Violets & Violence by Morgan Parker Read Free Book Online

was. Not dwarf-sized, but probably five and a half feet tall without the tall heels; I had seen her as a giant, larger than life, six feet or taller on the stage and at the trendy conference center. But now, in my living room and an inch or two away while we stood at this naked sliding glass door, she had to tilt her head slightly to make eye contact.
    I felt her arms slide around my waist and pull me against her. “Just kiss me,” she whispered, closing her eyes.
    I leaned forward and pressed my lips to hers. It had been years since I last kissed a woman like this, and I had forgotten just how passionate these things could be. My arousal was instantaneous; my crotch making my pants tight and painful around my eager cock.
    “Wow,” she breathed, pulling away.
    I opened my eyes and saw that she was only starting to open hers. The hazel had turned green and dreamy, her neck blotchy and her lipstick smeared. When her pupils tightened into focus, she smiled and stepped back.
    “I think you’re the magician,” she sighed and then turned away, returning to the sofa where she crossed her legs again. She tugged at the lower lip of her skirt as if to cover up her thighs.
    Keeping my back to her to hide my dimming arousal, I glanced over my shoulder, and our eyes locked. “Me? I don’t even know your real name,” I pointed out. “Where you live, whether you’re married, have kids or pets, where you’re from. I know…” I glanced up at the ceiling, shaking my head. “I know nothing about you.”
    Violet broke the stare and glanced toward the kitchen area. “Sometimes it’s better that way.”
    Still drunk from the wine and the kiss and the stimulation from that kiss, I caught myself agreeing with her. I considered my own past, the past I had watched drive through the gates to a lakeside home on Lake Shore tonight. In a fucking Cadillac Escalade of all things.
    Yeah, sometimes not knowing is better.
    Her head bowed and she stared at the hands in her lap. I caught the edges of her mouth curling into a subtle grin. “Look at what you’ve done to me, Carter.”
    I dropped my attention and noticed the residual of my excitement still trying to pierce through the fabric of my pants. “What I did to you?” I chuckled to myself.
    “I’ve faced hundreds of thousands of people in theaters across half a dozen States. I get nervous, I lose sleep. But never this.” I felt her eyes on my back.
    “Why?” I asked. “Why me?” Of all the regular people in that audience, what made me so special when I don’t even have what it takes to keep a woman that promised to stick by me ‘til death do us part?
    She laughed out loud as if she had read my cynical thought. “Were you absent just now? Don’t you feel what I have felt while we kissed? Why not you? Why not trust fate or whatever it is?”
    Safe from embarrassment at last, I pivoted on my heels and walked back toward the sofa. I didn’t sit next to her, though. I wouldn’t risk that because I knew that getting close to her would result in another kiss, regardless of whether I knew her.
    “I see what you’re looking at,” I told her, sliding my hands along the length of my slim build and stopping up at my face. I gave her a sleazy eyebrow wiggle, which aroused sloppy laughter from Violet, the kind that caused her to cover her face with her hands.
    “You are one hell of a sexy beast, aren’t you, Carter?”
    I threw my sleaziest wink at her next. More chuckling. “I know you have better eye candy, better offers, better opportunities. I’m just…well, a numbers geek who drives a Camry and has a mortgage payment every couple of weeks. I’m about as special as the Chinese food we’re about to eat.”
    Once she lowered her hands, I discovered that optimistic beauty of hers hadn’t wavered, even after my comment about the Chinese. She made it easy to feel insecure, just by sitting on a sofa and showing her nice teeth and hazel eyes.
    “What?” I asked, ready to start