Just Kiss Me Read Online Free

him at all, even a little, she might think of changing his name from Butt Head to Handsome Henry. Only she didn’t like him and he was mad. Real mad. So mad he looked scary. So scary his squinty eyes shined like wet onyx. His cheeks turned a deep red with it, but no matter his anger, Henry was a Southern boy. He’d been raised with manners and morals that would never allow him to hit a girl. Just because he wouldn’t hit her, didn’t mean he wasn’t scary as all get-out.
    “What are you doing in my room, Vivien?”
    She held up the feather duster. “Cleaning.”
    “My underwear?” He developed a worrying little tic at one corner of his mouth.
    No, she didn’t fear him physically, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t in trouble. If he ratted her out, she was in deep, deep do-do with her momma. “Your sock drawer, actually,” she corrected him.
    He pointed to the box at her feet. “Those were in the back of my sock drawer.”
    In the middle, but she thought it best not to quibble. Instead, she looked behind his back to the empty doorway and wondered if she could get around him and make a run for it.
    “Does your momma know you snoop?”
    The best defense was always a good offence. “Does your momma know you have condoms in your sock drawer?” She slid a bit to her right and figured her best hope for an exit was to distract him until she could get between him and the door. “What does climax control mean?”
    The little tic got a little scarier. “Ask Macy Jane when you tell her what you do up here when no one is watching you.”
    “I’m not going to tell my momma.”
    “Oh, I think you are.” He took a step forward and towered over Vivien.
    She shook her head, more scared than she thought possible or wanted to let him know. No way could she tell her momma. She’d get mad then sad and might stay in bed for a week. She might even “take a switch” to Vivien like she always threatened. This time she might actually get around to it. “If you don’t tell on me, I won’t tell on you.”
    “No one cares about condoms at my age.” As if to prove he was eighteen, he lifted a hand to scratch the dark stubble on his jaw.
    That was probably true. Vivien crossed her arms over her chest and brought out the big guns. “Your momma will care when I tell her about Tracy Lynn Fortner.”
    His hand fell to his side and his voice got real low. “What did you say?”
    “You heard me.”
    He stared at her without blinking. “How do you know about that?”
    Years of snooping, of course.
    “No one knows about that.”
    “Not yet.”
    He took a step closer and grabbed her shoulders in his big hands. “You whisper a word about that,” he said through clinched teeth, “and I’ll choke you to death.”
    She believed him. His black eyeballs bored holes in her and she tried to swallow past the sudden lump in her throat. She guessed she’d been wrong about him and his manners and could practically feel his hands on her throat.
    He shook her. “Do you hear me?”
    Her head snapped back.
    “If I hear one word about that, I’ll know it came from your mouth.” He shook her one last time and dropped his hands. “I’ll hunt you down like Ole Yeller. Got it?”
    “Yes.” The second his grip had eased, she’d run like hell and hadn’t stopped until she was in the carriage house, locked inside her bedroom.
    Fifteen years had passed since the horrible condom incident and Vivien saw little of Henry after that day. She’d steered real clear of him. Not that it had been necessary. Once Henry went off to college, he hadn’t returned very often to Charleston.
    Vivien pushed open the French doors to the courtyard and kicked off her shoes. Strong winds blew the tops of the trees and scattered leaves about the old brick. She hadn’t ever breathed a word about Tracy Lynn Fortner. Not because she feared Henry’s wrath, but even at thirteen, she knew that Tracy Lynn would suffer much more than Henry. Vivien might have been a