Read Online Dangerous by Caitlin Reid - Free Book Online

it was all coming back—the regrets, the what ifs. What if I’d taken a different path after the military? Once upon a time, not long after I’d gotten back from my final tour, I’d made a decision. But that had all changed…
    I cracked open the beer with a knife and took a deep pull. But that wasn’t true either, was it? I couldn’t blame anyone else for my choices. Would I really have lived a different life as an upstanding citizen if they hadn’t taken her?
    No one did this to me. My choices made me who I am.
    “Stop,” I screamed into the emptiness.
    If they could have seen me like that, they’d no longer fear the day I turned up at their door. And if I didn’t have fear? I was nothing. I’d done the right thing, pushing her away.
    “Why do you feel so miserable and empty, then?” a little voice inside my head mocked.
    I shook my head. I was losing it, I feared. I grabbed the remote and turned the volume up as loud as I could, hoping it would drown out my thoughts.
    I’d never felt alone; far from it, I’d always preferred my own company.
    It wasn’t working. My thoughts were like a nagging soundtrack that refused to go away. The volume wouldn’t go any higher—already my neighbor was thumping on our shared wall. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the couch. I wasn’t tired, but I couldn’t stay there like that. I just couldn’t.
    I needed to get out. But where? I couldn’t go back to the bar. I’d seen her twice already.
    I squeezed my eyes closed. I’d never understood the phrase skin crawling—I sure as hell did now.
    If only I could have just gone to her; allowed things develop between us and seen where they went. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t some doctor or businessman who met a girl, fell in love and had two perfect kids. No. With my background, I was destined to be alone. I just had to get the fuck over it and accept that.

Chapter 10
    Amy
    One Week Later
    I left the library and immediately pulled out my cell phone. It was an entire week since I’d spent the night at his place. And I hadn’t heard from him. How could I, when he hadn’t asked for my number? Well, I think I’ve already proven that I have terrible taste in guys. Still, awareness of that fact didn’t seem to be making any difference to me. I just couldn’t stop thinking about him.
    He’d been standoffish. He hadn’t laid a finger on me. I should have run a mile. But…
    Ugh. The sight of him in his underwear, all buff and masculine. I just couldn’t get it out of my mind.
    I put my phone away and told myself to stop acting like such a dweeb. I had bigger things to worry about. Like, where I was going to get the money to pay for the eye-wateringly huge hospital bill that had arrived in my inbox that morning.
    With no laptop, I’d been spending my days in the public library updating my resume and looking for jobs. To be honest, I needed the diversion. And the major side benefit was that they frowned on cell phone use within the building.
    Which was agony and freeing all at the same time.
    I ran down the steps to the subway and tried to put him out of my mind. He wasn’t interested. But I could fantasize, right? I’d been surrounded by finance majors and accountants my entire adult life. The only place I’d come across manly men was in the movies. I mean, yeah, some of my accountant friends were buff. But that was because they spent hours in the gym before and after work.
    Mean-looking mystery man. Ryan. There was something different about him. He didn’t strike me as the type who lycra’d up at five in the morning to take a spin class. I shivered as I pushed myself into the crammed carriage. No, he wasn’t the gym type. He got that body someplace else.
    “It’s probably good to have a fantasy guy.”
    I glanced around, alarmed. I hadn’t meant to say it aloud—the words had just come tumbling out of my mouth. I turned my back on the people around me, some of whom were staring at me with amused looks on