My Heart's Beat (Hard Love & Dark Rock #2) by Ashley Grace Read Free Book Online Page B

on one of the City's many hills.  The wind whipped by, making the heavy flags on the hotel façade pop and snap.  There was a strange-looking building across the street—reddish stone and curving walls—and rising up into the darkness beyond it was a massive stone church.
    I realized where I was.  This was Nob Hill.  The hotel was the Fairmont San Francisco—one of the oldest and most luxurious hotels in the city—and the huge church ahead of me was Grace Cathedral.
    Something about the cathedral—the solemn nature of its façade, or the way its massive stone walls soared up toward the sky—something about it called to me.  I crossed the street, wiping the tears from my face, and started walking toward the majestic structure.
    The area in front of the Cathedral is a small park, just one square block in size.  I followed a path from the street, making my way amongst the cut hedges and the barren trees, their naked branches tearing the wind into a mournful moaning sound.  A concrete fountain, ringed with benches, marked the center of the park.  I picked a bench with a view of the Cathedral, and then I sat down and tried to pull myself together.
    After ten minutes or so, the panic and the sorrow seemed to fade a little, and I started to think.  I'd ran out of the party so quickly that I hadn't even told Becca—or anybody else—where I was going.  If Trace came back to the suite looking for me, he'd probably ask Becca if she'd seen me.   And then she'd probably start to worry.
    I should call her, let her know I was gonna go back to the dorms.
    That's when I realized that I'd left my purse and my cell phone back in the hotel.  In the bedroom where I'd been with Trace.
    Shit.
    The last thing I wanted to do right then was go back into that hotel.  But without my cell phone I couldn't call anybody to let them know where I was.  And without my purse I didn't have any money to catch a cab, let alone the keycard I needed to get back into the dorms.
    Way to go, Anne.  You're on a roll tonight.
    But then things got even worse.
    I wasn't alone out there.  Because of the wind moaning through the naked tree branches, I didn't hear them until they were already entering the park—even though they were making plenty of noise.
    I looked over my shoulder and saw three guys, all of them dressed in preppie-style, with polo shirts and stonewashed jeans.  They looked like they were close to my age, maybe a few years older, and they looked drunk.  Belligerently drunk.
    I turned back around quickly, sinking low on the bench, trying to make myself small and unnoticeable.
    "Yeah, man!" one of them shouted.  "That one bitch with the big titties and the Southern accent—the one that danced to the Snoop Dogg song— she was a fucking slut, man!"
    "Which one?" another, deeper voice said.  "The one you got the lap dance from?"
    "Yeah, that one.  Fucking slut bent over in my face and pulled her ass cheeks apart.  Bitch had beef curtains, for sure.  She's probably been riding dick since she was thirteen."
    "Maybe even younger than that," a third voice said.  "I hear those Southern sluts get broke in early, like as soon they get on the rag for the first time, sometimes when they're only nine or ten.  Those bitches are fucking old-pros by the time they hit thirteen."
    "Well, fuck it," the first voice said.  "My dad always told me, if they're old enough to bleed, they're old enough to breed."
    If I'd been feeling upset before, now I felt positively revolted.  Hearing these guys talk made something twist in my stomach.
    And here I was, in the park all alone with them coming near.
    God, what I wouldn't have given for my cell phone right then, or even just a decent outfit that covered me up a little more.  For a second I even considered trying to hide somewhere, maybe in the shadows under the bench.
    Too late.  They'd already spotted me.
    "Well well well," the first voice said.  "What in the world do we have here?"
    I took one