Simple Man

SIMPLE MAN

Lydia Michaels

Erotic Romance

Secret Cravings Publishing

www.secretcravingspublishing.com

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A Secret Cravings Publishing Book

Erotic Romance

Simple Man

Copyright © 2013 Lydia Michaels

E-book ISBN: 978-1-61885-950-1

First E-book Publication: October 2013

Cover design by Dawné Dominique

Edited by Elise Hepner

Proofread by Rene Flowers

All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Secret Cravings Publishing

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:
This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

PUBLISHER

Secret Cravings Publishing

www.secretcravingspublishing.com

DEDICATION

To Michelle, you cardigan wearing book slore.

I love you, admire you, and want to be you when I grow up.

Cheers!

~Lydia

The Cravings e-book Club

The Cravings Paranormal e-book Club

Have you heard about the newest idea in ebooks, the ebook club? Secret Cravings Publishing has started two ebook clubs and we invite you to become a member of either The Cravings e-book Club or the Cravings Paranormal e-book Club. Join now and get two books absolutely free!

As a member, you will receive
Trouble With a Cowboy*
by Sandy Sullivan and
Forget Me Not**
by Jaden Sinclair FREE, just for joining!

You’ll also receive
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, specially selected by our Editorial Director, every month for a total price of only $9.99 for all 4. This comes out to barely $2.50 per book,
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*
Trouble With a Cowboy
, a western, erotic romance:

Can some slashed tires and an ornery bull bring two hard-headed people together for some fun in the sun and a little more?

**
Forget Me Not
, paranormal erotic romance:

A war is brewing, a war that could destroy an entire vampire race if left unchecked, and Julian Marino has been requested to participate in it.  He stops his search for a long time friend to go home and discovers there is more at stake than just his wants.

As a member of the Cravings Club, you’ll receive 4 books in a variety of genres every month. We will try to match your books to your preferences, however, if you’re a major paranormal fan, I suggest you join the Cravings Paranormal Club. Everything is the same, 4 books every month for $9.99 except that 3 of your 4 books will be paranormal. The remaining book will be of a different genre.

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our monthly newsletter

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special offers not available to the general public

To join and tell us your favorite genres and heat levels  plus which format works best for you, go to the Secret Cravings Publishing website (
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) At the bottom of the page you’ll see a button for the club. You can sign up there and share your preferences for genre, format and heat level with us. You will be charged, automatically, through PayPal, only $9.99 every month.  Your books will be shipped within 1 day after PayPal payment has cleared. You may cancel at any time by clicking on the “unsubscribe” button located on the Cravings Club tab at the bottom of our website and keep the FREE BOOKS as our gift.  

We hope our Secret Cravings books will delight you each and every month.

                                                                                                                        Best wishes,

                                                                                                                        Beth Walker

SIMPLE MAN

Lydia Michaels

Copyright © 2013

Prologue

September

“Who left their pizza on the back of the toilet?”

Shane glanced up from his guitar only to catch Duce taking a huge bite out of said pizza. “You’re disgusting, man. I haven’t cleaned the john in weeks.”

Duce plopped down beside him on the vintage couch—and by vintage, he meant seventies porn pea green with tarnished duct tape accents.

“It’s all one big cycle, my friend. My immunities are superior. I can take it,” Duce said as he shoveled the last bite of crust in his mouth. “Hand me a beer.”

“Did we even order pizza tonight?” Sims asked from the floor, hands fused to a game controller, gaze plastered to the TV.

Shane stilled as he reached into the cooler parked beside the couch and thought about the last time they ordered pizza. He laughed. “Nope.”

Duce shrugged. “Doesn’t taste old.”

“You’re an idiot,” Sims muttered as he decked Duce with a piece of trash he found on the floor.

Shane went back to strumming his guitar, not that anyone could hear him over the pounding stereo and the incessant loop of music coming from the video game on television. His friends had showed up sometime that evening, waking him up and demanding beer. His trailer seemed to be the place they flocked to each weekend, which was fine with him. Since his truck wasn’t working and he didn’t have the money to fix it at the moment, having them come to his place was beyond convenient.

The stench of weed flowed from the backroom. “Who’s in my room?” Shane yelled.

“Tucker. He’s on the phone with Lisa.”

“He’s whipped,” Russ said over the music and the popping crack of can tabs. Lisa was one hot piece. Shane didn’t hold it against Tucker for doing what the rest of them couldn’t seem to do. Lisa was a good girl. Shane sort of hoped she’d hit it off with Tucker and bring some other good girls around for the rest of them. He’d never admit out loud how lonely he sometimes was, but deep down he thought it would be awesome to have a girl look at him the way Lisa sometimes looked at Tucker.

Shaking off his thoughts on the comforts of dating, he got back to the topic at hand. “That better not be my stash he’s smoking.”

“You said you were out,” Duce pouted, eating another slice of mystery pizza.

“No,” Shane corrected. “I said I didn’t have any for you. Dude, where the fuck are you getting the pizza?”

“This is from that box over there,” Duce mumbled over a mouthful of cold cheese and sauce, shrugging toward the box on the floor.

Shane’s lip curled. “You’re disgusting. That’s from last week.”

There was a sudden pounding coming from the aluminum door. Everyone quieted and stared. Shane did a quick head count. Everyone they hung with was already there.

The pounding rattled the door again. “Shane? Shane, it’s Noel. Let me in.”

Shane frowned. What the hell was his sister doing there? Standing from the couch, he walked to the back room. Tucker was lounging on Shane’s unmade bed, joint between his lips, phone to his ear.

“That better not be my shit,” Shane warned before slamming the bedroom door.

He stumbled to the front door. Fuck, he was wasted. Thumb pressed into the latch, he threw the meager door panel wide. “What are you doing here, Noel?”

His sister stood on the sand lot outside his trailer looking a little dried up and sour. Climbing up the crooked, metal step, she shoved past him and scowled at his company.

“Hey, Noel,” Duce greeted.

She glared. “Don’t you guys ever go home?”

They all shrugged. Shane waited as she took in the dirty space with clear revulsion. Hey, no one invited her. He loved his sister, she was the only family he had, but lately she’d been hanging with a crowd that was bad news. It royally pissed him off that—when she did stop by—she made a clear show of disdain for his home and often spoke to his friends in that stuck up, scornful manner she did so well.

By no means was he living the highlife, but that was a result of sacrificing so much to raise his sister when their parents died. He had no idea where this sudden sense of entitlement she presumed came from. She never used to be like that and he wanted his sweet little sister back.

So what if he and his friends killed a few cases of beer a night? And yeah, maybe he toked up from time to time. They weren’t hurting anyone. To his way of thinking, what they did with their weekends was a lot better than what the people Noel hung around with did. He hated the fact that she thought those coked up assholes she hung with were actually friends. Yes, they had nicer cars and more money than Shane’s friends, but that was likely because they were dealing.

He’d tried to talk to Noel, but every time he said one bad word about her ‘friends’ she flew off the handle and got all high and mighty on his ass, putting down his life from her pedestal. Where did she get off? The past few months their relationship had definitely been strained compared to what it once was.

Turning on him, Noel’s sharp blue eyes zeroing in on his appearance and the one pack of warm beer dangling from the rings looped over his fingers, she snapped, “Shane, I need to talk to you.”