Read Online True for You by Marquita Valentine - Free Book Online Page B

gone through
with our plans?
    Yet
here I was with a different woman, wearing the same fucking ring I’d
bought my ex, and saying practically the same fucking thing. God, how
could I have been so wrong about Bliss?
    “I
would think so, because you—”
    “Don’t
worry, baby doll. I don’t want you for the long term.”
She blinks up at me, desire giving way to hurt. “I thought we
could mutually satisfy each other to pass the time.” I trace
the outline of her lush lips. “This mouth of yours has to be
good for something other than kissing mine.”
    A
dull flush creeps up her face. “Please let me up.”
    I
roll away, keeping my painful smirk in place. “Don’t be
in such a hurry to go. We can sixty-nine, if you don’t think
I’d return the favor.”
    She
stares at me blankly. “Sixty-nine?”
    “You’d
put your mouth on my cock while I’d put mine…” My
gaze travels down her body, stopping at her—
    “ Oh .”
Her lips, swollen from my kisses, smash together before she frowns. Scrambling to her feet, she
smooths down her pink shirt. “Once the storm is over, I’d
like for you to find a way to take me into town, to the bus station.
I’ll be happy to sign whatever you need to make this unofficial .”
    “Fine.
The storm shouldn’t last much longer, and once the cell phone
towers are working again, I’ll text Cameron to come pick us up
in his boat.”
    She
reaches out her left hand, her right hand trembling as she works off
the wedding ring I’d given her. “Here. It’s not
right for me to wear it anymore.”
    “Keep
it,” I say flatly, but my gaze is firmly fixed on that small
band of platinum and diamonds. “It means nothing to me.”
    “It
could have meant something,” she says softly.
    Rising
to my feet, I fight the urge to touch her again, to pull her in my
arms and take her to bed with me. “I’m not that man, the
one you deserve to be with for the rest of your life.”
    Hurt
gives way to sadness. Her pretty eyes are shiny, but she doesn’t
cry. I’ve never seen her cry. “But you could have been
that man.”
    Curling
her fingers over the ring in the palm of her hand, she backs away,
then turns around and leaves the room.

Chapter Nine
    Jackson
    Over
the past five hours, I’ve gone through three different
playlists and managed to write
six
new songs. The last one I wrote, though, is different from the rest.
    I
can’t get it out of my head. The melody and the words are
embedded in my brain, right along with the image of Bliss. But what I
did, along with the words I wrote, aren’t right.
    I’m
a damn fool for rejecting her. It’s too easy to fall back on
the cocky asshole attitude that’s served me well over the last
few years. Until now, I had rationalized it by saying that it was
only Jaxon Hunter who was the asshole, not me, Jackson Morgan. But
now I know I’ve let the performer merge with the regular guy,
the guy who Violet claimed I used to be.
    The
guy who Cameron become friends with, fifteen years ago, when we’d
met at Vacation Bible School. My grandmother had taken me, after my
dad had dropped me off at her house for the summer.
    I’d
said hell a lot, in a completely churchy way, of course, and he’d
snickered every time. Then he picked me to make a craft with him and
almost cut off my hand with a buzz saw. Whoever thought woodworking
was an appropriate activity for nine year olds had to have been
sipping too much of the communal wine—though the wine at
Cameron’s church was actually grape juice.
    Suffice
to say, I had the best week ever.
    Suffice
to say, I’ve had the worst two years ever. Violet and I broke
up, I’m pretty damn sure Cameron and I just broke up—I
roll my eyes—and now Bliss.
    Bliss,
Bliss, Bliss .
    Picking
up our marriage certificate, I take a pull of my beer and then choke
on it. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
    I
blink at her name. June Bliss Davenport.
    June…
Bliss was my June, and I’d let her go?
    I mean, I was named
for the song