Read Online Vanished: A Bad Boy Second Chance Romance by Autumn Avery - Free Book Online Page B

so close to me that I can smell him, and it’s intoxicating. I want to jump him—but I also want to punch him, and I can’t decide which of those things is going to win out.
                  “Don’t marry Ian.”
                  My head snaps to him and we lock eyes. I can feel the adrenaline coursing through me, and I feel the urge to want to punch him starting to win out.
                  “What? How do you know about Ian? What do you know about Ian?!”
                  My chest tightens up, and I can feel my ears get hot.
                  “I know you don’t love him,” he says, with that confidence in his voice driving me crazy. I step forward, fists balled at my sides, the urge to punch him completely drowning out the urge to jump him.
                  “What have you been doing? Watching me? Like you were tonight at the bar?”
                  “No,” he says. “Well…sort of, but listen, Mia—“
                  “No! No you listen to me!”
                  I stick a finger in his face, all the anger and rage I’ve kept pent up for all this time boiling up inside me. But something else is rising up too, something hot and vile, squirming up into my throat, and before I know it—
                  I puke, all over Joey’s pants and shoes.              
                  “Oh, God,” I groan, more embarrassed than I could ever have imagined being. Without thinking, I wipe my lips with a sleeve. “Ah, no…” That will need to be washed now.
                  “It’s all right,” he says with a sigh. He’s just being polite. How in the world could this possibly be all right? And how has this suddenly gone from me being pissed off to me being embarrassed?
                  “You have some paper towels?” he asks, looking around the room.
                  “In the…kitchen,” I say, waving my arm in the general direction. I try to get myself under control, pushing the sick feeling in my stomach down as Joey returns to clean up the mess. There’s no worse feeling in the world than throwing up, and I’m so embarrassed I want to crawl into a hole and go to sleep for a hundred years.
                  “Mia,” he says. I feel his hand on my shoulder, and my stomach twists, and I lose it again, all over the floor. This couldn’t be going any worse. It’s impossible. I hear the sharp intake of his breath, but he says nothing. No doubt he’s utterly grossed out and annoyed, but he keeps it to himself.
                  “How much did you drink tonight?” He sounds concerned.
              I shrug and give a non-committal groan, feeling his strong arm slide under mine. He lifts me easily to my feet.
                  He is just as strong as he looks , I think as he leads me slowly through the living room, down the hall to the bathroom. I feel so small and powerless beneath his grasp, and I resent him for the fact that I love it.
                  No sooner do we get through the door do I feel my stomach spasm again.
                  “Oh, God!” I say, clamping my hand over my mouth and breaking free of his grasp.
                  I barely make it to the toilet before it’s all coming up again. I grip the cold porcelain and feel Joey’s hands brush the hair from my face, holding it behind my head.
                  This is like my worst nightmare.
                  There’s a war being waged inside me, with feelings of anger, lust, and embarrassment all fighting for position, each one being overthrown by another the moment they come to power. Right now it’s embarrassment that’s winning out, but as I feel his rough hands against the back of my neck, lust and love take over once again.
                  Love. How