Beauty from Pain (41 page)
Authors: Georgia Cates
Tags: #romance, #adult contemporary, #m leighton, #samantha young, #georgia cates, #down to you, #on dublin street, #beauty from pain, #beauty series, #up to me
Whatever You Like (Single Version) • Anya Marina
Begin Again • Taylor Swift
Six Degrees of Separation • The Script
Bleed • Hot Chelle Rae
All I Wanted • Paramore
Almost Lover • A Fine Frenzy
You Picked Me • A Fine Frenzy
Closer • Fisher
When Your Eyes Close • Puressence
Soup Kitchen • Eva Trout
Jar of Hearts • Christina Perri
Dear God • Avenged Sevenfold
Crash Into Me • Dave Matthews Band
Truth • Jason Reeves
More Than I Meant To • Jason Reeves
Kiss Me • Ed Sheeran
Down Under • Men At Work
Paperweight • Joshua Radin & Schuyler Fisk
Sex On Fire • Kings of Leon
Every Breath You Take • The Police
Here Comes Goodbye • Rascal Flatts
In Line • Robert Skoro
Fall To Pieces • Avril Lavigne
Someone Like You • Van Morrison
Sad • Maroon 5
Gin-n-Juice • Gourd
According to You • Orianthi
Private Dancer • Tina Turner
Someday You Will Be Loved • Death Cab for Cutie
Talk Dirty To Me • Poison
About Georgia Cates
Georgia resides in rural Mississippi with her
wonderful husband, Jeff, and their two beautiful daughters. She
spent fourteen years as a labor and delivery nurse before she
decided to pursue her dream of becoming an author and hasn’t looked
back yet.
Connect with Georgia
For the latest updates from Georgia Cates, stay
connected with her at:
It has been such a pleasure corresponding with some
of you via
Facebook, Twitter, goodreads, email and by my
blog.
I love being in touch with my readers so don’t
hesitate to contact me at any time.
I love you all and thank you for your support
through this journey.
Love,
Georgia
Young Adult Books by Georgia Cates
Blood of Anteros
The Vampire Agápe Series Book 1
Blood Jewel
The Vampire Agápe Series Book 2
Blood Doll
The Vampire Agápe Series Book 3
Anticipated Release Summer 2013
Going Under
Shallow
(A Going Under Novel #2)
Now please enjoy this excerpt
from
Jay Crownover’s Adult Contemporary
Novel
Rule
Chapter 1
Rule
At first I
thought the pounding in my head was my brain trying to fight its
way out of my skull after the ten or so shots of Crown Royal I had
downed last night, but then realized the noise was someone storming
around in my apartment.
She
was here,
and with dread I remembered that it was Sunday. No matter how many
times I told her, or how rude I was to her, or whatever kind of
debauched and unsavory condition she found me in she showed up
every Sunday morning to drag me home for brunch.
other side of the bed reminded me that I hadn’t come home from the
bar last night alone. Not that I remembered the girl’s name, what
she looked like, or if it had even been worth her time to stumble
into my apartment with me. I ran a hand over my face and
swung my legs over the edge of the bed just as the bedroom door
swung open. I never should have given the little brat a
key. I didn’t bother to cover up; she was used to walking in
and finding me hung over and naked–I didn’t see why today needed to
be any different. The girl on the other side of the bed
rolled over and narrowed her eyes at the new addition to our
awkward little party.
“I thought you said you
were single?” There was accusation in her tone that lifted
the hair on the back of my neck. Any chick that was willing
to come home with a stranger for a night of unattached sex didn’t
get the right to cast judgment around, especially while they were
still naked and rumpled in my bed.
“Give me twenty.” I
ran a hand through my messy hair and the blond in the doorway
lifted an eyebrow.
“You have ten.” I
would have lifted an eyebrow back at her tone and attitude but my
head was killing me and the gesture would have been wasted on her
anyway; she was way past immune to my shit. “I’ll make
coffee. I already invited Nash but he said he has to go to the shop
for an appointment. I’ll be in the car.” She spun on her
heel, and, just like that, the doorway was empty. I was
struggling to my feet, searching the floor for any pair of pants I
might have tossed down there last night.
“What’s going on?” I
had temporarily forgotten about the girl in my bed. I swore softly
under my breath and tugged a black t-shirt that looked reasonably
clean over my head.
“I have to go.”
“What?”
lifted herself up in the bed and clutched the sheet to her
chest. She was pretty and had a nice body from what I could
see. I wondered what kind of game I had thrown at her in order to
get her to come home with me. She was one I didn’t mind
waking up to this morning.
“I have somewhere I need
to be so that means you need to get up and get going.
Normally my roommate would be around so you could hangout for a
minute, but he had to go to work, so that means you need to get
that fine ass in gear and get out.”
me. “Are you kidding me?”
I looked over my shoulder
as I dug my boots out from under a pile of laundry and shoved my
feet into them. “No.”
“What kind of asshole does
that? Not even a thanks for last night, you were great how
about lunch? Just get the fuck out?” She threw the sheet
aside and I noticed she had a nice tattoo scrawling along her
ribs. That was probably what attracted me to her in my
drunken stupor in the first place. “You’re a real piece of
work, you know that?”
than just a piece of work, but this chick, that was just one of oh
so many, didn’t need to know that. I silently cursed
Nash. My roommate was the shit, we had been best friends
since elementary school and I could normally rely on him to run
interference for me on Sunday mornings when I had to bail but I
forgot about the piece he was supposed to be finishing up today.
That meant I was on my own when it came to hustling last
night’s tail out the door and getting a move on it before the brat
left without me, which was a bigger headache than I needed in my
current state.
“Hey, what’s your name
anyway?” If she wasn’t pissed before, she was downright
infuriated now. She climbed back into a super short black skirt and
a barely there tank top. She fluffed up her mound of dyed,
blond hair and glared at me out of eyes now smudged with old
mascara.
“Lucy, you don’t
remember?” I slimed some crap in my hair to make it stand up
in a bunch of different directions and sprayed on cologne to help
mask the scent of sex and booze that I was sure still clung to my
skin. I shrugged a shoulder at her and waited while she
walked in front of me, hopping on one foot to put on a pair of
heels that just screamed dirty sex.
“I’m Rule.” I would
have offered to shake her hand but that seemed silly so I just
pointed to the front door of the apartment and stepped in the
bathroom to brush the stale taste of whiskey out of my mouth.
“There’s coffee in the kitchen, maybe you should write your number
down and I can give you a call another time. Sunday’s aren’t
a good day for me.” She would never know how true that
statement was.
tapped the toe of one of those awesome shoes. “You really
have no idea who I am, do you?”
This time, even against
my throbbing brain’s wishes, my eyebrow went up and I looked at her
with a mouth full of toothpaste foam. I just stared at her
until she screeched at me and pointed at her side. “You have to at
least remember this!”
No wonder I liked her ink
so much, it was one of mine. I spit the toothpaste in the
sink and gave myself a once over in the mirror. I looked like
hell. My eyes were watery and rimmed in red, my skin looked
gray and there was a hickey the size of Rhode Island on the side of
my neck. Mom was just going to love that, just like she was
going to fall all over herself about the current state of my
hair. Normally thick and dark, I had shaved the sides of it
off and dyed the front a nice, bright purple, so it now stuck up
straight and looked kind of like a weed-whacker had been used to
cut it. Both my folks already had an issue with the scrolling
ink that wound around both my arms and up the sides of my neck, so
the hair was just going to be icing on the cake. There was
nothing I could do to fix the current shit show looking back at me
in the mirror so I prowled out of the bathroom and unceremoniously
grabbed the girl by the elbow and towed her to the front
door. I needed to learn to go home with them instead of
letting them come home with me; it was so much easier that
way.
“Look, I have somewhere I
have to be and I don’t particularly love that I have to go, but you
freaking out and making a scene is not going to do anything other
than piss me off. I hope you had a good time last night and
you can leave your number, but we both know the chances of me
calling you are slim to none. If you don’t want to be treated
like crap maybe you should stop going home with drunken dudes you
don’t know. Trust me we’re really only after one thing and
the next morning all we really want is for you to go quietly
away. I have a headache and I feel like I’m going to hurl,
plus I have to spend the next hour in a car with someone that will
be silently loathing me and joyously plotting my death, so really,
can we just save the histrionics and get a move on it?”
By now I had
maneuvered her to the entryway of the building and I saw
her
in the BMW idling in the spot next to my
truck. She was impatient and would take off if I wasted
anymore time. I gave Lucy a half grin and shrugged a
shoulder, after all it wasn’t her fault I was an asshole and even I
knew she deserved better than such a callous brush off.
“Look, don’t feel bad, I
can be a charming bastard when I put my mind to it. You are
far from the first and won’t the last that has to see this little
show. I’m glad your tat turned out badass, I’d prefer you
remember me for that rather than last night.”
steps without looking back and yanked open the door to the fancy
black BMW. I hated this car and hated that it suited the
driver as well as it did. Classy, sleek and expensive were
definitely words that could be used describe my traveling
companion. As we pulled out of the parking lot, Lucy yelled
at me and flipped me off. My driver rolled her eyes and
muttered, “Classy” under her breath. She was used to the little
scenes chicks liked to throw when I bailed on them the morning
after. I even had to replace her windshield once when one of
them had chucked a rock at me and missed while I was walking
away.
I adjusted the seat to
accommodate my long legs and settled in to rest my head against the
window. It was always a long and achingly silent drive.
Sometimes, like today, I was grateful for it, other times it grated
on my very last nerve. We had been a fixture in each other’s
lives since middle school; she knew every strength and fault I had.
My parents loved her like their own daughter and made no bones
about the fact they more often than not preferred her company over
mine. One would think with all the history, both good and bad
between us, that we could make simple small talk for a few hours
without it being difficult.
“You’re going to get all
that junk that’s in your hair all over my window.” She had a
voice that didn’t match the rest of her; it was all cigarettes and
whiskey, while she was all champagne and silk. I had always
liked her voice, when we got along I could listen to her talk for
hours.
“I’ll get it
detailed.”
closed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest. I was all
set for a silent ride, but apparently she had things to say today
because as soon as she pulled the car onto the highway she turned
the radio down and said my name. “Rule.”
I turned my head slightly
to the side and cracked open an eye. “Shaw.” Her name was
just as fancy as the rest of her. She was pale, had snowy
white blond hair and big ole green eyes that looked like Granny
Smith apples. She was tiny, an easy foot shorter than my own
six three, but had curves for that went on for days. She was
the kind of girl that guys looked at, just because they couldn’t
help themselves, but as soon as she turned those frosty green eyes
in their direction they knew they wouldn’t stand a chance.
She exuded unattainability the way some other girls oozed ‘come and
get me’.
She blew out a breath and
I watched a strand of hair twirl around her forehead. She
looked at me out of the corner of her eye and I stiffened up when I
saw how tight her hands were on the steering wheel.
“What is it,
Shaw?”
sure sign she was nervous. “I don’t suppose you answered any
of your mom’s calls this week?”
