Jamison (Beautiful Mine #3) Read Online Free

surprisingly pleased to see me, though it may have been the alcohol.
    “Sophie, is it?” I asked, knowing damn well exactly who she was.
    “Jamison,” she said. “How’d you find this hole in the wall?”
    “Flashing neon sign.” I took a sip of my scotch and sat the glass down carefully, with intention. “Storm’s bad out there. I’m heading out soon.”
    She glanced out the windows. From where we sat, the streetlights were whited out. We were going to need a North Star and a dog sled to get home.
    Sophie bit her lip. “Mind if I walk with you? I don’t know if I should walk home alone in this.”
    “Not at all,” I said, hiding my shock.
    “Mia, you going to be okay?” she asked, turning to her friend who nodded drunkenly. “She lives upstairs. She’ll be fine.” Sophie patted Mia on the back. “Vinny, make sure she gets upstairs, okay?”
    “Always,” Vinny said, eyeing me like he was trying to memorize my face, as if he were some kind of bodyguard for his two little regulars.
    I tossed back the rest of my drink and stood up to button my coat, dreading the cold as Sophie ran off to get her things from their table.
    “Ready?” she asked, coming back fully dressed and appropriately bundled up for the blizzard we were about to face.
    The jingling of the doorbells provided a jolly send off into the blistering cold and whipping winds. Sophie’s hood flew down, blowing her dark hair every which way as she squinted to see through the blowing snow. Every step forward brought us closer to our street, and the heavy winds provided more than their fair share of resistance on our journey.
    Sophie struggled to keep her hood up, and I reached over to grab her arm. “Walk behind me. It’ll block the wind.”
    She tightly gripped the back of my coat as we forged ahead, looking like a two-person conga line, but I didn’t care.
    Several long, freezing cold minutes later, we’d arrived at our street.
    “You going to be okay from here?” I asked, barely able to see her face through all the flurrying flakes that swirled around us. She nodded, her dark eyes blinking and glassy from the cold. Her place was just up ahead. I still had to jet across the street, hoping not to get hit by blinded cars, and make it to my building’s entrance.
    “See you around,” she said, lingering longer than she had to. We were both shivering blocks of ice, standing in a wind that bit through our layers and froze us all the way to our bones.
    I nodded, turning to look for traffic.
    “You want some hot chocolate, or something?” she asked. “I have some. If you want.”
    I’d fully resolved to spend my night alone, like I did most nights.
    “Yeah,” I said. “I could come up for a bit.”
    A short time later I was sitting on her couch, trying to warm my bones as she scuffed around the kitchen in big, fuzzy slippers, heating a kettle of hot water on her stove and rambling some sort of small talk about the weather.
    I relaxed back into the sofa. Something about Sophie made me at ease. Not a lot of women had that effect on me. My entire life I’d always played roles: the overachieving son. The picture perfect boyfriend. Sloane didn’t place any expectations on me. She was who she was. I was who I was.
    The kettle whistled and she grabbed it, quieting the high-pitched screech and filling two mugs before dumping in two powder packets of hot chocolate mix with miniature marshmallows that dissolved on contact.
    “Here we are,” she said, bringing them to her coffee table and taking a seat next to me. “If this doesn’t warm us up, we’re screwed. Super hot. Be careful.”
    I palmed the warm mug. “How’s that ankle?”
    She rolled her eyes. “If you must know, Dr. Jamison , it’s fine now. Doesn’t hurt at all.”
    “You’re lucky,” I said, blowing on the steaming liquid under my lips.
    “How long have you lived here?” she asked.
    “Just moved in last year,” I said. “I’m from Kansas, originally. Went to