Title: Your Mess
Is Mine
Author: Stephanie
Alba
Release Date: May
31, 2016
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Goodreads
I
don't trust people who follow their hearts. Hearts are peculiar things.
They're necessary muscles that keep us alive by pumping blood and
oxygen into our veins. Hearts are also compulsory, often making us foolish.
They pull us towards others with a force that aches, burns, and satiates you
all at once. Before you know it that mass of tissue is no longer
yours.
Maybe mine never
was.
In my case, that draw came from
a stranger that left my heart feeling both fulfilled and
consumed.
I didn't expect to
fight her for the last standby seat to New York City. I didn't plan on
letting her get under my skin. Or the way her vulnerability tore me up inside
and compelled me to care for her. She didn't plan on letting me witness
her chaos.
Her anxious heart and my
perfectionist mind let things get messy.
And though we didn't
plan for it, our interrupting of each others' lives was exactly what we
needed.
Sometimes the mess is the most
beautiful part of life.
Chapter
1
Hudson
The airport felt like a
claustrophobic beehive. People swarmed and whizzed past me, completely
disregarding my personal space. As if travel didn't already suck, as if
the process of taking off shoes and going through X-ray machines where some
dude sees the outline of your dick wasn't miserable enough. The
experience might've been better with a gorgeous woman to impress, but
of course, I always got stuck with bearded, hefty men.
Truthfully, I didn't
hate traveling. Not by a long shot. Traveling can change your view of the
world. For some people, it can make it seem a lot bigger, filled with cultures
and places you can only imagine. For others, it cinches the circumference of
the Earth like a belt tightens around your waist. I loved the idea of
discovering the world. Unfortunately, my late twenties consisted of traveling
for work at a constant rate, which left little time for me to plan vacations
I'd hoped for as a college student. But I guess I was lucky to be where
I was when I was. Though I never believed in being in the right place at the
right time, I learned the truth behind that notion that October
evening.
Gate C3 in San Francisco
International Airport was booming. Sitting there, I had no idea that
I'd be traveling nonstop for the next five months, or that my life was
going to radically change. My planet was suddenly going to feel connected and
small, yet devastatingly large. Most importantly, I had no clue that the change
was going to come with a pair of gray combat
boots.
My flight to New York City was
overbooked, but the accounting firm I worked for liked saving money, which
provided me the torture of waiting on standby. Luckily, I usually had the good
fortune to get on the plane despite being on a waiting list. And things were
definitely looking up. The sexy, red-headed attendant winked when she said I
was first up if someone didn't
show.
Seeing as my flight
didn't leave for another hour, I decided some caffeine would help me
work during the flight. I'd be meeting with Daniel Ellis the following
morning, a client who had been our big catch for years now. This was my chance
to prove myself as a CPA in hopes of making partner at the company. I'd
clawed my way up from the bottom, from taking care of tedious residential taxes
to kissing every client's ass. Coffee was absolutely necessary to
ensure I didn't fuck things up.
Walking to the food court, I
considered how airports never really close and how difficult it must be to keep
them clean. They sometimes feel like an awful combination of restrooms and jail
cells. People come in and out, bringing their germs along with them, leaving
that trail of bacteria for the next lot to pick up. It's filthy if you
really think about it. And then you get stuck there with a bunch of bitchy
people trapped in a large holding room till you get shut into a metal tube
towards your next
destination.
Dunkin Donuts was my solution
to being stuck there. Of course, the line was never-fucking-ending. If I
didn't desperately need the caffeine, I would have turned my ass back
towards the gate. As I browsed through e-mails on my phone, I overheard
different tenors and tones ordering their fix: nonfat cappuccino,
coffee–black, iced mocha latte, etc. Each one brought me closer to
the counter. Finally, with only one person ahead of me, I looked up.
Petite, toned legs stood before
me in skintight black leggings that led to scuffed combat boots. Impulsively,
my eyes trailed up the rest of her body, noticing her luscious ass contrasting
her thin waist. She had squared yet feminine shoulders—a
dancer's body, and a perfect one at that. My blood heated as I started
imagining what I'd do to a body like that. She wouldn't know
what hit her. But then she spoke, and that dark-haired beauty let out words in
a deep, sensual voice. It sounded like pure seduction and sweetness tangled
together. I suddenly needed to match a face to that sound. Desperate
wasn't something I did, but with her it began with just the sound of
her words.
"Hi, an espresso,
please," she said, putting her weight on one foot while eyeing the
donuts. "Oh," she hummed, and the tight moan sent a jolt of
blood to my groin, causing me to readjust myself. What the
fuck is wrong with me? I'd reacted as such to
plenty of women, but not because of their voice, and certainly not while they
stared at sweets. But she was a curious little thing. "And an old
fashioned donut too."
Moving closer, I tried catching
a glimpse of her features, but it was no use. The only way I'd see her
was if I was willing to risk looking like a creep, and I was already getting
stranger-danger glances from the guy next to me. He was probably trying to do
the same. Judgmental asshole. I waited, the two minutes dragging as she paid.
Finally, she moved for me to order and I was able to take in her profile.
Fuck
me.
I unavoidably understood the
word stunned, because this girl was stunning. My body became stiff, each of my
functions inept. All I could do was look.
Her fair skin contradicted her
dark, almost black mane. Her lips were plump, yet delicate, the bottom one
slightly fuller than the top. The pervert in me instantly imagined what
they'd feel like all over my skin, specifically where I was currently
throbbing. She must have felt me watching, because she turned to look right at
me and caught my blatant staring. That delectable mouth offered me an acknowledging
smile. I didn't pay it much attention. Correction:
I couldn't pay it much
attention. All I could focus on were her hypnotic, amber-colored eyes. They
burned through my skin the way whiskey burns your throat on the way down, but
warms your chest. It hurt. It seared my gaze to hers. That stare left me
dizzy.
My lips parted, and I nervously
shifted my weight. My clumsy movement left me bumping into the man beside me.
His scalding coffee poured down my back and into my ass crack. I'd like
to say I played it cool, but there was nothing cool about the burning skin that
forced me to emit a pathetic
screech.
Yes, a
screech. You know, the same sound girls make when they see spiders.
Now, mix that in with the forward hip thrust I did to avoid more coffee on my
ass, and well, I was just the quintessence of masculinity. Fucking Thor right
there.
When you get embarrassed, your
first reaction is not to check if you're okay. No, it's to see
how many spectators witnessed you making a complete idiot of yourself. The guy
behind me apologized profusely, while the people in line behind me all
stared—some wincing, others trying to suppress
laughter.
It was incredibly
awkward. No big deal. It's not like anyone of value
saw it… Except
her.
My eyes darted to find her
staring, and that's when I felt another kind of burning all over my
face. Like some neurotic asshole, I turned and strutted to the bathroom. I
could've pretended it never happened, but the way she'd looked
at me before my mortifying moves had left me exposed. She'd studied me
with what appeared to be equal interest in my body. I wanted that look again,
wanted to take in the way she perused my height, my face, and softly hummed to
herself in what seemed like an approving assessment. It had turned me on. But I
couldn't fucking go back, not after that
debacle.
I wanted more, but I
didn't even know where to begin. Ironically enough, I wouldn't
have to go far.
Stephanie Alba lives
in Miami, Florida with her husband, her toddler and their two dogs, Milo and
Van Gogh. She's obsessed with Disney, British history, traveling,
romances novels, movies, and Halloween. When she's not glued to her
laptop or writing in her notebook, she's either: running, planning her
next vacation, binge-watching Netflix, reading, or chasing her
toddler.
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