Blacklisted (Loveless, Texas #3) - Jay Crownover Page 0,60

guy who can and will do great things for others—it just depends on the day. He’s not who I would’ve imagined you falling for.”

I lifted my shoulders and let them fall in a helpless shrug. “Truthfully, I’ve never fallen for anyone before. I can’t even say for certain that’s what happening. I didn’t think he was my type.” I frowned. “I still don’t.” But there was no denying that I’d been fully invested and engaged in what happened between us the previous night. I one hundred percent wanted him, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that being intimate with him once would never be enough.

No one other than him had ever stayed in my mind long after they left the room. No other man made me moan and ache when touching me the way he did. There had never been anyone in my orbit who made it easy to forget all the reasons they were so wrong for me, and instead forced me to look at all the reasons why I couldn’t stay away. No one who was seemingly right for me had me as confused and confounded as Shot had me.

Kody’s pretty features turned into a frown as she stared at me with evident concern on her freckled face. “How have you never fallen for anyone before? You never had a crush on a classmate? You never had to suffer through an unrequited love?” She leaned forward, gaze intense and probing. “I’m going to sound conceited, since we look so much alike, but you’re unbelievably beautiful, and you’re smart. Even if you weren’t interested, I can’t believe you didn’t have the opposite sex chasing you everywhere you went.”

I lifted my eyes to the ceiling, memories of endless lonely and empty nights flitting through my mind.

It might seem odd to her, but there was a very logical reason why I’d been such a late bloomer.

“In high school, I skipped several grades. So I was younger than everyone in all of my classes. No one really seemed to know what to do with me. I was like an alien in their midst. I was too quiet and too serious to make friends. Plus, my mom was sick. There wasn’t any money to participate in normal school activities, and any free time I had was spent taking care of her. Dating was out of the question. College was a little better. I dated some, but I was clueless and clumsy with it, since I was still younger than most of the guys I went out with.”

I shook my head and sighed. “I never realized it back then, but anyone who was interested in me, or anyone I was even slightly attracted to, Ashby made it her mission to run interference between us. I would go on a date with a guy, then find out she slept with him. If I mentioned I liked someone, she immediately knew a reason why he would never be interested in me, but then I’d find out later she was seeing him behind my back. It honestly didn’t matter to me—I was focused on getting through school as quickly as possible so I could start working because my mom’s medical bills were out of control. But I hated feeling like I failed at something everyone else around me did with such ease.”

I shifted my gaze back to Kody’s and frowned in a way that I was sure was almost a mirror image to the one on her face. “When I started working for the ME’s office I met a detective. He was the first man I was really, truly interested in. He was smart, ambitious, and his father was battling pancreatic cancer, so I thought we had a lot in common.”

Kody practically climbed on top of the table, she leaned so far forward as I spoke. “What happened with him? Did Ashby have an affair with him as well?”

I slowly shook my head. “No. But she did tell me that he was married, and that there was no father with cancer. She told me he was playing me big-time. After everything Ashby was doing to deter me from taking the promotion when it was announced I was the front-runner became clear, I actually looked the man up to see if he had been another victim of her lies and manipulation. Lying about what he’d done to me would be the least of her crimes, but it was all true. He could tell I was lonely and used