Read Online Only Love (The Atonement Series) by Elle Chardou - Free Book Online
Authors: Elle Chardou
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leaned into the crux of my neck as he whispered into my ear, “What do you want, Deirdre?”
“I don’t know but I have never been part of one of these…triangles and…I feel a little bit out of my comfort zone and definitely out of my depth. It’s not fair and I curse my female hormones. How could I want you when we are around one another in this rush of insta-lust yet I know I still love Colin and could go back to him? Maybe not now but eventually, I would cave. I can’t be around him every day and not think we might be better off together than apart,” I explained and tried not to allow his chin—pressed firmly against the left side of my collar bone—to send any shivers down toward my belly.
For God’s sake, even if I wanted to get “freaky” with him or any other man, it wasn’t a possibility. A miscarriage wasn’t as simple as it sounded and I was still discharging downstairs like I was on my period. I liked sex as much as the next young person but never during that time of the month and I might as well be suffering through a period as far as I was concerned.
Drake pulled away from me and took a step back though we were still too close for comfort as far as I was concerned. “What do you mean you two will be around each other all the time? What’s going on? He’s not going back to Seattle with Drew and Aubrey?”
“No, he’s not. He’s decided to buy half of the coffee shop, Ground Beans, and I have agreed to sell it to him. I don’t know what I am doing and he’s always been better at the whole food industry gig than I could ever be. It’s just easier this way and he’s determined to stay here in La Jolla for a while. He isn’t prepared to give up on me yet.”
Drake took my left hand and we walked to the sofa inside the living room. He sat down and I sat next to him, our thighs touching intimately. He turned toward me and his pale greenish blue eyes looked intensely into my own.
“Listen, I know I must have come off as some kind of player. You see earrings, tattoos and the whole mob connection because I share a restaurant with my ex who happens to be part of the Shevchenko crime family but…I was born and raised the same way as Drew. We weren’t that different growing up, you know, and my family was highly disappointed I turned out the way I did.”
He grabbed my hand again and held it within his own; his palm was warm but soft and dry. “I should be running for Congress, not owning some ritzy place in La Jolla with a family that could end my family’s political career. It makes no difference they disowned me but I am still here to be the perpetual embarrassment and I can accept that. However, I don’t want you to think I am any less conventional than someone like Colin.”
“I’m not exactly sure what you mean.” My free hand slipped a lock of wavy dark hair behind my ear. “I mean…I’m a one-man woman and don’t believe in any sort of behavior that would have me torn between two men. Believe me, if something happens between the two of us then Colin will understand and he isn’t the type who would expect anything other than my loyalty and friendship. There is nothing wrong with that to me. Don’t you still talk to Mikayla?”
A fierce hardness immediately etched itself into Drake’s features and all blue seemed to leave his irises as he glared in my direction. “No, I don’t. I can’t stand the bitch because she broke my heart and ended a friendship between someone who’d I known since we were in culinary school together. It was a joke to her and they still date one another—if you call getting together for bootie calls dating.”
“Well you have got to understand it’s a bit different for Colin and I. We were engaged and I still care very deeply for him. A lot of the anger I felt for him simply isn’t there and I can’t just cut him out of my life. Does that make sense to you?”
Drake stood to his feet before he turned toward me and plastered a less than
“I don’t know but I have never been part of one of these…triangles and…I feel a little bit out of my comfort zone and definitely out of my depth. It’s not fair and I curse my female hormones. How could I want you when we are around one another in this rush of insta-lust yet I know I still love Colin and could go back to him? Maybe not now but eventually, I would cave. I can’t be around him every day and not think we might be better off together than apart,” I explained and tried not to allow his chin—pressed firmly against the left side of my collar bone—to send any shivers down toward my belly.
For God’s sake, even if I wanted to get “freaky” with him or any other man, it wasn’t a possibility. A miscarriage wasn’t as simple as it sounded and I was still discharging downstairs like I was on my period. I liked sex as much as the next young person but never during that time of the month and I might as well be suffering through a period as far as I was concerned.
Drake pulled away from me and took a step back though we were still too close for comfort as far as I was concerned. “What do you mean you two will be around each other all the time? What’s going on? He’s not going back to Seattle with Drew and Aubrey?”
“No, he’s not. He’s decided to buy half of the coffee shop, Ground Beans, and I have agreed to sell it to him. I don’t know what I am doing and he’s always been better at the whole food industry gig than I could ever be. It’s just easier this way and he’s determined to stay here in La Jolla for a while. He isn’t prepared to give up on me yet.”
Drake took my left hand and we walked to the sofa inside the living room. He sat down and I sat next to him, our thighs touching intimately. He turned toward me and his pale greenish blue eyes looked intensely into my own.
“Listen, I know I must have come off as some kind of player. You see earrings, tattoos and the whole mob connection because I share a restaurant with my ex who happens to be part of the Shevchenko crime family but…I was born and raised the same way as Drew. We weren’t that different growing up, you know, and my family was highly disappointed I turned out the way I did.”
He grabbed my hand again and held it within his own; his palm was warm but soft and dry. “I should be running for Congress, not owning some ritzy place in La Jolla with a family that could end my family’s political career. It makes no difference they disowned me but I am still here to be the perpetual embarrassment and I can accept that. However, I don’t want you to think I am any less conventional than someone like Colin.”
“I’m not exactly sure what you mean.” My free hand slipped a lock of wavy dark hair behind my ear. “I mean…I’m a one-man woman and don’t believe in any sort of behavior that would have me torn between two men. Believe me, if something happens between the two of us then Colin will understand and he isn’t the type who would expect anything other than my loyalty and friendship. There is nothing wrong with that to me. Don’t you still talk to Mikayla?”
A fierce hardness immediately etched itself into Drake’s features and all blue seemed to leave his irises as he glared in my direction. “No, I don’t. I can’t stand the bitch because she broke my heart and ended a friendship between someone who’d I known since we were in culinary school together. It was a joke to her and they still date one another—if you call getting together for bootie calls dating.”
“Well you have got to understand it’s a bit different for Colin and I. We were engaged and I still care very deeply for him. A lot of the anger I felt for him simply isn’t there and I can’t just cut him out of my life. Does that make sense to you?”
Drake stood to his feet before he turned toward me and plastered a less than
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