Kissed Blind (A Hot Pursuit Novel Book 2) by Emerson Shaw Read Free Book Online Page B

do. Quit trying to start trouble. Things have been great between the two of us lately, really great.” I walked around the table and sat down in my chair, slamming it to the floor while I scooted forward.
    He held up his hands. “All right. Forget I said anything.”
    “Thanks, I will. But like you’d even understand what it’s like to be in a relationship.”
    “Oh God, can we please not come back to this discussion again?” He groaned.
    “Ho, ho, ho… sounds like I struck a nerve.” I gave him a tight-lipped smile.
    “No, it’s just that we’ve talked about this before… plenty of times.”
    “Yeah, so? You’re still bed hopping. Nature has us wired to find a mate, you know?”
    “Look, you have no idea what I’m doing, and whether I’m bed hopping or not. Nature tells you to find a mate. Maybe it tells me something else.” He flipped open the deck and spilled the cards into his palm.
    I shook my head. “I’m not buying that. It’s a copout.”
    “No, it’s not.”
    “I asked you a while ago when the last time was that you were in a relationship and you brushed me off with some bullshit answer.”
    “You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
    “Shut up, please, and quit trying to get off topic. I actually thought about something recently and I have a theory.”
    He groaned. “Here we go. Give it to me, Dr. Phil.”
    “Didn’t you date that Stacie girl in high school for a little while?” In one of my late night think sessions, I vaguely remembered Vance having had a girlfriend in high school. One of my friends at the time gushed over how cute he was but was destroyed because he was off the market. That was the only time I could ever remember him being with someone longer than five minutes. It was a blip on the radar, but shortly after that, Vance was never tied down to anyone again. Something had to of happened.
    “Oh please, I don’t need your psychoanalysis. That was a million years ago.”
    “Hmm, I think I might be onto something here. Seriously, what was her name?”
    “Fiiiiiiine,” he sighed. “Her name wasn’t Stacie, it was Stephanie. And so what about her?”
    “So what happened? That was the only time you’ve ever had a girlfriend.”
    “It was no big deal.” He squirmed in his seat and gathered the cards into a pile. “Do you have anything to eat besides ramen?”
    I glared at him, got up, and went into the pantry. I grabbed a bag of Cheetos and dumped some into a bowl. I got two beers from the fridge and set them down in the middle of the table. “Now, why was your last relationship in high school?”
    He twisted the tops off both beers. “I just didn’t like it. We went out for a couple of months, and I didn’t like being tied down to one chick. It’s not my thing.”
    “And that’s all?” I squinted as Vance looked down, shuffling the cards, but he flipped a few onto the floor. “No, there’s more to the story.”
    He growled low, and it grew in intensity. He gathered the dropped cards. “You won’t let this go until I tell you, will you?”
    “Nope. I will be a festering boil on your ass until you tell me.”
    “Fine. I really liked her and she cheated on me.”
    I almost fell out of my chair. “What?”
    He cocked his head to the side. “One weekend we went to a party, she disappeared, and I found her in a bedroom with another guy. That pretty much sums it up.”
    “Like, found her how?”
    “Shoving her tongue down some other guy’s throat.”
    I gasped. “Vance! That makes so much sense.”
    He acted as if I’d slapped him. “Thanks a lot.”
    “No, I mean it makes sense now why you avoid relationships. She scarred you.”
    “You’re putting way more thought into it than it deserves. I’ve just never found anyone I wanted to be around for more than an hour or two since her… well, other than you obviously.”
    A toothy smile spread across my lips. “Ever? In all these years?”
    “Yeah, never.” He leaned back in his seat and rolled