by Emma Hart
Table of Contents
Title Page
COPYRIGHT
KISS ME TONIGHT
CHAPTER ONE – REAGAN
CHAPTER TWO – REAGAN
CHAPTER THREE – REAGAN
CHAPTER FOUR – REAGAN
CHAPTER FIVE – NOAH
CHAPTER SIX – REAGAN
CHAPTER SEVEN – REAGAN
CHAPTER EIGHT – REAGAN
CHAPTER NINE – NOAH
CHAPTER TEN – REAGAN
CHAPTER ELEVEN – REAGAN
CHAPTER TWELVE – NOAH
CHAPTER THIRTEEN – REAGAN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN – NOAH
CHAPTER SIXTEEN – REAGAN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN – REAGAN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN – REAGAN
EPILOGUE – REAGAN
THE END
KISS ME AGAIN
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
BOOKS BY EMMA HART
KISS ME TONIGHT
Emma Hart
Copyright © by Emma Hart 2019
First Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
Cover Design by Emma Hart
KISS ME TONIGHT
CHAPTER ONE – REAGAN
Viva La Peen
There was a cock on my phone screen.
No, not a picture of my brother, although that would have been the appropriate introduction for such a thing.
Not a rooster or cockerel or whatever those cock-a-doodle-doo bastards were called.
An actual cock.
A dick.
A peen.
A pork sword.
A semen lollipop.
A jizz teat.
A sperm worm.
A cum gun.
An honest-to-God fucking penis.
Attached to an honest-to-God man.
Who had the honest-to-God wrong motherfucking phone number.
This wasn’t how most Monday mornings started. I didn’t want to drink my coffee with a side of dick pic, thank you very much. I wanted it with a side of hot, buttered toast, or maybe a shot of something stronger if it was that kind of Monday.
It was not that kind of Monday.
Yet.
It was pretty damn close.
I blinked at my phone screen as I stirred my coffee. I’d never received one of these before. I counted myself lucky, given the… liberties… people took with the internet these days.
How did this happen?
Was this one of those situations where a wrong number had been given out at the bar? Or was it a genuine mistake?
I didn’t understand how people could make genuine mistakes with numbers.
Did nobody save to their contacts list anymore?
Let me tell you, if I was going to send a picture of my boobs to someone, I wouldn’t be typing their number in. I’d be performing an FBI-level check-up on a suspicious person.
I probably also wouldn’t be sending a photo of my boobs to anyone in the first place.
I digress.
What was the appropriate course of action here? I mean, it was seven in the morning and I had to drink my shower, take a coffee, and get to work in an hour.
Wait.
That was wrong.
Drink my coffee, take a shower, and get to work in an hour.
That’s better.
See? It was too early to be contemplating the correct response to a wrong-number dick pic.
Was there a correct response?
Was no response the right response?
This was the kind of adulting high school severely lacked in teaching you. Debating the existence of God has never once helped me pay my taxes, cut my grocery bill, or work out my budget.
Or, as it turns out, handle a dick pic.
Jesus Christ, I’d thought the words ‘dick pic’ far too many times this morning.
I was going to need therapy after this.
I locked my phone and put it screen-down on the table in front of me. I needed to shower instead of think about this for a moment.
I honestly believed that there wasn’t a problem that couldn’t be solved in a hot shower.
I finished my coffee and headed into the bathroom. After I turned on the shower, I brushed my teeth, and when the room was suitably filled with steam, I stripped off and climbed in.
The hot water beat down on me, slicking my long, purple hair to my neck and back as it soaked it through. I closed my eyes and ran my fingers through my hair, and then reached for the shampoo.
As I massaged it in, my mind wandered back to the situation at hand. The easiest thing to do would be to wrinkle my nose up and delete it, then move on with my life. Maybe block the number.
Did the sender know they’d sent it to the wrong person? I know you can’t exactly take back a text message, but I’d like to think that most people would apologize when they realized they’d sent such a personal picture to the wrong person.
So… Chances were, he had no idea he’d gotten the wrong number.
I rinsed the shampoo from my hair.
So, I had two options, didn’t I? Delete it, act like it never happened, and hope that he never texted me again. Or I could send him a quick message that said sorry, wrong number, have a nice day!
And move on.
I finished in the shower after conditioning my hair and soaping my body and got out. Condensation had my mirror all foggy with droplets running down it, so I wrapped myself in towels and left, making sure to crack open the window so it could dry out.
I dried off and got dressed in leggings and a loose, button-down shirt, then pulled my wet hair up into a twisted bun on top of my head.
I’d made my decision about what to do with this text message somewhere between my underwear getting stuck on my wet shins and almost hitting my elbow on my dresser.
I was going to send him a nice text telling him about his mistake.
I’d want to know.
I snatched my phone up from the table and unlocked it. The message flashed up instantly, and I hit the reply box.
ME: Hey, sorry, but you’ve got the wrong number.
Then, with my conscience cleared and the knowledge that I’d performed my good deed for the day, I left my apartment headed for the florist store where I’d worked for the last ten years.
***
“Thank you, Mrs. Cooper! I’ll see you next week.” I smiled as the elegant lady in her late fifties waved goodbye with her weekly bouquet of lilies in hand.
“See you then, honey!”
The bell above the door dinged twice, once when she opened it and again when it swung shut behind her. The blast of late-summer heat from the outside was unwelcome, but it quickly dissipated as my air-conditioning ate it up.
This was probably the coldest store in town, but I think that was probably the reason why everyone came in during the summer. Sales were up, and it wasn’t just because homecoming season was coming up.
People came into escape the Southern heat, then ended up buying things.
I wasn’t against using the weather to sell flowers.
We sold them for dead people, so…
I checked my phone, but the mystery picture sender still hadn’t replied. It was two in the afternoon, so they were either too embarrassed to respond, or they hadn’t seen it yet.
With a sigh, I put my phone back under the counter. I figured I’d keep the text for a day or so before deleting it, just in case he did reply. Knowing me, I�
��d forget it tomorrow and end up with a random text I couldn’t put into context.
The bell rang again, and I looked up in time to see Halley and Ava at the door. They were both wearing running clothes and had water bottles in their hands, but their expressions couldn’t be more different.
Halley was a little winded, with pink cheeks and a smirk on her lips.
Ava, on the other hand… Well, wisps of her black hair were stuck to her face with sweat. She resembled a tomato, more than anything, and I could feel the murderous vibes that radiated off her.
She stormed past me and went through to the back. There was a clunk as the refrigerator door opened, and I raised my eyebrows as a huge, “Ahhhhh!” filtered through the building.
I turned and met Halley’s eyes. “I see running is going well.”
“About as well as a dumpster fire.” She lifted her bottle and took a long drink. “She is not a runner. She’s worse than you.”
“I can run. I just don’t like to.” I pulled my stool beneath me and sat down. “How long is she going to stand in my refrigerator?”
Halley shrugged, sitting on one of the spare stools in front of the counter. “Presumably until she realizes it’s just as cool out here and she can sit down here.”
“What happened today?”
“The sun,” she replied dryly. “It’s her day off, so instead of getting up to run before work like we normally do, she slept in. She refused to run tonight when it’s cooler, so…” She motioned up and down her body. “Apparently, Ava doesn’t like sweating.”
“Ava doesn’t like anything.”
“I heard that.” There was a clunk as the fridge door shut again. Ava emerged from the back, still looking as if she’d run a four-minute-mile, and wiped the bottom of her tank top over her face. “I like plenty of things, but running in the heat isn’t one of them.”
Unbothered, Halley said, “I told you to wake up early this morning.”
Ava looked at her. “We might have to break up.”
I laughed when Halley rolled her eyes. Since they’d started running a few weeks ago, Ava had threatened it at least twice a week.
It was yet to happen.
“Hey, you guys—”
Halley’s phone rang, cutting me off. “Sorry. Hold on.” She stood to pull it out of the zip pocket in her yoga pants and answered it. “Hello? Yeah—no, shut up… For the love of God, she’s supposed to be supervised! … Ugh, fine. I’ll be there soon.”
I shared a look with Ava.
Halley hung up and looked at us. “My grandmother escaped and is terrorizing the village.”
I fought a smile. Ever since she’d made the choice to move back in with Halley’s dad and stepmom, Margaret Dawson had made as much of a nuisance of herself as she possibly could without getting arrested.
Given that my Great Aunt Bethel and her partner in crime was also now living back in Creek Falls, there was only one way to put it.
We were all fucked.
Halley looked at Ava. “My car is parked a couple blocks away. Do you want a ride home?”
“Sure.”
“Okay. I just need to use the bathroom before we leave. Give me a second.” She slid off the stool and headed for the back.
Ava looked at me. “Hey, Reagan, weren’t you going to say something before Halley’s phone rang?”
“I forgot,” I lied, lifting my shoulders in a light shrug. Right then, the store phone rang. “Hi! This is the Wright Bouquet, Reagan speaking. How can I help you?”
The woman on the end said she needed a bouquet for her grandma’s eightieth birthday to be delivered to her front door. I confirmed that we could absolutely do that and waved goodbye to Reagan and Ava when they left halfway through the call.
It took ten minutes, but we eventually narrowed down the selection options. I wrote down her email and promised I’d send example photos over as soon as I could. She thanked me profusely before hanging up.
I pulled my cell out from beneath the counter to email her. A new message was on the screen from a number I recognized from this morning, and I pressed my fingerprint against the screen to unlock it.
DICK GUY: Shit, I’m so sorry. Sorry if it offended you in any way.
I raised my eyebrows. It took a lot more than a dick picture to offend me. I hit the reply box to assure him it was fine.
ME: Don’t worry about it. I’ve seen worse dicks. Yours is pretty nice, as far as dicks go.
Was that a little forward?
Maybe.
But he’d started it, so…
DICK GUY: LOL. Thanks. As far as dicks go, I’m pretty proud of it.
ME: You should be. Although your picture-taking angle is a little off. Hold the phone flatter against your stomach for maximum effect.
DICK GUY: Thanks for the tip. I don’t usually send these kinds of pictures, so that’s the last time I use online dating apps after watching a football game with the guys.
ME: Yeah. Bad idea, dude. I’m guessing she gave you the wrong number.
DICK GUY: Unless you’re the blonde girl I was chatting to at 2am, yeah.
ME: Not even close. My hair is purple.
DICK GUY: Thank fuck for that.
DICK GUY: Anyway, again, I’m really sorry… apologize to your boyfriend or husband or whoever for me.
ME: Nobody to apologize to. I’m single. It was an honest mistake.
DICK GUY: You’re being pretty nice about this.
ME: Like I said, nice dick. *shrug emoji*
DICK GUY: Six billion people in the world, and the person I sent it to was someone who compliments me. LOL. Thank you.
ME: You’re welcome. I believe in complimenting someone every day.
DICK GUY: Solid idea. Well, I’ve never seen them, but I’m sure you have great tits.
I burst out laughing. He wasn’t wrong, in my opinion. I did have great tits, especially depending on the bra I wore, but I wasn’t going to share that anytime soon.
ME: Thanks. If I was a picture sending type, I’d send one to thank you for the presumptuous comment, but I’m not, so you’ll just have to imagine a great pair of tits and attach them to a bodyless, headless person with purple hair.
DICK GUY: I’m not the picture type either, but we all make mistakes while under the influence of beer and your team winning.
ME: I didn’t think football season had started yet.
DICK GUY: College football. I played once upon a time and like to yell at everyone that they’re doing it wrong.
ME: Don’t tell me you were the quarterback.
DICK GUY: All right, I won’t.
ME: Ugh. So cliché. The quarterback has a great dick. That’s been written in every football-themed romance novel ever. Nobody ever cares about the big guys in defense.
DICK GUY: None of the guys I’ve played with have had abs. According to years of dating, abs are important.
ME: They’re certainly a bonus. A bit like winning the lottery. Five balls are great, but they’d be better with the bonus ball.
DICK GUY: Interesting analogy. I assume great tits work the same way.
ME: Obvious. I’m a fan of equality. Like eating a salad for dinner and a slice of cake for dessert.
DICK GUY: Again, solid idea. Sounds like you have your life figured out.
ME: Not at all.
DICK GUY: We seem to have a lot in common.
ME: Except a nice dick. I don’t have one of those.
DICK GUY: I don’t have nice tits, so again, even.
ME: Huh. You’re right.
DICK GUY: It happens. LOL. I have to go to work. Sorry again, and thanks for being cool about all this.
ME: Don’t worry about it. Shit happens.
CHAPTER TWO – REAGAN
Shit Really Does Happen
“Aunt Bethel,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. “I am not going to stage a boudoir shoot for you to give Harry James for his birthday. He has a pacemaker and a stent. You’ll kill the poor man.”
She leaned over the kitchen table, her blue hair flying in corkscrew curls around her face. I guessed she’d gotten a perm at some point in the last few days, because it hadn’t looked like that the last time I’d seen her.
She pointed at me, her bright-pink nail flashing through the air as numerous bangles jangled on her wrist. “You should see the posters in his bedroom at the care home!”
“I don’t think they like it when you call it a care home. They prefer the term ‘shared community’ at Creek Community.”
“Creek Community is a stupid name for a care home, and if there are live-in nurses, it’s either a hospital or a care home.”
“Nurses don’t live at the hospital.”
“Ah-ha! It’s a care home!” She threw her arm into the air in triumph, and I winced, waiting for her bone to pop out or something.
“It doesn’t matt—wait, how did you get into Harry’s bedroom? Did he let you in? If so, you’ve already killed him, Aunt Bethel. He doesn’t need your nudes.”
She sniffed, standing up and straightening her ghastly orange dress. “Margaret and I were there for a card event they were hosting and he showed me around.”
I stared at her. “You broke into his room, didn’t you?”
“I would do nothing of the sort!”
“You broke into his room and snooped around.”
Leaning forward, she looked around conspiratorially and whispered, “He takes a lot of medication. I could make some money on the black Amazon.”
“The black Amazon?”
“Under the table deals. You know. The shady guys at gas stations with their non-descript brown paper envelopes.”
