Read Online Shattered Secrets (Book of Red #1) by Krystal Wade - Free Book Online

popcorn—”
    “On a school night?”
    “Are you really going to school tomorrow?”
    Probably not. Not after what happened tonight. Mom’s offer to skip for the next couple days looked better and better every passing hour. “Aren’t you?”
    “Missing a day won’t kill me.” Taking my left hand, Derick tugged me toward his house. “Don’t make me beg. I’ll get on my knees.”
    He wasn’t lying either. Derick fell to his knees, hands clasped beneath his chin and all. “Please. Please. Abigail Nichols, please come inside with me. You will make me the happiest man alive.”
    “Fine. If you’re forcing me to.” My heart leapt. He always made me feel better, so warm, so wanted—most of the time anyway—and there was something else, too. Derick made me feel loved. “Let me text my mom.”
    Returning to his feet, he laughed. “Begging gets all the girls.”
    “All of them, huh?” I fumbled my phone, typing in a quick message to tell Mom I accepted her offer to skip school for the rest of the week and that Derick and I were at his house watching a movie.
    “There’s only one who holds my heart.”
    If he only knew he owned mine.
    “Mom says okay. You know she and my dad are probably staring out the window now.” I checked. Just in case.
    “Now that’s paranoia.”
    “Why didn’t you just tell me? You know, about what he said? I could have talked to him.”
    Derick opened the front door, allowing me to walk in first. “Trust me: you wouldn’t have talked him out of this.”
    “But what’s changed?” I asked, slipping out of my coat so he could hang it in the closet.
    “Me, you, everything.”
    “That sounds… ominous.”
And like it needs a lot more explanation
.
    “It is, but I’ll tell you more about that later.”
    We went up to his room, queasiness settling in the pit of my stomach. Derick piled a bunch of pillows on his bed for me, popped in a movie, then lay down. Mrs. Crawford brought up the popcorn. She didn’t seem to care how close we were; my father would have died if he saw this, his baby girl too close to a boy he couldn’t stand.
    “Enjoy the movie.” His mom flicked out the light and then closed the door.
    “Why does she trust us together so much?”
    Derick shrugged. “Maybe she figures I haven’t gotten you pregnant, so we must be doing something right.”
    “That’s…”—
embarrassing
. Was our sex life—or lack thereof—a conversation Mr. and Mrs. Crawford spoke about over dinner?— “She doesn’t think we’ve… you know?”
    “Had sex?” His chest rumbled with laughter. “No. She knows we haven’t had sex.”
    “How?” I turned onto my back and gazed up into Derick’s eyes. He propped up his head with his palm, using his other hand to trace small circles on my face, trailing from my forehead to my lips.
    My soul cried out for him to kiss me.
    “We talk about these things on occasion. Not the most comfortable conversation to have, but it clearly earns me freedom.” He pointed at the closed door, but I wanted his finger back on my skin.
    Derick didn’t make me wait long.
    “What was the rest of your story?” My eyes burned with exhaustion, barely staying open wide enough to see a blurry outline of his face. I was comfortable and safe in his full-size bed, under his navy-blue blanket I helped him pick out a couple years ago.
    Our lives were woven together by more than a few random teenage moments. Those relationships were common in high school, but we had something more. Something we could trace back to times spent in department stores, picking out bedspreads, clothes, or whatever else.
    Breaking in and taking me away from him would require more than a kidnapping. Memories would have to be stolen, as well. But Derick had already saved me once; I doubted anyone could touch me again while I was secure in his arms.
    Lightning struck nearby; bright white flashed in the room. Hard, heavy drops of water landed on the roof. Then, as though the sky