Danger, Sweetheart Read Online Free Page A

know why you don’t quit it.” Rake had drained his water glass upon sliding into the booth and now snatched and slurped Blake’s.
    â€œUnlike some, I cannot simply jettison my responsibilities when they become tiresome.” But oh, in a perfect world … one where Rake isn’t terrible … “Not that I haven’t been tempted; surely I’ve done nothing to be saddled with you.”
    â€œDid so. It’s your own fault for insisting on being born first. You probably elbow-checked me on your way out of the womb. Now c’mon, why are we here? Why’d you call? What couldn’t wait until our birthday?”
    â€œOur mother is in Sweetheart and she needs us. She hates it, but she needs us.”
    The wiseass grin dropped off like it had been slapped away (which, Blake had to admit, he had been tempted to do on several occasions) and Rake’s teasing mien was replaced with utter seriousness. “Tell me,” he ordered.
    So Blake did.

 
    Three
    One year earlier
    â€œI don’t understand you, boy,” Shannah said, shaking her head. She was as slim as she had been in her twenties, twice as willful, fifteen times as wealthy.
    â€œâ€˜Boy,’ really? Don’t you normally save that for Rake?”
    â€œHe’s not here yet,” she replied, as if that made any sense at all.
    Blake sighed and stared into his scotch and soda. “We’re not actually interchangeable, you know.”
    â€œHush,” she told the frowning man a head taller and forty pounds heavier, and he hushed. “Look at you.”
    â€œNo need; I could just look at Rake when he arrives. It’s the same thing.”
    She ignored that. “Handsome, smart, rich, well-read.”
    â€œWell-read is last on your list?”
    â€œFertile, ready to settle down and spread your seed.”
    â€œI am not. Discussing my seed.” Blake hid his head in his hands, the better to shut out the restaurant, the bright lights, his mother’s relentless interrogation about his seed, and his sudden desire for self-inflicted felony assault. “Please kill me instead.”
    â€œMy point—”
    â€œOh, good, you have one.”
    â€œâ€”is you don’t have to do your silly lone-wolf thing.”
    â€œThat,” he said, taking a careful sip of the scalding tea, “is a relief. I’ll stop immediately.”
    She smacked her knuckles, hard, on the table, an attention-getter he’d been familiar with since toddlerhood. When the knuckles hit the table/counter/top of his skull, it was past time to pay attention. “What was wrong with Carrie? Or Sandy?”
    â€œTerry and Mandy wanted things I didn’t.”
    His mother just looked at him, and after a long moment he elaborated: “Every girlfriend I’ve had—”
    â€œSome of them were older than you, boy, and not girls. ”
    â€œEvery womanfriend I’ve had—”
    â€œNo, never mind; that sounds idiotic.”
    â€œEvery female chum I’ve had liked my money far more than they liked me.” A little more would be tolerable, probably; somewhat more he could live with. How unfortunate it was never a contest. It was always far more. Far more. Faaaaar more. And yes, he could hear the chorus of poor baby! in his head, thank you very much. They all sounded like the fiercely loving woman sitting in front of him. His self-pity, he often thought, was matched only by his self-loathing.
    (He would never say such a thing to his mother. Also on the list of things he would never say to his mother: The ones who didn’t care about his money liked him for his cock, and only his cock. And unlike the women interested in his checkbook, the ones who liked his cock were up front about it. On the whole, he preferred the latter.)
    â€œAll right,” his mother was saying, “you haven’t found the right female chum yet; it happens. It doesn’t mean you