Dirty Little Mistake (Dirty #2) Read online

  Sudden heart failure.

  Found me at last.

  Thank God for social media.

  Funeral in six hours.

  Make it if you can.

  So I’d made it.

  I’d worn a navy sundress because it was the only dark-colored thing I owned.

  I’d worn flats because I didn’t do heels.

  I’d driven the forty miles because I didn’t have a choice.

  Forty miles. How had she been so close and I didn’t know? Had she been moving my way, mile by mile? If she’d lived another four years, would I have found her on my doorstep?

  When I left, I made sure there were mountains and lakes and enough distance between us that I was certain we’d never cross paths by accident.

  And then it was over.

  I felt empty.

  And more empty as I got closer to home. Risa had been away visiting family, and I normally welcomed the time alone. But right then, it cut through my heart. I wasn’t just alone. I was lonely. For the first time in a long time.

  But maybe the loneliness had started earlier than that. Like on the day she’d packed my things and I’d left behind the only life I’d ever known.

  Or perhaps it was there all along, compounded by the presence of my mother’s booze-soaked men – often toothless and hairy where they should be bald and bald where they should be hairy – who were just as likely to cop a feel when I walked by as they were to completely screw my mother out of her last welfare dime. Maybe it was made worse in part by the name-calling and drug-hoarding and dirty dishes.

  I thought I’d walked away from it all and never looked back. Except I had to consider the idea that I’d never really left it behind at all. That it had always followed me, clouding my decisions and making it impossible for me to be whole. Making me walk away from the two solid relationships I’d had and making me destroy any kind of hope I had for a normal future.

  I’m a mess.

  “Do you remember when you asked me if there was something I regretted, but I wouldn’t take it back because the consequence outweighed the regret?”

  Ridley’s voice froze me to the spot.

  What was he doing there? Why had he followed me?

  “Do you remember it?” he asked again.

  “Yes,” I replied. “It was when we were in the fridge at your work.”

  “I have one. A regret like that.”

  My throat burned. “I haven’t been honest with you, Ridley. Not since the beginning. And you don’t owe me an apology.”

  He shook his head. “I’m not apologizing. I mean, I do regret hurting you. I regret putting you through all this shit. But there’s no way in hell I would undo any of it. A single kiss was worth it.”

  “I’m pregnant, Ridley.”

  “I know, Pancake. Risa told me. Me and Ian.”

  I met his gaze. His eyes were full of a warmth that was totally at odds with what I’d just told him.

  I put my head in my hands. “I’m so sorry.”

  In less than a breath, Ridley was behind me on the ground, his arms around me, holding me just right. I cried into him, wishing I wasn’t so weak.

  “I have another regret,” he said softly. “And it’s one I would take back.

  “What’s that?”

  “I regret not following through on the night we spent together a month and a half ago. That night you think you spent with Ian.”

  My heart stopped. “What do you mean?”

  “I had the most amazing, incredible night of my life that night. I met a girl who tipped me upside down. Then that same girl ran out on me, begging me to pretend it hadn’t happened. Stupidly – so stupidly – I listened to her.”

  “I woke up in Ian’s room,” I stated. “I ran from Ian’s room.”

  Ridley stroked my cheek. “My room was occupied when we got to it. We took the next best thing. I didn’t know you thought you’d slept with him. I just assumed you regretted your night with me.”

  My head spun.

  “Brenna,” Ridley said. “I asked you a few days ago if you believed in love at first sight and you said you used to. Please tell me it was because of that night.”

  “I was so sure it meant something,” I whispered. “But it was Ian and – Oh, God. Ridley. How could I have been so blind? It was you the whole time.”

  Everything finally came together in my mind. Guilt and regret melted away. And I thought I might faint from the lightness in my heart.

  Ridley tipped my chin toward his face. He brought his lips over mine.

  “It was me,” he murmured against my mouth. “The most amazing night ever? Me. The disastrous phone sex-capade and the remarkable memory? Me. The idiot who was stupid enough to agree to set you up with his cousin? Me. The guy who is so sorry for being such a fool? Also me.”

  My pulse picked up and my heart filled. “That insane night I broke into your house…Also you.”

  He pulled back just enough that I could see the corners of his mouth turn up. “You knew?”

  “Yes.” I was suddenly shy, but I pushed through it to say what needed to be said. “The only one who lights me up like a firecracker? You. The person who makes me laugh when I want to cry? You. The guy who I’m in love with. You. All you.”

  “I love you, too, Pancake. I have since that first night. And the only thing I want as much as I want you…Is our baby.”

  FIVE WEEKS LATER…

  Epilogue

  He watched the soft curve of her stomach rise and fall with her sleeping breaths. It was growing a little fuller, a little more precious every day. He sometimes had a hard time wrapping his head around the idea that a life – a life he had created – resided inside.

  His hand slid to touch the tiny bend and she stirred at the attention. The movement made her shirt ride up, exposing the bottom of one, full breast. Immediately, he wanted her.

  He started to pull away, not wanting to interrupt her sleep, but her own hand came out and pressed his palm back into her stomach. She guided it down further, past her bellybutton, and she moaned when one of his fingers just barely touched her clit. She was already slick with want.

  “Always so ready.” His voice was thick. Pleased.

  “Only for you,” she said back.

  Her eyes were still closed, and they stayed that way as he deepened his attention. He watched her face, turned on by its expression. Her lips were parted slightly. She licked them and let out a heady gasp.

  She tried to reach for him, but he refused to let her. He wanted to touch her, watch her, love her, and he wanted her to know he needed nothing in return.

  Without freeing his hand from its efforts, he rolled her to her side and pulled her back against his chest. Her hair fell to the side of her neck and he dragged his teeth over the exposed skin.

  She gasped. Her thighs closed tightly on his hand as he moved it up and down, around and around. His own arousal grew longer. Harder. Stronger.

  He tunnelled his finger into her while still holding her firmly on the outside and she cried out as she came to a shuddering halt.

  He held her for a long few moments before he flipped her over to face him and bent to give each of her nipples a delicate suck. He was just going to take a tiny taste, but she held his head in place, demanding more.

  Because as spent and satisfied as she was, the moment his mouth found her breasts, her body warmed again. Heat moved through her. She tightened her grip on his hair, enjoying the near-to-painful tingle as he sucked harder.

  “Please,” she begged.

  “Okay,” he agreed teasingly. “But only because you asked so nicely.”

  He rolled to his back and lifted her on top of him in a show of strength that intensified her desire that much more.

  With a groan, she slid the length of his erection into her.

  She thrust forward in just the right way. She knew exactly where he needed to be. Where he belonged. She knew just how to rock so his eyes would roll back and his grip would tighten on her
skin.

  But she took her time.

  She moved slowly. She let him slide in and out at a leisurely pace. His breathing grew more and more labored as she worked her hips.

  His mounting excitement, visible in the tautness of his shoulders and the way he moved up to meet her, soon made it hard for her to control herself. She lost herself in the rhythm that was them, faster and faster, until she couldn’t hold on anymore.

  He cried out her name, pulsing inside her in time with her own orgasm.

  She sat back, not quite ready to release him.

  “Good morning,” she said softly.

  He chuckled. “Morning.”

  “You woke me up,” she teased.

  “That’s a probably good thing,” he replied.

  “Oh?”

  “Mm hmm. Because I’ve got something to ask you.”

  “Ask away.”

  Keeping one hand on her thigh, he reached the other arm up to the pillow behind his head. He dragged out a tiny black box and placed it in the center of his chest.

  Her eyes widened.

  “Take it,” he suggested.

  She reached out with trembling hands. She was shaking so badly she almost couldn’t open it. But when she did, she gasped.

  A stone – just the same color as Ridley’s perfect eyes – set in a white-gold band sparkled inside.

  “Pancake,” he said softly. “When my mom and sister died, I thought I was broken. And I tried to make everything around me break too. My aunt gave me a second chance and when the cancer took her from me, I was a shell. It wasn’t until I met you that I realized I could be whole again. So long as I have you, I won’t ever be that man – that partial man – again. Will you please do me the honor of becoming my wife?”

  With a smile that outshone even the pretty stone, Brenna slipped on the ring and replied firmly, more sure of her answer than she’d ever been of anything in her life.

  “Yes.”

  THE END (FOR NOW)

  Bonus Material

  Bonus 1 – Ridley meets Brenna at the party

  Ridley

  A loud, metallic clatter just outside my bedroom window made me grit my teeth. I set my book down on my night stand and came to my feet, fully prepared to fling open the window and blast the shit out of whoever had tossed a beer can at my house.

  “My brand new house,” I muttered.

  When I got to the window and placed my hands on the latch, I froze. It wasn’t a beer can at all. It was a ladder. That belonged in the garage with my other garage crap.

  As I watched, a figure appeared at the bottom of the ladder and began to move. Up.

  Shit.

  I pulled on the latch irritably, but it wouldn’t budge.

  The figure climbed another rung.

  “Stop!” I yelled and gave the window a smack for emphasis.

  The guy didn’t hear me.

  One week of home ownership and I was going to wind up in a lawsuit. For a party I hadn’t wanted to have and one I wasn’t going to participate in. At least not willingly.

  “For God’s sake,” I growled.

  I had no choice but to go out and head off the stunt that my mind-blowingly reckless roommate had most likely instigated. Ian – who also happened to be my cousin and foster brother and the host of this hell-in-a-hand-basket party all wrapped up in one – was going to pay dearly for this. As soon as I stopped whatever this was.

  I grudgingly unlocked my bedroom door and rolled my eyes as a couple engaged in varying states of undress crashed to the floor at my feet. If I found them in my room after I’d dealt with the ladder situation, there’d be hell to pay.

  First thing first, though.

  I stormed through the house, down the stairs to the open main floor and out to the lawn. The crowd out there pissed me off even further and I wondered how I’d let myself be talked into agreeing to this.

  “Nothing will go wrong,” I said angrily and loudly enough that a few people jumped out of my way. “How could it? What’s one smashed garden gnome and one guy peeing in the bushes for the sake of a little fun?”

  And now this.

  The party guests were huddled together laughing and pointing and as I got closer and realized what they were staring at, my heart dropped.

  It wasn’t a dude climbing the ladder. It was a chick.

  My eyes travelled from the pair of pretty, bare feet up the length of a pair of well-sculpted legs to a set of curvy hips. They were all nice to look at. They were also about fifteen feet too high of the ground.

  I wracked my brain, trying to remember the name attached to the waves of chestnut hair. She looked familiar, but I couldn’t place her.

  “Hey!” I called out.

  “Yeah?”

  “You need to come down from there!”

  She peered down at me curiously. “Who’re you?”

  “I’m the guy whose house you’re performing acrobatics on.”

  “This is your party?”

  “I suppose.”

  “So you’re the elusive Ian Harrison?”

  I snorted. “Sure.”

  “You don’t sound sure.”

  “This is my house, ergo, my party, ergo I must be Ian Harrison.”

  She continued to examine me from her perch. “Hmm. From the boob-shaped invitation you dropped on my doorstep, I kind of expected you to be more of a douche. And to use less words like ergo.”

  Aha. She was one of the neighbours. No wonder she looked a little familiar.

  “I’m a man of great mystery,” I replied. “Now can you pretty please come down?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re standing on a ladder which is balanced on a chair which is balanced on the edge of my roof. If you don’t come down, you’re going to fall and break open your skull,” I replied patiently. “And possibly ruin the rose bush beneath you.”

  “I don’t wanna!” she yelled.

  Her words were just shy of slurred and if I’d had any doubt before, I knew now she was drunk. The crowd around us cheered and she saluted them with her plastic cup.

  This is going from bad to worse.

  “Can I make you some kind of deal?” I asked desperately.

  “Like what?”

  “If you come down, I’ll make you a sandwich.”

  “Are you asking me that because I have a big ass?”

  “Your ass is perfect.”

  “So you’re looking at it?”

  “Hard not to when it’s hanging just above my face.”

  “Oh. Okay. No thank you though. I don’t want a sandwich. Not hungry.”

  “Another drink?” I offered, thinking that she probably wouldn’t even notice if it was plain water.

  “All full up.” She paused. “But you aren’t.”

  “I’m not what?”

  “All full up, silly. You do a shot, and I’ll think about coming down.”

  I gritted my teeth. “I’m not much of a drinker.”

  “Even better.”

  On cue, Ian appeared at my side with a tray full of tequila.

  “You heard the lady,” he said.

  I eyed the drinks balefully. I was pretty damned sure I was one of the last sober people at the party and I was loathe to give up my sobriety just to save my clearly insane neighbour. Except then the ladder teetered enough to make me feel a bit crazy so I closed my fingers over one of the glasses and lifted it to my mouth. With a grimace, I drank it back.

  “There,” I told her. “Shot done.”

  She giggled and stepped down. Once.

  “One rung per shot,” she called out.

  “You have got to be kidding me,” I muttered.

  “Do another, do another, do another!” she chanted.

  In seconds, the whole crowd was yelling too. I counted the rungs quickly. There were still nine below her.

  “Fuck,” I said out loud to no one in particular.

  I grabbed a second shot and downed it.

  “Two!” shouted
the crowd behind me.

  She took another step.

  I did shots three and four back-to-back and gave her an expectant nod.

  “You owe me two rungs,” I announced.

  My head was already buzzing. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had anything stronger than a single beer.

  “Two coming your way!” she replied.

  She jumped them both, making the ladder rock.

  I cursed under my breath and snagged shot five. As I sucked it through my nearly numb teeth, she slipped. With a shriek that echoed through my yard, she came tumbling down the rest of the ladder, bumping her forehead on each rung.

  In a not-so-deft move, I dropped the shot glass and stumbled toward her. Instinctively, I stuck my arms out just in time to yank her away from the ladder as it – and the lawn chair – tumbled to the ground.

  “Oomph,” she breathed as she hit my chest hard.

  The crowd erupted in a cheer and I shouted at them to back off. I tried to set her on the ground but she clung to my neck and after a useless moment of letting go then holding on then letting go again, I gave in and cradled her in my arms.

  She wriggled against me, pressing her ample curves into all the right places. She smelled good. Like sweet maple syrup and butter.

  I shifted, trying to decide what was making my head swim more – her, or the tequila – and I couldn’t fix on the right answer.

  My gaze followed the curve of her cheek to the freckles across her elegant nose and up to the welt on her forehead.

  “You okay?” I asked stupidly.

  “How long have we been neighbours?” she replied.

  “A week.”

  “Have I told you before that you’re pretty?” she wanted to know.

  “I think I’d remember if you had.”

  “Hmm. Well. You. Are. Pretty.”

  “You. Are. Drunk,” I countered. “And a little bit dangerous.”

  She pouted. “But not pretty?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “You didn’t not say it.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think that makes sense.”

  She laughed. “Are you drunk too?”