Filthy Rage (Second Chance With My Brother's Best Friend, Book Five) by Paige North Read Free Book Online

open for me, then the front door to the Italian restaurant down the street. I wasn’t surprised when he pulled my chair out for me. I didn’t have to ask if this was a date—the low candle lighting and the bottle of wine he ordered told me all I needed to know.
    He was utterly perfect, and utterly wrong for me. Sweet and sincere and attractive, yet I felt nothing.
    “How did the funeral go?” Ben asked, after a long beat of silence.
    I sighed. “It was a mess.”
    “Oh?”
    I twisted my cloth napkin in my lap, trying to decide how much of the truth to share with Ben. “Yeah. The guy who died… he wasn’t always a nice person. So it felt kind of weird going to the funeral, you know? It was all so fake, somehow.”
    “I see.”
    I dropped my napkin, forcing my hands to sit quietly on the edge of the table. “It’s almost harder to mourn a guy who is a jerk, because you don’t know if it’s okay to be relieved, and you don’t understand why, somehow, you do feel sad that they’re gone,” I said, thinking of Landon. “So the whole thing was weird and stressful.”
    He reached out across the table, resting a hand over mine. “Are you okay?”
    I stared down at his hand covering mine, wishing it was someone else’s. Landon could comfort me with a single touch, and I wanted that so desperately. I wanted to sink against him and close my eyes and let that calm come over me.
    “Yeah. I’m fine. Just glad… everything is behind me.”
    I wasn’t talking about the funeral anymore, but it was still hard to smile. I forced my expression to brighten. “Enough about my trip home. Did I miss anything at the lab?”
    “Eh, not really. You saw the results. Maybe if you’d been around, it wouldn’t be so screwed up.” He grinned, gave my hand another squeeze, and then sat back.
    “I doubt it.”
    “I mean it. You’re the smartest intern in the group. You’re definitely the prettiest,” he added with a flirty grin. He was charming, and whether I felt anything for Ben or not, I was glad to be out of the lab and out of my head for a few minutes.
    A waitress came by and took our orders, and when my wine glass was empty, Ben refilled it. It wasn’t as expensive as the stuff Landon served at his house, but it made me feel warm and buzzy.
    We spent most of dinner discussing the internship, and our career goals, and everything but Landon. It was… safe. And easy, in a way nothing else in my life ever was.
    An hour later, Ben walked me to the front door of my apartment. “I meant what I said last week. You can move into the vacant room in our apartment. It’s closer to the lab than this place.”
    “It’s okay. Really.” I flicked a glance over my shoulder, into my shabby apartment. “This place looks bad, but it’s mostly old paint and outdated décor. It’s actually pretty clean, if you can look past the orange and yellow color schemes.”
    I turned back to face him, twisting my keys in my hand. “Anyway, thanks for getting me out of that lab. You were right, it was time to get out of that room. I think my eyes were about to start bleeding.”
    “Of course. I’ll rescue you any time.” He rested a hand on the door, over my shoulder, leaving me in a small gap of space between his chest, and the door.
    And then he leaned forward, his eyes slipping shut.
    At the last moment I slid over, leaving him kissing nothing but air.
    “Ben--” I started.
    He left his eyes closed a moment longer, then met mine. “I misread that, didn’t I?”
    I nodded, my face twisting into an apologetic look. “I’m not ready to jump into something with you. I wish I was, because you’re so nice and sincere, but I’m just not in a place yet where I can give myself to someone.”
    He nodded, running a hand through his hair. I’d embarrassed him, but he didn’t want to show it. “Is this one of those, ‘it’s not you it’s me’ things?”
    I smiled. “Yes, but I swear that’s not a line of bullshit. You’re a good