Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 67795 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67795 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Or maybe he’s just a criminal, and you’re making excuses because you had dirty dreams about him last night.
Okay, it could also be that.
I close my eyes tight, and yep, there they are again, images of me pressed up against the door while Shades kisses me like it’s the end of the world, and we’re the only two survivors. His hands are touching me, and I don’t back away but arch into his strong hands instead.
“Darn!” I open my eyes and discover my breathing shallow and my chest heaving.
Same reaction. Again.
Only now, my skin is flush, and my eyes look like pools of blue. My nipples are hard behind the full-coverage bra I wear to avoid tempting anyone to think I’m the wrong kind of woman.
That’s my mother talking, not me.
I change out of the bra that looks like it’s made for a woman twenty years older and opt for a black and white polka dot bra to wear under my navy blue blouse.
“Oh. My. Gosh.” The woman staring back at me isn’t just passably pretty. She’s kind of a knockout.
The navy blue shirt makes my eyes blue like a California sky. and they pop prettily thanks to my sable brown eyeliner. But it’s not just the makeup. The bra makes my breasts look bigger, which I’m not sure I like, but it changes the shape of my body into an hourglass.
“Holy wow!” Instead of my kitten heels, I dig out a pair of deep blue heels I’d worn to a wedding last year, and now I have long legs and a trim waist.
I look good.
No, I look amazing.
“What are you wearing?”
My mother, the queen of image, scowls at me the moment I step inside the kitchen. Her gaze drags up and down my body, her lips twisting in clear and obvious disgust.
“They’re called clothes, Mother. It’s what we wear to cover up the nudity.”
I know she’s not going to appreciate my smart-aleck comment so I turn away and make a cup of coffee. With creamer.
“I know what clothes are, Loretta. What I’m asking is why are you wearing those particular clothes. Jeans are hardly appropriate for church.”
I add a little more creamer and two sugar cubes before I bestow a grin on my disapproving mother.
“I’m not going to church, Mother. I’m going to work, and jeans are perfectly acceptable for work.”
“Creamer! You’re using creamer in your coffee? You know that stuff is full of fat.”
I frown at my mug and set it down at the table across from my scowling mother and silent father. “If it’s so horrible, why do we have it?”
“Because your father insists his coffee doesn’t taste the same without full fat creamer.”
I nod. “So it’s all right for him, but not me. I wonder why?” I say innocently and tap my chin as if I’m actually thinking about it.
“Because your father is a man, and he is already married,” she sneers. “How are you ever going to find a man drinking that fatty stuff?
I sigh and ask the Lord for all the patience he can spare me.
“Maybe I’ll find one who doesn’t judge me? That’s what I hope for anyway because I don’t plan on being anyone’s trophy wife.”
The paper in front of Dad’s face ruffles and falls, and he puts a reassuring hand on top of mine.
“That’s something no one should aspire to, especially not someone as talented as beautiful as you.”
I turn to my father and smile because his words are sincere, and he rarely makes waves by going against my mother.
“Thank you, Dad.” I turn to my breakfast, a grapefruit filled with cottage cheese, and groan.
“Mother, I told you I hate cottage cheese.”
As usual, she says nothing when I say something she doesn’t want to hear.
I reach for one slice of toast and a few scoops of scrambled eggs to go with my giant grapefruit. “Mother.”
She sighs and looks up at me. “Yes, Loretta?”
“Do you forgive all sinners?”
She puts her fork down and gives me her full attention, no doubt wondering what sin I have committed. “Yes,” she says eventually when it’s clear I’m not going to confess to anything. “You must forgive the sinner, if not for their sake, for yours.”
“Even the worst ones, like thieves and murderers?”
“Yes, even those sinners.”
Her expression is bland, but she loves to talk religion. The proudest of me she’s ever been was the day I declared Theology as my major, and we often enjoyed philosophical discussions like this one.
“There are reasons for everything, Loretta, and while the justice system may not take that into account, as Christians, we must. Can you condemn a man who has never known a moment of love or a friendly touch for living out the violence he’s been taught? The only thing he knows?”
I think about her words for a few moments, ignoring the surprise that someone so judgmental can also be so incredibly forgiving.