Fated: Karma Series, Book Three by Donna Augustine Read Free Book Online Page B

I’ll even be a crack whore if that would be more entertaining for you,” I screamed after him, not caring how crazy I sounded.
    He walked out, leaving me with my memories of the past. I couldn’t take a step forward without them dragging like a weight around my ankles. I guess that’s what pasts do, weigh you down, anchor you in another time and place. Sometimes it’s a beautiful bay, with sail boats and warm breezes that uplift you, and other times you’re holding onto your last breath in the cold waters of Antarctica and hoping to crawl your way back out alive. Good or bad, we all had them, and they didn’t sit idly by, forgotten in the rearview. They walked beside you, tainting everything you saw.
     
     

Chapter Five
     
    In two minutes, my neighbors—also known as the condo next door’s current weekly rental—would be pounding down my door. Or worse, it might be the cops banging their sticks, trying to gain entrance.
    Or maybe not.
    We hadn’t exactly become a close-knit unit in the two days that they’d lived in the building. They might not have even heard the high-pitched scream when I walked into my living room, not prepared for company.
    After all, Fate was early, and although I was used to him strolling in without an invite, I thought he’d be preoccupied with his boys until later. He must not have liked that plan, and instead of telling me he did what he felt like doing, in typical Fate fashion.
    So there he sat, fully reclined with an arm running along the back of the couch like he owned it, hogging up all the space in my small condo with his larger than life presence. He was dressed in black from head to toe, ready for our covert mission, and looking as tempting as the devil handing up my heart’s desire, trying to lure me in for one small taste.
    His head didn’t move but I saw his eyes flicker, taking in the still damp exposed flesh.
    I gripped the towel around me closer, not from fear of him ripping it off but to keep from dropping it myself and letting the devil take me. When I saw him look at me, like the way he was now, I could almost feel his hands gliding over my skin. Memories kicked in to full gear. They always started an avalanche of heightened senses.
    I liked to pretend sex with him hadn’t been that good. Problem was, it had been. Of course, Cupid had been involved. Logic dictated that he must have added some extra bonus points on because I’d only had sex with Fate twice. We should’ve still been in the awkward getting to know you phase. I tightened my grip. Yeah, it had been Cupid for sure.
    “I thought you weren’t coming for another hour?” I licked my lips after I said the words and then had to stop my hand mid-motion as it sneakily approached my hair. I might not have been sleeping with him but my body kept sending the signals that I was interested. Every time I let my guard down, a little sneaky telltale sign would slip out. From the look on his face, he was reading me like a scholar well-briefed in the ancient language of desire. It was probably where that smirk had crept up from.
    This was all Cupid’s fault. Maybe I should sleep with him just to prove it wouldn’t be that good again. Yeah, that was a plausible excuse to do what I wanted, a solid reason for walking straight into my emotional demise with eyes wide open. That would surely make me feel better when I was picking up the tattered pieces after he dumped me. I mentally snorted at my own twisted thinking.
    “I was running early.”
    That was a lie. Some people thought Fate ran late, later and sometimes early. I knew him well enough at this point to know he just didn’t give a shit about time. He came and went whenever he felt like it and that was when he meant to get there.
    He stood and my lips parted. I shut them quickly before my tongue had the chance to moisten them again. Goddamn it, they weren’t even dry. I’d just put on lip balm.
    “You didn’t forget that there is a psychopathic non-human