First Taste (The Lust List: Devon Stone #1) Read Online Free Page A

First Taste (The Lust List: Devon Stone #1)
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Devon.
    “And how do you feel about the job itself? Or rather, how is this job making you feel?”
    “I’ll be working around a lot of people—important people.” And Devon. What is his deal? He’s nice to me. He hits on me. Then he completely brushes me to the side like I’m…like I’m nothing.
    “When you say ‘important people’, be careful to not belittle your own worth. You’re important as well—”
    “Um, no. I’ll be working with famous people. Rich people. Influential and powerful people.” According to what Mr. Keenly claimed, at least. “It wasn’t a jab against myself.”
    “Very well. Tell me how our experiment is going. How have your days been?”
    She’s talking about my alarms. I don’t see what the problem is with them. I grip my phone tighter as I answer. “Fine. I’ve been fine. Check the clock a lot more often, but it’s okay. I did have to turn them on today. But just today.”
    “And how many did you set?”
    I look down at my phone, though I already know the answer. “Eight.”
    “Can you tell me what they were all for?”
    Of course I can. I always can. I recite them in order. “8:00 wake up. 11:00 get ready. 12:00 leave for interview. 12:30 interview. 2:30 leave for this appointment. 3:00 appointment. 5:00 make dinner. 8:00 set tomorrow’s schedule.” I shouldn’t have admitted that last one. This is the closest thing to exposure therapy I’ve agreed to, and I’d promised I’d try my hardest.
    “Do you plan to use them tomorrow?”
    I know damn well I will. I have to go back to that mansion in the morning. “No. I don’t think so.”
    “Good. Keep working on that. Next month, I want to discuss the next step I’d like you to try.”
    “Which would be…?” I don’t want to try anything new. If I’m being honest, I don’t want to even come here. She’s the only person that makes me talk about my brother, Jared. But that’s why I keep coming back… because she’s the only person that makes me talk about him.
    “Don’t worry about it. For now, you know what we’re working on.”
    Don’t worry about it? That’s an evil trick. She said that knowing I will worry for the entire next month.
    “Can I ask you something?” she says, as though she wouldn’t if I said no. “How would the events of your brother’s passing have changed if you relied on all these alarms back then?”
    She’s asked me this before, so I think she’s checking to see if my answer’s changed. It hasn’t. I think back to five years ago.
    * * *
    I’d skipped school to hang out with my friends instead. Tyler and I were dating at the time. He had an older brother who’d sell us weed for unreasonable prices. Then Tyler and I and our little group of friends would hang out in Tyler’s pool house wasting away entire days sometimes. And when it was just me and Tyler, those days would be spent naked, getting lost in each other. His tan, Spanish skin. My purple-streaked hair. It was easy to be carefree and spontaneous back then.
    It was a Friday, and I was still high when I finally left to pick up my little brother. I’d be late, but fourteen-year-old Jared couldn’t do anything about it even if he did get mad. I was doing him the favor. Pulling into the high school, I was too busy thinking up excuses for my teachers in case they noticed me in my car. I didn’t notice the cluster of police cars blocking my usual route to the parking lots until I had to slam on my brakes to avoid rear-ending one of them.
    “Shit.”
    I looked around, paranoid. Did anybody see me do that?
    That’s when I noticed the fire truck. The ambulance. The flashing lights from the cop cars. The ‘Do Not Cross’ yellow tape. All blocking off the familiar entrance to the woods to the right of the school. So many kids—including myself—took that path leading to a half-assed tree house built by some freshmen several years before. A group of seniors back then had taken it over, and ever since it’s where
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