His Southern Temptation - By Robin Covington Page 0,27

need to wake up. I’m a grown-ass woman and I’ve done a good job of taking care of myself for the past seven years without the both of you around to pass judgment on my decisions. You might not like the tattoos or the piercings, but I don’t care.”

Lucky opened his mouth to say something and she cut him off.

“Not a damn word, Lucky.” She swallowed hard, the bitterness of her words leaving a rough taste in her mouth. If anyone should have understood her, it was Lucky, but he still treated her like the silly girl who’d followed him around with a stupid crush, and that hurt like hell.

“You get no say in what I do with my life. You don’t get to waltz in after all these years and act like you’re important enough to factor in my decisions.”

It was low blow. And now that she’d said it she just wanted to take it back. Yeah, he’d betrayed her when he’d acted like she didn’t matter, but no part of her was doing a happy dance over the look of pure hurt darkening his baby blues to a watery gray.

Chapter Ten

“You look like shit.”

Lucky slid into the booth at the Southern Comfort Diner alongside Beck, tucked his sunglasses into the collar of his shirt, and flipped off Jack across the tabletop for stating the obvious.

“Bite me, Jack.”

Lucky caught the eye of his Aunt Dolly, the owner of the diner and Jack’s mom, and signaled for her to bring over his usual breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, home fries, and black coffee. Today he needed the caffeine since he’d lain awake half the night on Beck’s couch, trying not to think about Taylor’s harsh words and Mr. Clean eyeing her across the dance floor. When he’d finally crashed into fitful bouts of dream-filled sleep, the morning alarm had buzzed way too fucking early.

“So what’s your problem, Mary Sunshine?” Jack smirked over the rim of his coffee cup, his expression one of a man who’d slept soundly next to a warm, willing woman. Being a newlywed had turned his usually taciturn cousin sickeningly cheerful. Lucky was glad he’d left his gun in the truck—in his current mood he just might shoot Jack. He even had the extra bullets he’d taken from Taylor the other night.

Taylor.

Holy hell. She made him crazy. One minute all he could think about was tugging on a little nipple ring with his teeth before traveling lower to see if she tasted as good as he remembered. The next he wanted to wring her neck for putting herself in the sights of a goon for one of the local assholes he used to bust as a cop. It had been a long damn night.

“Here you go, darlin’.” The waitress plunked the plates holding his breakfast on the table in front of him, poured a cup of coffee, and placed the carafe in front of him.

“Lucky, you okay?” Beck paused from eating and gave him the doctor/patient once-over.

Screw Beck’s medical degree. He sure as hell wasn’t talking him into another B12 shot. That bitch hurt for a week.

“I’m fine. I didn’t sleep so well.”

“Well, you didn’t get laid,” Jack stated with certainty.

“And you’d know because getting some on a regular basis gives you Magic-8-Ball super powers?” Lucky took a big gulp of coffee. He placed down the cup. “How would you know that?”

“Because you don’t have the look of a guy who’s missing sleep because he was with a woman all night.”

“And what does that look like?”

“It looks like him.” Jack pointed at Beck, who blinked twice before a shit-eating grin split his face. “He either slept with a woman last night or he jumped out of something high and dangerous.”

“Both, actually.” Beck dropped his napkin on his plate, grabbed his coffee cup, and leaned back in the booth like he owned the place. “I met a woman when I went skydiving yesterday. She was here on one of those post-divorce, find-your-inner-goddess-trips and I spent the night with her. Those rooms at the Bellemeade Inn are really nice.”

Lucky shoveled his food in faster, barely tasting the eggs or the coffee that washed them down. If they started talking women he’d lose his mind, or at least the part Taylor hadn’t trashed already. She was his weak link, the one who got away but never let go. The crazy part was that they’d never really been together, done the whole relationship thing. They had never been in sync. At