A Secret Vow: A Bad Boy Secret Baby Romance by Zoey Parker Read Free Book Online

subside, and I am left huddled and shivering. I’m wearing a wedding dress while sitting in the back alley of a hotel, bawling my eyes out and wishing I was dead.
     
    This is what it feels like when you don’t wake up before you hit the ground.
     
    “I didn’t expect you to join me out here,” someone says.
     
    I look up. Of course. It’s Mortar.
     
    He’s standing at the foot of the steps, smoking a cigarette. His frame blots out the sun, which hangs low and red in the sky behind him.
     
    “I wasn’t exactly planning on it,” I say with a choked voice. The tears have stopped, but I still feel blubbery and weak.
     
    His fingers press under my chin, lifting my gaze up. He wipes the dried tears away with one thumb. His calluses are rough, but the motion is gentler than I imagined possible. I know I shouldn’t be here. If anyone happened to wander out and see us, it would be a debacle to end all others. But I’m powerless to resist anymore. I see a buoy floating out in the ocean and for the first time I can empathize with it. Neither of us have any ability to control where we go. We’re victims, helpless against tides way bigger and stronger than us. Fighting back just means we drown sooner.
     
    Mortar plucks the cigarette from his mouth and puts it between my lips. “Suck in, gently,” he tells me.
     
    I haven’t smoked since high school, but the tangy edge of the smoke helps to clear my head. I cough a few times, my eyes watering, but once the coughing eases, I feel a little better.
     
    I still can’t bear to look at him. I keep my eyes fixed on the ground at his feet. There’s a graffiti tag on the concrete sidewalk that reads, “Joan + Pablo 4ever.” How is something so stupid making the tears start all over again?
     
    “I can’t go through with it,” I whisper. My throat is hoarse.
     
    “So don’t. I told you already: come with me.”
     
    “I don’t know how.”
     
    “It’s easy. Just start walking. I’ll be right here.” He reaches out and lays a hand on top of mine. The warmth of his skin against mine is exactly what I need. It’s like catching hold of something solid in the middle of drowning. All my attention is riveted on his touch.
     
    Before I know what I’m doing, I stand up and hurl myself at him. My arms wrap around his neck and my lips find his hungrily. His hand keeps me pinned against his torso, which is the solid granite I need. He’s stable, unmoving, completely the opposite of everything else in my life. My tongue dives into his mouth and he meets me with the same intensity, the same passion.
     
    I pull back. “You have to help me get away.”
     
    “I will.”
     
    How could I have doubted him? Of course he didn’t break his promise. He’s right here, right where he said he would be. I feel silly for thinking he wouldn’t be here when I needed him. He brushes away another tear from my cheek.
     
    “You’re beautiful,” he tells me. Normally, I would balk at the compliment. I’m not beautiful, never have been. No one has even told me I’m pretty since I first got engaged to Grady. But when he says it, it’s impossible to deny. He isn’t trying to persuade me or flatter me. He’s stating a fact as he sees it, and the thought is every bit as immovable as he is. Even though there’s mascara running down my cheeks like an oil spill, he says it and means it. And I believe him.
     
    He leans forward to kiss me again. This one is gentler, softer, fainter. Our lips are hesitant to meet each other’s, like birds flirting in the sky. Touch and go, touch and go. Mortar’s hands on my waist are just as fleeting. He’s tap dancing on the skin that peeks through the slitted dress, just enough to tantalize before retreating again. I wrap myself against him. Maybe I can just fold myself away, let him consume me, and then everything will be fixed. That’s what it feels like kissing him: a cure-all.
     
    He kisses me harder. His lips break away from mine and