All the Pretty Lies (32 page)

“I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Okay. If all else fails, take off your
clothes.”

“That’s good, sound advice. Why didn’t I
think of that?”

“Trust me. It works,” she declares. “Anyway,
call me tomorrow, chickie.”

“Tomorrow,” I agree returning her kiss noise
before disconnecting.

I park in the garage and hit the button to
close the door as I make my way up the short set of steps that lead
into the house.

I check the office first. I get a little pang
when I take in the pale sage walls, a color I picked out so that
when a baby
does
come along, we won’t have to repaint and
worry about fumes while I’m pregnant.

Now, that won’t be an issue either.

Hemi’s nowhere to be found, so I head for the
master. I kick off my shoes and throw them into the closet as I
pass, moving toward the bathroom where the light is on. Hemi is
standing at the counter, in front of the sink, holding something in
his hand.

When I stop just inside the doorway, he looks
up and smiles.

“Hey, beautiful. How’d it go?”

“Just fine. No cavities, even though you keep
carrying me to bed when I fall asleep on the couch and not waking
me up to brush my teeth.”

He grins. “But you’re so sweet when you’re
sleeping. I don’t have the heart to wake you up.”

I step farther into the room, melting into
him and poking my finger in his chest. “Well, you’d better start,
mister. I don’t want my teeth to rot out.”

“I thought you said they’re fine.”

“They are. I’m just saying I don’t
want
it to be a problem.”

“Then I’ll start waking you up. But be warned
that if I wake you up and you look at me with those sleepy, sexy
eyes of yours, it’s liable to prolong you
actually
getting
to sleep.”

“Okay,” I reply with a grin of my own.
Finally, I glance down at his hand. My stomach sinks when I see
what he’s holding. “Why are you holding my birth control
pills?”

Hemi glances down at the little pink case,
turning it over and over in his fingers. “I was just thinking about
the trial and how things can finally move forward now that it’s
over. My brother’s killer got justice. Your brother’s betrayer got
uncovered. There’s nothing holding us back. Nothing preventing me
from putting a baby in this beautiful body and watching it
grow.”

I feel my throat close around a lump of
emotion. Tears sting my eyes and there’s nothing I can do to stop
them. “Really?”

“Really,” he assures. “What would you say if
I threw these away? Right this minute. Just dumped them in the
trash and dragged you into the bedroom to ravage you?”

“I would say that I need to throw them out
anyway.”

His brow wrinkles. “What? Why?”

“You remember last month when you
insisted
that I go to the doctor for that sinus
infection?”

“Yes, but I only did that because you’d never
have gone if I didn’t keep harassing you. And you’d have ended up
being sick for a lot longer.”

“Well, remember he gave me a round of
antibiotics? I didn’t think anything about us using some other form
of birth control for the rest of the month. I don’t know why, but I
just didn’t.”

“What do you mean? Why would we need to do
that?”

“Antibiotics can interfere with birth
control. You’re supposed to use a back-up method for the month that
you’re taking the antibiotics.”

“So what are you saying?”

“I’m saying I didn’t even think about it. And
we didn’t use any other forms of birth control. And…”

The words die on my tongue. All of a sudden
this is very real. This is a very significant milestone for us. A
curve in the road. A turning point. I’ll know in a minute if Hemi
is as steadfast as he says, as he seems. I’ll know if he’s really
in this for the long haul.

“Are you saying you’re pregnant?” he
breathes.

I feel my chin tremble as I nod.

Hemi closes his eyes as he exhales, dropping
his forehead to mine. “Oh my God. Oh my God, I can’t believe
this.”

My stomach is a knot of confusion and fear. I
don’t know what to make of his reaction. But I’m terrified he’s not
happy about the news.

But then Hemi drops to his knees in front of
me. Slowly, he lifts my shirt and presses his lips to my still-flat
belly. He doesn’t move for the longest time. All I feel is the warm
air from his nose as it tickles my skin.

When he finally shifts, it’s only to speak.
His lips move over my belly, his voice so low I have to strain to
hear him.

“Hello in there, baby Spencer,” he whispers.
“I’m your dad. I can’t wait for you to get here, to see what you
look like and how you feel in my arms. But until then, know that I
love you already. And I always will. To my dying breath, I’ll love
you. Just like I love your mom.”

I don’t even bother to try and stop the tears
that are streaming down my face and dripping off my nose to pepper
the top of Hemi’s head. It’s like the baby we made, though only
five weeks old, is being christened, christened with tears of joy.
Hemi and I have both already cried so much in our lives, tears of
sadness and pain, of fear and anger. But now there is no room for
any of that, just like there’s no room for regret. Now, there is
only the beauty of today and the hope of tomorrow, and the love
that we share in between.

And if I die an untimely death like my mother
before me, I’ll have lived every second of every day of my life
with all the bravery and enthusiasm and love that I’m capable of.
And I’ll have lived it with Hemi. And our child. There’s nothing
more that I could ask for in life.

Not. One. Single. Thing.

THE END

Look for the next book in this series

ALL THE PRETTY POSES

February, 2014

Read on for an excerpt of the next

Wild Ones novel

SOME LIKE IT WILD

COMING March 4, 2014

A FINAL WORD

A few times in life, I’ve found myself in a
position of such love and gratitude that saying THANK YOU seems
trite, like it’s just not enough. That is the position that I find
myself in now when it comes to you, my readers. You are the sole
reason that my dream of being a writer has come true. I knew that
it would be gratifying and wonderful to finally have a job that I
loved so much, but I had no idea that it would be outweighed and
outshined by the unimaginable pleasure that I get from hearing that
you love my work, that it’s touched you in some way or that your
life seems a little bit better for having read it. So it is from
the depths of my soul, from the very bottom of my heart that I say
I simply cannot THANK YOU enough. I’ve added this note to all my
stories with the link to a blog post that I really hope you’ll take
a minute to read. It is a true and sincere expression of my humble
appreciation. I love each and every one of you and you’ll never
know what your many encouraging posts, comments and e-mails have
meant to me.

http://mleightonbooks.blogspot.com/2011/06/when-thanks-is-not-enough.html

I’d also like to take a moment to thank each
and every one of you who has taken the time to leave a short,
honest review of this book, or any other for that matter. Reviews
are more important to authors than you could imagine and I’m
forever grateful to all of you who have shared your thoughts. This
seemingly small mechanism is second only to word-of-mouth in ways
that you can profoundly impact an author and a book. So thank you.
So, so much.

Again.

Always

Other books by M. Leighton

Beginnings: An M. Leighton Anthology

Blood Like Poison: For the Love of a
Vampire

Blood Like Poison: Destined for a
Vampire

Blood Like Poison: To Kill an Angel

Down to You

Up to Me

Everything for Us

The Wild Ones

Wild Child

Some Like It Wild (March 4, 2014)

There’s Wild, Then There’s You (June 3,
2014)

Madly

Madly & the Jackal

Madly & Wolfhardt

Fragile

The Reaping

The Reckoning

Gravity

Caterpillar

Wiccan

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http://mleightonbooks.blogspot.com

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Leighton, Author

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Some Like It Wild

How far will a good girl go for the bad boy
she loves?

Laney Holt is a preacher’s daughter. A good
girl. Her only goal was to get married, have babies and live
happily ever after, just like her parents. Only that didn’t happen.
With the betrayal of two people closest to her, Laney’s dreams came
crashing down. Now she’s left with an empty space she doesn’t know
how to fill. Until she meets Jake Theopolis, a daredevil with a
death wish who has heartbreaker written all over him.

Jake has no interest in thinking beyond the
here and now. All he wants out of life is the next rush, the next
“feel good” thing to keep his mind off the pain of his past. His
latest rush? Showing Laney there’s more to life than being a good
girl—and that going bad can be so much fun. Her only concern now is
how she can ever hope to satisfy the wild side of a boy like Jake.
She’s looking forward to trying. And so is Jake.

CHAPTER ONE- Laney

Four years ago, Summer

“Come on, Laney. You gotta live a little.
You’ll be eighteen in a few weeks and then you’ll be leaving for
college. This is the last fair you’ll ever attend as an adolescent.
Don’t you want this summer to be memorable?”

“Yes, but that does
not
include
getting busted for drinking under age.” My best friend, Tori, gives
me that look that says I’m hopeless. “What?” I ask defensively.
“Daddy would kill me.”

“I thought preacher’s kids were supposed to
be wild as hell?”

“I can be wild,” I tell her, avoiding her
disbelieving blue eyes. “I just don’t want to be wild
right
now
.”

“Then when? When are you gonna do something?
Anything?
You won’t make it a single semester away at
college if you don’t learn some of this worldly stuff now,
Laney.”

I chew the inside of my lip. I
do
feel
ill-prepared for college. But the thing is, I don’t
want
to
do wild things. All I’ve ever really wanted out of life is to find
the perfect man to sweep me off my feet, get married, have a family
and live happily ever after. And I don’t have to get wild to
achieve any of those things.

Looking at Tori’s expression, however, makes
me feel like some kind of freak for not wanting to break the rules.
At least a little. But she doesn’t understand my dreams. No one
does, really. Except my mother. She was the same way when she was
my age and she found everything she wanted in life when she met my
father.

“Come on, Laney. Just this once.”

“Why? What is the big deal about getting it
here? Getting it now?”

“Because I want to get it
from
him.”

“Why?” I ask again. “What’s the big
deal?”

“I’ve had a crush on him for years, that’s
what the big deal is. He went off to college and I haven’t seen him
since. But now he’s here. And I need a wing woman.” When I don’t
immediately relent, she presses. “Pleeeeeease. For meeeeee.”

I sigh. I have to give Tori credit for being
one seriously gifted manipulator. It’s a wonder I’m
not
wild
as a buck. She talks me into doing things I don’t want to do
all
the time
. It’s just that, so far, they’ve been fairly innocent.
Being the preacher’s daughter and living with such strict parents
makes it hard for me to get into
too
much trouble. Tori
ought to be happy about that. If it weren’t for the restrictions
being my friend has placed indirectly on her, she’d probably be a
pregnant, drug-addicted criminal by now.

But she’s not. Partly because of me and my
“taming” influence. And it’s those stark differences in our
personalities that make us such good friends. We balance each other
perfectly. She keeps me on my toes. I keep her out of Juvie.

“Fine,” I growl. “Come on. But so help me, if
he tells on us, I’m blaming you.”

Tori squeals and bounces up and down, her
ample boobs threatening to overcome the extremely low neckline of
her shirt.

“Why don’t you just go over and do that in
front of him a couple of times? I’m sure he’d give you anything you
want.”

“That’ll come later,” Tori says, ruffling her
blond bangs and waggling her eyebrows.

I roll my eyes as we start off across the
fairgrounds. As we near the farm truck where the shirtless guy is
unloading crates, I ask Tori again, “Now who did you say he
is?”

“Jake Theopolis.”

“Theopolis? As in the peach orchard
Theopolises?”

“Yep, that’s his family.”

“Why don’t I remember him?”

“Because your hormones slept through your
freshman year. He was a senior. Jenna Theopolis’s older
brother.”

“You know my father would’ve killed me if I’d
been caught hanging around with Jenna Theopolis. She was pretty
wild. That’s about the only thing I knew about her. I’m sure that’s
why I don’t remember her brother.”

“How could you not? He was one of the hottest
guys in school. Played baseball. Dated pretty much all the hot
girls.”

“Except for you,” I add before she can.

She grins and elbows me in the ribs. “Except
for me.”