UNHOLY - A Bad Boy Romance by Gabi Moore Read Free Book Online Page B

a hot boy on a futon and having a smoke, in other words?
    It took perhaps only one or two minutes, but my whole world had been turned upside down. I lay there thinking intently, on my back, with a little crime scene on my belly where my old self had been killed, and joyfully. As quickly as my virginity was gone, all the cogs and wheels of my life – a life built on that virginity – were shuffling and reorienting themselves. And how much space there was left over in my head when all that bullshit fell away!
    “Earth to Mel. Hello. Are you still here with me?” he laughed, and I snapped my attention back to his expectant face. I could only smile at him.
    “Ah, cock-drunk I see. It’s an effect I have on girls, I know. You need a shower I think.”
    I blinked and looked around me, the world a different place. The membrane had been broken, and behind it reality seemed plain and clean enough already. I laughed as he dragged me out of my reverie and we went to the bathroom together.
    He playfully slapped my ass. “Such a bad girl” he said.
    Sure, why not?

Chapter Eleven
     
    “It’s all that smut and nonsense you bring into the house, Carol. You’re my sister, but honestly, I think some of the blame is yours here,” said my mom, smoking with more spite than she usually did.
    “She’s not a baby anymore. She’s 22 for God’s sake. You know, it’s not so bizarre that a young girl like her wants to have a little fun. Such a pretty girl, too.”
    “Too pretty if you ask me. And it’s not like she’s got that many good role models to look up to, does she?” here my mom stared daggers at my aunt’s poor confused face. My aunt, feisty woman she was, never quite got the hang of telling my mom to shut up.
    “She sees you running around with that …that boy , and she gets ideas I’m sure.”
    “Jared? I keep telling you we split up more ages ago.”
    Both women returned their gaze to my left hip, where they were examining me. Earlier, I had stretched to reach down a stack of plates and accidentally flashed my newest bit of rebellion: an awesome looking winged eye, heavily tattooed on my pale skin in dark red and black. Now, after all the shrieking had died down, my mother had me pinned in the kitchen, my jeans yanked half down as she kept staring at it, hoping to find the answer to the question, “where did I go wrong?” no doubt.
    “Nevermind, the damage is done now!” she said, gesturing to the tattoo, as though it and my aunt’s ex-toy-boy were intimately connected and if she ogled the thing hard enough, it might go away. In a sense, they were intimately connected. But I didn’t like thinking about that. And they certainly didn’t have to know.
    I kept lots of secrets these days, some more happily than others.
    “It’s devil’s markings first, then drinking and drugs, and next thing you know she’ll be having you-know-what , mark my words.”
    I angrily disentangled myself and pulled my shirt down. “You know, you could try not talking about me as though I’m not even here,” I said.
    My mother gave me that furious look she had been giving me a lot these last few months. I could see her thinking, stewing up something nasty to say, but the standard “not under my roof” spiel wasn’t working as well since I had moved out months ago. In just a few months, I would be a fully qualified dental technician, so she got what she wanted, in some ways.
    “Reverend Peters says that people can get addicted to tattoos you know,” she started again, trying a new angle. “You never get just one, you have to keep going and going until you look like a biker or something.”
    I went to grab my bag and put my jacket on. “Mom, Reverend Peters is 100% correct. This is my third tattoo. But don’t worry, the others are very well hidden,” I said, and let myself out. I closed the door quietly, and I could only hear the faint, shocked laughter of my aunt as I walked down the driveway and to my car.

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