Read Online Beautiful Elixir (Beautiful Oblivion #3) by Addison Moore - Free Book Online

against him, let him sear over me, let him keep me safe.
    “No.”
    “Let’s grab something to drink and sit by the fire.” He switches off the stove and coaxes me toward the living room.
    Caleb pours us each an enormous glass of dark red merlot—red as the blood I’d love to drain from Keith Stearns’ body—and then after that my father’s.
    “I can’t believe my dad.” I shake my head. “I take that back. I very much believe him.” Another less sturdy laugh squawks from me. “He’s been resentful ever since I took my mother’s side in the divorce. About six months into the action, he called and left a message on my phone, called me a lying little rat for testifying against him in family court. All I was doing was telling what I knew. Turns out my father was the lying little rat. He’s not even with the whore who broke up our family. He found another twenty-something and knocked that one up. She took off with their kid and married someone richer.” I roll my eyes at this protégé of my mother actually doing the smart thing and ditching Peter Slade before he could destroy her.
    “I’m sorry.” Caleb starts a fire that lights up the entire room. The house is very cabin-esque constructed entirely of full, fat logs, large round river stones climb over the fireplace and mantle. The first thing my mother did when she moved next door was strip the place of any trace of Reese’s poor dead mother. It broke my heart to see Reese watch as my own mother dismantled her life one piece of furniture at a time. My mother was going through an art deco phase at the moment, so the entire place looks like it’s set in the future. Here it’s warm and cozy. A part of me never wants to leave.
    “Don’t apologize,” I say as he sits so close our thighs touch. It feels surreal like this with him as if in my madness I’ve manufactured him out of sheer necessity. “Just pull me out of this, Caleb. I want the world to know what a snake both Keith and my father are for taking on something so disturbing. I’m fucking the guy in those videos for Pete’s sake!” I cover my eyes a moment as if it could somehow hide my shame. “The entire school knows, my friends, his perverted friends, and now my own parents are free to see what sexual shenanigans I’ve been up to for the last few years. I might vomit, literally.”
    “Please try not to.” He gives a lazy smile before rolling my knuckles over his mouth. “Nobody is suing anybody yet. Let’s try to think this through before we move one inch.”
    “In the meantime, my pink parts are on parade for all to see.” My face heats with embarrassment. I can’t remember the last time something made me blush, and, ironically, my discomfort has nothing to do with the thought of countless friends and family gawking at my privates (I seriously doubt my parents would venture there)—it has everything to do with Caleb seeing me exposed like that, seeing me act out my pleasure in ways that I’ve only ever wanted to do with him. I suppose if I told him I thought about him during all those dynamic erotic exposes, it might sicken him even further. Did you enjoy Rough and Rowdy Anal? Guess what?It was you I pictured slamming up against me!
    Nope. My love affair with Caleb has gone well off course before it could ever gain traction. In effect, Keith had cost me what I wanted the most, this gorgeous man warming the seat beside me.
    “Let’s change the subject.” Now it’s my turn to swallow hard. “Since, I’m assuming”—I hold up a hand—“please don’t bother denying it, you’re either going to, or already have, viewed my work.” He huffs a dull laugh when I say the word work but doesn’t deny it. “I think you should tell me something about yourself.” My hand floats to his deliciously perfect cheek. This is no face of an angel. Caleb McCarthy is peppered with dark stubble, his bright eyes siren from under a forest of dark lashes, from under his narrowed menacing