had begun to set in. Then Justin walked in behind one of her friends who was notoriously late to everything. Ella knew right then if she said anything, did anything, that things would be different between them.
    “I heard about your divorce. I’m sorry.”
    His words had said he was sorry, and she didn’t doubt he meant them, but the look in his eyes, sincerity mixed with lust, did her in. She’d thought about him, fantasized about him often enough.
    The night went on the way it usually did. For a couple of hours they all had drinks, bad-for-you bar food and played trivia games. She lost. Her mind was not on anything other than sex with Justin. He’d never said anything untoward, never even hinted at being interested in becoming more than friends until that night.
    It was still raining when the bar closed and everyone had gone home. Only she and Justin were left standing outside. She wasn’t sure who was more reluctant to leave, him or her. He offered to walk her to her car in the garage around the corner, and she offered to take him to the hotel across the street until morning.
    Before he could answer, she’d stood on tiptoe and kissed him. She’d meant it to be nothing more than a small, almost chaste kiss, but the minute she touched his mouth with hers, she changed. It was instantaneous. Who’d ever heard of a kiss changing someone? She hadn’t and she’d never experienced it. Until then. And if a kiss changed her inside, sex changed her everything, in every way.
    And still, she had no idea why they’d ever really hit it off. Trivia nights had been fun. Sex was great. But he was right. It was more than sex. She liked to think it wasn’t more, but she knew better. By saying it was just sex was the only way she knew to protect herself.
    They had nothing in common really. He was single and carefree. She was divorced and a stick in the mud. He was taking a summer off and having a good time with friends. She was staid and solid and kept to herself when she wasn’t traveling. He was laid back. She was a bit uptight. He liked country, and she liked rock and roll.
    Ella smiled to herself and slid a glance in his direction. They both did like Elvis though and wished they hadn’t been too young to see him before he’d died. Well, she’d been too young. Justin hadn’t even been born yet. She tried not to groan at that realization.
    Little by little, they forged a connection that had her staying up late at night talking to him long after she should have been asleep. “When did it change between us?” she asked suddenly. Would his answer be the same as hers?
    “When did what change between us?”
    She shifted in her seat, putting her back to the door and pulling a leg up, forgetting for a minute