by Street, K.
Contents
Playlist
Prologue
1. Molly
2. Easton
3. Molly
4. Molly
5. Molly
6. Easton
7. Molly
8. Molly
9. Molly
10. Paige
11. Easton
12. Molly
13. Easton
14. Molly
15. Easton
16. Molly
17. Easton
18. Molly
19. Easton
20. Molly
21. Easton
22. Easton
23. Molly
24. Easton
25. Molly
26. Easton
27. Molly
28. Easton
29. Molly
30. Easton
31. Molly
32. Easton
33. Easton
34. Molly
35. Easton
36. Molly
37. Easton
38. Molly
39. Easton
40. Molly
41. Easton
42. Molly
43. Easton
44. Easton
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by K. Street
Preview of Where Forever Ends
Chapter One
Copyright © 2019 by K. Street
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at
Cover Designer: Letitia Hasser, Romantic Book Affairs
Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
Proofreader: Judy Zweifel, Judy’s Proofreading
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 9781657973695
For the Quad Squad.
I'd be lost without you girls.
Playlist
“What If I Never Get Over You”— Lady Antebellum
“Fall Apart” — Casey James
“What Ifs” — Kane Brown
“Someone You Loved” — Lewis Capaldi
“Don’t Give Up on Me” — Andy Grammer
“Wanted” — Hunter Hayes
“Stand by You” — Rachel Platten
“Best of You” — Andy Grammer
Prologue
Molly - Ten Years Old
“Are you ready, Molly?” Bridget, my new social worker, asked from the doorway of the bedroom I would no longer share with my two foster sisters after today.
I stared down at my feet, eyes fixated on the matching tiny holes in the toes of the faded pink-and-gray sneakers I wore. The shoes were a size too small, and like me, they had seen better days. I clutched the extended handle of the small suitcase with all I owned tucked inside.
“Molly?” Bridget prodded. “Do you have everything?”
Without answering, I crossed the worn beige carpet and took my place at her side.
She placed a hand on my shoulder. Not wanting to be touched, I shrugged her off.
Straightening her cheerful bubble gum–pink suit jacket, she forced a smile. “Well, we should get going.” She turned and walked up the hall toward the living room.
With a final glance over my shoulder to Rocket’s cage, I gave the hamster a wave and then followed behind Bridget.
Paula Mitchell, my foster mom, stood in the center of the front room, arms crossed over her chest. The Mitchells had been my third foster family. Paula and her husband, Dan, were nice enough. They already had a little boy of their own and two adopted daughters. When Paula had gotten pregnant, I had known my days living with them were numbered.
My departure was inevitable.
I-N-E-V-I-T-A-B-L-E. The consequences of my behavior were inevitable. If only my teacher, Mrs. Hughes, could hear me now.
My gaze met Paula’s.
She regarded me. Her irises moving from the top of my head to my feet and then side to side, almost in a circular motion. Like she was drawing a ring around me. As though I were an object from one of those activity books, the kind where you had to find the thing that didn’t belong.
Wordlessly, I dropped my stare back to my sneakers and made my way to the door.
She’s right. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong anywhere.
When I stepped out onto the porch, I let the screen door slam shut behind me. Paula hated it. The sound always made her jump.
Well … take that, Paula.
I stood, swinging my right foot back and forth, causing the rubber sole of my shoe to squeak against the weathered wooden slats of the porch. I glanced across the yard, taking in my surroundings. The hot Georgia sun beat down on Bridget’s silver sedan parked in the driveway. Unlike Bridget’s clothes, her car wasn’t flashy, and it didn’t try too hard.
Bridget’s and Paula’s voices carried on the warm breeze. Sweat beaded on my brow as I waited, listening to their conversation.
“I’m sorry,” I heard Paula say. “We tried. She’s just too much trouble. I have the other kids to worry about, and now, with the baby …” Her voice trailed off.
I didn’t have to see her to know she was rubbing little circles on her barely there belly.
Paula had a point. I really was too much trouble.
My mama had said the same thing the day she dropped me off on Gran’s doorstep when I was four.
The truth was, Mama hadn’t wanted me.
Nobody did.
Not Mama or the Mitchells. As far as I knew, I didn’t have a daddy, and that was just as well because he probably wouldn’t want me either.
Nobody had ever really wanted me, except for Gran, but the cancer had wanted her more. After she’d died, somebody had tracked my mama down.
She took me to live with her for a little while, and I tried real hard not to be any trouble at all. I behaved in school on the days I went, and I took care of myself. I even learned how to make macaroni and cheese—but not the fancy kind that came in the blue box, only the store brand for us.
When Mama had one of her episodes, I hid in the closet, quiet as a mouse with my Curious George Flies a Kite book. Gran had read it to me so many times that I knew it by heart, and I could see the pictures in my head. I missed Gran something awful, but I tried not to think about her too much because it always made me sad. If I cried, Mama got angry. Then, she gave me something to cry about. And because I was trying so hard to be good, I didn’t cry anymore.
I never told anyone how Mama would sometimes leave me alone at night. I didn’t tell a soul about the mirrors lined with white powder on the rickety metal kitchen table. Or about her special friends. The ones with creepy smiles and eyes that watched me a little too close.
I kept all her secrets.
Then, one day, one of Mama’s special friends yanked me onto his lap and stroked his fat, dirty fingers through my hair. When Mama walked in and saw, she was fighting mad. She screamed at me. Told me I was more trouble than I was worth and how I ought to be thankful that she hadn’t drowned me in the lake like that one woman had done to her two little boys.
The next day, she’d packed my clothes, taken me to some building, and signed over her rights.
Mama was gone, but I was still keeping her secrets.
The creaking of
the door drew my attention, and I looked up to see Bridget.
Her plastered-on smile was meant to reassure me; instead, it had the opposite effect.
“The family you’re going to stay with is really nice,” she declared.
I wasn’t sure which one of us she was trying harder to convince.
“It’s a little crowded, but it’s only temporary until we can find you something more permanent.”
I didn’t say a word as I followed her down the steps and out to her car. When she opened the car door, I slung my suitcase inside and climbed into the backseat. After Bridget watched to make sure I fastened my seat belt, she closed the car door and then went around to get behind the wheel.
I stared out the window, watching the world around me whip by as she drove away.
Bridget’s words spun in my head like the squeaky hamster wheel inside Rocket’s cage.
“… until we can find you something more permanent.”
Permanent was the most ridiculous word I had ever heard.
Nothing lasted forever.
I knew that better than anyone.
Everyone left eventually.
The trick was, you had to leave them first.
One
Molly
Fourteen Years Later
Music thumped through the sound system of Blaze, an ultra-hip nightclub in Midtown Atlanta, where my best friend, Paige Abbott, and I stood at the bar. We had met our freshman year of college when we were assigned to the same dorm room, and she was the closest thing I had to family. After I’d ended things with my ex, Easton Chadwick, I’d broken the lease on my tiny apartment in Maplewood Falls and relocated to Atlanta to live with Paige in a three-bedroom townhouse, part of her family’s extensive real-estate portfolio, just outside the city.
“Here.” Paige held out a martini glass filled with pink liquid, its rim covered in multicolored sugar crystals. “Happy birthday.”
“Thank you.” I took the drink from her outstretched hand.
“My dearest Molls, may your Mondays be short, your wrinkles few, and your orgasms many.”
I threw my head back, laughing at her toast. My orgasms were self-induced these days, and I doubted that would be changing anytime soon.
I plucked out the garnish of pink Starburst that had been impaled on a plastic skewer and clinked my glass with hers. The sweet concoction went down a little too easily. It was a dangerous sort of drink. Cold and fruity and not tasting much like alcohol at all.
Paige tugged me into a hug.
“Thank you for tonight.”
She pulled back. “You might not want to thank me yet.”
“Really?” I asked, suspiciously eyeing her. “And why is that?”
There was no telling what she was up to. She had a sense of adventure that I envied, and she loved pushing me out of my comfort zone. The wicked gleam in her eye told me she was up to something.
Her gaze shifted somewhere over my shoulder, and I turned to see what she was looking at.
“See those girls up there?” She pointed to a large platform constructed of thick glass, which jutted out over the main dance floor.
“The go-go dancers?”
Paige’s grin widened.
I shook my head. “Hell no.”
“Um, hell yes! It will be a blast. Now, drink up and don’t worry about the details. I’ve already taken care of it.”
“Paige—”
“This is happening, Molls. Embrace it. It’s not every day you turn twenty-four.” She held up her glass and offered another toast. “To letting go.”
I took in her expression and knew there was no way I was getting out of this. With an inward groan, I raised my glass, clanking it against hers.
“To letting go,” I repeated her words. I tipped the glass to my lips and drained the liquid. My eyes darted upward. I was going to need all the courage I could get.
Twenty minutes and another martini later, Tank, one of Blaze’s bouncers, escorted us to the upper level of the club. When the next set of dancers took to the platform, Paige and I were among them. The bass pounding through the speakers along with the flashing colorful lights created an atmosphere that was electric. My wristlet dangled from my arm as my body moved in time to the music, and all the things that haunted me daily fell away.
Letting go was glorious.
One song bled into the next as we danced our asses off. By the time the set was over, we had worked up quite a sweat.
“That was amazing,” I told Paige as we descended the stairs, back to the main level of the club.
She linked her arm through mine. “I told you it would be.”
We strode up to the bar where Paige ordered a shot for each of us.
“Here you go, ladies.” The bartender set two shots of Johnnie Walker on the sleek concrete bar top. “I’m Caleb. Let me know if you need anything else.” He winked and then worked his way down the bar, filling drink orders.
Paige nudged my arm. “Damn. Did you see the way he looked at you?”
Instead of answering her, I picked up the whiskey and tossed it back, gesturing for her to do the same. “Come on; let’s dance.”
Paige barely had time to set her own glass down before I was dragging her onto the dance floor.
By the time we left Blaze an hour later and walked the two blocks to the Four Seasons, we were good and buzzed. Just north of completely drunk.
Our heels loudly clacked across the lobby as we made our way to the elevators.
“Stop walking so loud.” She shushed me.
“Me?” I laughed. “You’re the loud one.”
Paige linked her arm through mine. “Hurry. I’m about to piss myself.” She tugged on my limb, and my feet moved faster to keep up with the rest of my body. “Hold the elevator,” she called out.
The doors slid back open, and we stepped inside.
“Seventh floor,” I requested and turned my gaze to the man who stood in the opposite corner of the small space.
My mouth gaped as the doors closed, and the cart started its ascent.
“Hey.” Paige pointed a finger in the direction of the man. “Doesn’t he look like Easton?” she whisper-yelled.
“Molly?” The man’s voice was low and gravelly.
Laughter bubbled out of Paige. “Oh shit, Molls! It is Easton.”
The elevator stopped, and the doors opened. Paige took a step forward, but shock rooted me in place.
My best friend exited into the hall, waving her clutch between me and Easton. “You two kids have fun.” Her attempted wink was aimed at him. “Take her to O-town.”
Before I could tell her to stop talking, the doors closed, leaving me alone with the very man who still owned my body and set my soul on fire.
My heart beat wildly as heat ignited between us, making it harder for me to breathe.
Time seemed to stand still as we took each other in.
“Easton.” His name tumbled from my lips in a breathy moan. I blinked, not sure if I was really seeing him. “Is that—what are you—God, I miss you.”
“You mean that?”
“I—”
The words died on my lips as the elevator doors slowly opened onto the eighteenth floor, reintroducing air into the confined space previously depleted of oxygen. In seconds, we were engulfed in a backdraft of need.
Easton reached for me, pulling me into him. He crashed his mouth to mine, blindly guiding us out of the elevator until I was pinned against the wall.
He tasted like whiskey, and I wanted nothing more than to get drunk on him. My hands gripped the nape of his neck, urging him closer.
He cupped my ass, lifting me off the ground. Instinctually, my legs coiled around his waist, causing the sleek black material of my dress to slide up my thighs. The hard bulge of his cock nestled against my core, and by the time we made it down the hall and came to a halt outside the door to his room, I could feel the dampness between my legs and wondered if he felt it, too.
I kissed my way
to the crook of his neck, nipping and sucking his salty skin as he slid the key card from his wallet and opened the door.
When it clicked shut, he turned our bodies so my back was against the cool, solid surface.
My wristlet slipped from my hand and fell to the floor.
Easton used one arm to support my weight while his free hand gripped my hair in his fist. His mouth dipped to mine in a bruising kiss. One so full of hunger and raw need that I half-expected us to go up in flames as our tongues battled for control. He sucked my lip between his teeth, hard enough to make me surrender.
“Easton,” I moaned.
Releasing his hold on my hair, Easton glided his palm over the back of my thigh. He snaked his hand between us, brushing his fingers against the triangle scrap of fabric covering my pussy.
He rested his forehead on mine and spoke against my lips, “You want me to fuck you, Firefly?”
Closing my eyes, I basked in the sound of the nickname he had given me, falling from his lips. “Yes,” I panted.
“Tell me …” He slipped a finger inside me. “Tell me how much you want me to fuck you. Beg for my cock.” He added another finger, making me gasp.
“Please, East. Please. I need you. I need you inside me.” My head dropped to his shoulder, my hips shifting against his hand. “Please fuck me.”
