Questing Heart: Fighting Heart Erotic Bad Boy Romance Series Book 2 Read Online Free Page A

coffee.
    With minimal fuss I got away from Brandon’s flat. Amanda was in the kitchen drinking milk. I passed her by and called ‘catch you later,’ before she had a chance to check out my luggage. Brandon was still fast asleep, snoring and smelling of too much Armagnac from the night before. I didn’t join him in that drink, and it apparently left him a little too far gone to wake me for the usual. I didn’t mind. If we had sex at all now, it was good, but for me sex was a sensual activity where I could only truly reach the heights if I cared about the person I was with. Now, when I felt Brandon near me, when I felt him inside me, I somehow fought the pleasure and I resisted him in my mind. I’m sure he felt my resistance. Even when I came, it wasn’t with the explosive abandon of our first times. There’s no way he couldn’t feel it, but I was past worrying about that.
    My original flat was three storeys above the Loampit Inn, a boisterous pub full of loud Irish music and brawls ready to happen at any moment. I had only been there once, and it seemed like the place had been sucked through a wormhole straight from a mid-twentieth century Dublin. The noise from the pub used to keep me awake for the first night or two, but soon it became part of the background scene, like birds in the countryside.
    It was early now and the Loampit Inn was quiet, but still had the aura of last night’s drunken party. I walked around the side of the pub to the flat’s entrance at the back of the building and climbed the steps. I took out my key. I felt at peace being in my own space again. Before I went to my room, I went to the kitchen and set about making a strong cup of coffee. I stole milk from a half empty litre bottle with Bess’s name on it - Bess who always had everything. She wouldn’t miss a little milk. Then I slumped into a chair by the foldaway dining table and listened to the silence.
    Before I’d drunk a half cup, Bess, came into the kitchen and did a double take. Her hair was a mess, her eyes were all puffy with sleep, and she was in her baggy checked pyjamas.
    “What are you doing here, Ash?”
     
    “Good morning, Ashley. Welcome home. Oh, how we’ve missed you,” I replied.
    “Yes and of course, but… you moved in with Brandon Lynes.”
    “Kind of. For a little while. But not really ‘moved in’ more like, hooked up with.”
    Bess rubbed her eyes and grabbed the kettle and took a mug for herself.
    “Hooked up, yes. But I got that note you sent last week. Come on, Ashley. You could have just phoned me, for fuck’s sake.”
    My heart started to burn again. I was bristling. I downed the dregs of my coffee.
    “A letter? Can you show me this letter?”
    “Ashley, I’ve just woken up. I’ll get it for you later. But the fact is …what? Why do you want to see your letter?”
    “Because I didn’t write one, Bess.”
    “You fucking did. You gave notice on your room, Ash. Because you’d moved in with Brandon. That’s what you said. We can’t fund an empty room here, none of us can, so we talked to a few girls in the department and…”
    “Bess, you’ve given my room to someone else?”
    “Um. Yes. Because of your letter, Ash. You dumped us in it. You moved out on us. We had to move quick-smart or we’d be liable for a month’s rent. You do understand that right?”
    I nodded, but my face must have been deadly serious with unhidden anger.
    “The new girl paid a deposit and we made her sign an agreement so she couldn’t do what you just did to us, Ashley.”
    “Bess. I told you. I didn’t do anything, you did hear that, didn’t you Bess?”
    Bess’s face froze. She was stuck. She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m sorry Ash. We signed an agreement with this girl - we didn’t have one with you. She has rights now.”
    “What about my rights? What about my stuff?”
    “It’s all there piled up in the corner of your room. I was going to call you about it this weekend, but I’ve been busy