Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read

Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.ilovenovels.com Sat, 28 Feb 2026 17:33:43 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0 http://www.ilovenovels.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/favicon.png Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.ilovenovels.com 32 32 Up To No Good (Mississippi Smoke #10) Read Online Abbi Glines http://www.ilovenovels.com/up-to-no-good-mississippi-smoke-10-read-online-abbi-glines Sat, 28 Feb 2026 17:33:43 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/up-to-no-good-mississippi-smoke-10-read-online-abbi-glines Genre: Alpha Male Authors: Abbi Glines Series: Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines
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Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)

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Elsie
My eyes may have opened that morning, but the nightmare had only just begun. Not only had I lost my parents, but I didn’t even get the chance to grieve their deaths. I had to run, go into hiding, or I’d face their same fate. All I had left in this world was my best friend, and although I trusted him completely, I wasn’t sure about the place he had taken me. He swore I’d be safe with his cousins. But being told that these strangers who were going to protect me were also members of the southern mafia didn’t make me feel very safe.

Forge
We didn’t have time for this. My mom’s nephew hadn’t been around in years, yet he was dropping off some girl for us to protect while we were facing my mother’s battle with cancer. While the others in my family thought we should help the girl, I didn’t see how this was our problem. Her dad had been DEA and he should have protected his family better. No one asked my opinion, though, and here she was with those silver eyes shadowed with a heaviness that I understood. Grief. Pain. Loss. The fear that had gripped me from the moment of my mother’s diagnosis.

I’d save her, alright, but the one I was going to have to save her from was me

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Elsie

Five Years Ago

“Don’t chew your nails,” I hissed at myself, clasping my hands together.

Had I ever been this nervous slash excited and anxious in my life? At least my mother was in her office and not witnessing this. She’d likely get her phone and video it all.

I might want a video of what was about to happen—or what I thought was about to happen. What I hoped with all my heart was going to happen. My palms were starting to sweat now. He might touch my hands! Quickly, I began to wipe them on the front of my jeans.

The flash of black from the familiar Mustang had me standing straighter as I took a deep breath. He was here. I had to calm down, act cool. But it wasn’t every day that a girl’s best friend, who she had secretly harbored a crush on for years, came over to ask her to prom.

I mean … Calvin hadn’t said that was why he was coming over when he texted me. He’d said it was important and to meet him on the front porch.

Calvin Sawlan had been showing up unannounced at my house for years. The fact that he had told me to meet him on the front porch was what clued me in that something was up.

I placed a hand over my heart, hoping that the rapid beating wasn’t as loud as I feared it was. I’d die if he heard it.

I watched as he climbed out of the driver’s side, and a smile spread across my cheeks so big that it hurt. I might need to tame that too. Looking at myself in the mirror, that hung in the foyer, I tried to look less excited.

“Act cool,” I whispered to myself as I walked to the door to go outside, like he’d requested.

Over-the-top prom proposals had been going on all week at school. I watched each one, envious but not hopeful that I’d be on the receiving end of one from Calvin. I feared Johnny Marsh or Baron Strum might ask me, and I didn’t want to say yes to either of them. I was holding out hope that Calvin would ask. Every day that passed and he hadn’t asked another girl, my daydreaming of this coming moment had gotten stronger.

Just yesterday, Calvin had asked me if I thought Josh Towle’s flash mob with the soccer team, asking Nyla Jacobs to prom, was cheesy or not. He’d seemed very interested in my response.

Was that what he was going to do? Was there going to be a group of football players doing a flash mob in my front yard?

Calvin had been torn between both his parents after their divorce. He was a people pleaser—at least where they were concerned. His father wanted him to play football. His mother nurtured his talent in acting, dance, and music. He had chosen to live with his father when they split—or that was what he said. I often wondered if she had just left without asking him to go with her. Whatever the case, once she was gone, he had allowed football to take over his life, and I hated to see him not use his other gifts.

Perhaps he was going to today! For me.

Reaching for the doorknob, I twisted it and hoped my face wasn’t as flushed as it had been. Swinging open the door, I tried not to blind him with my overbright smile and prayed I looked casual as I stepped onto the front porch.

Calvin was almost at the bottom of the steps. His curly, dark brown hair was messy from driving with his windows down, and his chocolate eyes flashed with mischief. His lips curled up at the corners, awakening the flutters in my stomach. It was easier when he had a girlfriend. My reactions to him were kept under control, although my heart ached frequently. I didn’t obsess over every smile or glint in his eyes, trying to read more into it when he was in a relationship.

Since he’d broken up with his last girlfriend a month ago, however, I had been letting my guard down a little at a time. Wanting more than anything to see the tiniest spark in his eyes that told me he saw me as something more than his best friend, his buddy.

My eyes did a quick glance around the yard and down the street. I didn’t see any other people who could be hiding or preparing to join him in a flash mob. That was okay. I didn’t need some grand gesture. I just wanted my prom to finally be with Calvin. I’d wanted it since I’d hit puberty. Just like I wanted him to see me as more than his friend. Other guys noticed me. His friends did, but none of them asked me out. I liked to think he had marked me as off-limits.

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Hell of a Christmas (Mississippi Smoke #9) Read Online Abbi Glines http://www.ilovenovels.com/hell-of-a-christmas-mississippi-smoke-9-read-online-abbi-glines Wed, 07 Jan 2026 10:40:58 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/hell-of-a-christmas-mississippi-smoke-9-read-online-abbi-glines Genre: Alpha Male, Mafia Authors: Abbi Glines Series: Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines
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Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)

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A deep chuckle sent a bolt of pleasure through me. “Damn, you’re sweet. Lucky for you I’ve got a conscience and I’m gonna walk away.”
Wait, what? Walk away?
He reached out and took a lock of my hair, then twirled it around his finger before dropping it with a sigh.
“Why … why are you walking away?” I blurted, desperate to keep him here.
His eyes seemed to twinkle with something, but whether it was amusement or not, I couldn’t tell. There was a darkness there too. I’d seen it before. It felt a bit threatening, but then he’d smile, and it would vanish. All that was left was the clear blue.
“Because I don’t break pretty things,” he said before giving me one last look, then left me standing there, feeling as if he’d sucked every ounce of joy from my life.

Kash Savelle hadn’t broken me, he’d shattered my world. I was alone, lost, and clawing to make it day to day. I should hate him and not a day passed that I wished I could. Seeing him again was the last thing I needed. Not when I almost had some form of security. But like the devil himself, there he was… standing on the street watching me. Still as painfully beautiful as he had always been.

Betrayal had never been something I’d experienced until Cressida Beck stole my soul, then ripped it from my body. My obsession with her had caused me to lose the life I’d been raised in, my family. I was exiled to Alabama to live with that branch of the southern mafia. No longer trusted in Mississippi, until now. This year, I was getting to come home for Christmas. Seeing the girl who had ruined me wouldn’t break me this time. I wouldn’t lose it all for her again. I just had to keep a firm grip on my sanity and stop seeking her out like the animal inside me that hadn’t stopped craving her

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Cressida

Sixteen Years Old

Was there a blue that could describe his eyes accurately? I didn’t think so, and God knew I’d lain in bed trying to think of one since Kash Savelle had locked them on me the first day of school. The clearest sky on a summer day, the color of a perfect raindrop, the ocean in the South Pacific perhaps might come close.

Holding my laptop tightly to my chest, I scanned the crowded hallway as those around me talked about the football game on Friday night. Our team had beaten the other one by over twenty points. Kash had run in two touchdowns. Calloway Short dropped her pom-poms and took off running to him when the game was over. I didn’t stay around to watch the rest of that. Instead, I went home and did my best to shove the image of the head cheerleader slash prom queen slash pain in my ass throwing herself into his arms out of my mind. But getting Kash Savelle out of my head had been impossible. He had seared his image into my brain with those damn eyes and that cocky grin of his.

I wasn’t doing much to fight this attraction to him either. Like, at the moment, when I should be hurrying to my first period class and going over the questions for our quiz, I was instead looking for him. Wanting a glimpse. Oh, who was I kidding? I wanted to see if he noticed me, smiled at me, spoke to me. I had thought of little else all weekend.

“Tell me who you’re looking for so intently, and I’ll help you find them.” The thick Southern drawl was one I would recognize anywhere. It was the only voice that had ever sent a thrill through my body and caused instant goose bumps.

I spun around, drawing in a sharp breath as my heart took off in a wild flutter.

There he was. All six foot two of him, with his messy hair the color of ink and those eyes that made even the bluest sky appear lackluster. The corner of his mouth quirked as his eyes glinted with … I wasn’t sure, but it sent a shiver through me. Was it interest? Oh God, let it be interest.

“Kash! Where did y—” another male voice called out, then paused mid-sentence when Kash held up a hand and stopped whatever they were going to say, keeping his gaze on mine.

“I’m busy,” he said, and then he winked at me.

I was going to melt. Right here on the floor. Become an instant puddle. Kash Savelle had winked at me.

“I see … later then,” the other guy replied, and Kash gave a small nod of his head in agreement.

“Now, who was it you need to find, beautiful?” he asked me.

Breathe, Cressida. Do not embarrass yourself. You have his attention. Make the most of it.

He called me beautiful!

“I was, um, just, uh …” I stammered like an idiot. What did I say? That I’d been looking for him? Telling him that might scare him off. It gave stalker vibes. “No one.” Liar.

He raised one eyebrow. “You sure about that? Because I stood behind you for a solid minute, and you were so locked in that you didn’t notice you were being admired.”

Admired? Me. He had been looking at me.

“Oh,” I breathed, unable to say more than that with my heart racing.

A deep chuckle sent a bolt of pleasure through me. “Damn, you’re sweet. Lucky for you I’ve got a conscience and I’m gonna walk away.”

Wait, what? Walk away?

He reached out and took a lock of my hair, then twirled it around his finger before dropping it with a sigh.

“Why … why are you walking away?” I blurted, desperate to keep him here.

His eyes seemed to twinkle with something, but whether it was amusement or not, I couldn’t tell. There was a darkness there too. I’d seen it before. It felt a bit threatening, but then he’d smile, and it would vanish. All that was left was the clear blue.

“Because I don’t break pretty things,” he said before giving me one last look, then left me standing there, feeling as if he’d sucked every ounce of joy from my life.

One

Cressida

Twenty-Three Years Old

“Order up,” Harland Wilts, the only cook at the twenty-four-hour greasy-spoon diner I’d unfortunately been working at for the past month called out.

There were two truckers, a table of firemen who had just gotten off the night shift, and Burt—the homeless man I had given ten dollars to so he could come in and eat since the temperature had dropped this week.

I worked from four in the morning until four in the afternoon. The hours were long and exhausting, but if I ever wanted to save enough money to get a better place to live, then I needed to work the twelve-hour shifts. Truth was, I wasn’t far from being as homeless as Burt. Seeing him buried under old blankets on my walk to work reminded me how close I was to being in that situation. It was still better than the alternative. Running had been my only option. No one was going to find me here. Even if my father tried, which I doubted he would, he wouldn’t look for me at a place like the diner.

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Hell of a Mess (Mississippi Smoke #8) Read Online Abbi Glines http://www.ilovenovels.com/hell-of-a-mess-mississippi-smoke-8-read-online-abbi-glines Wed, 29 Oct 2025 22:15:10 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/hell-of-a-mess-mississippi-smoke-8-read-online-abbi-glines Genre: Alpha Male, Erotic, Virgin Authors: Abbi Glines Series: Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines
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Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)

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Lace
Waking up without any memory of who I was in a place with people who didn’t know me would have been terrifying if it hadn’t been for him. The comfort I felt when he was close by pushed other darkness away. Memories slowly fighting to return, haunting images, fear that crawled closer every day until he showed up with a book by my bedside to read to me. I didn’t care what he read, just hearing his deep southern drawl ran off the monsters lurking in the shadows of my mind. Luther Levine was my hero.

Luther
My life was what I’d made it. The one I wanted, and I was real damn happy with it. Until I found a woman with a pair of the prettiest eyes I’d ever seen staring up at me beaten and broken behind a dumpster. For the first time in my life, someone needed me. What was even more shocking was I wanted her to need me. I wasn’t planning on keeping her. She was too young. The age gap too big. But when they came to take her from me, the urge to fight back clawed at my chest. Just when I accepted I couldn’t let her go… we found out who she was. Not because her memory returned. It was her DNA that dropped the bomb on us all. The outcome was one hell of a mess

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Her

I’d never thought about the sound of bones when they broke or if it was even something one could hear. However, the crunch of mine as they shattered echoed in my ears while I struggled to breathe. I pled as I held my wrist, which had been bent back abnormally, when the backhanded slap across my face, followed by a hard shove, sent me falling to the pavement below. There was a throbbing in my skull where I couldn’t catch myself due to my injured wrist and my head had hit something. The impact was making it hard to think, or maybe it was the pain.

The cracking noise, however, hadn’t been from the fall, but from when the expensive Italian loafer made contact with my ribs. Drawing in oxygen became as painful as my wrist, if not more so. My head was the least of my worries.

“Arun,” a voice I thought I knew but was struggling to place called out. “That’s enough.” There was amusement in the man’s tone. As if this was entertaining. “She has learned her place. Come back inside.”

Yes, please go back inside.

I watched his feet, not daring to look up at his face and meet his eyes. I hadn’t wanted to come here. My father had made me. He’d said Arun and I needed to be seen together. The engagement had been announced.

Pain seared through me, and I closed my eyes. I wasn’t sure I could survive much more. Something was wrong in my chest.

“You say anything,” Arun Al-Bahrani spat angrily, and I knew he was talking to me. “I will kill you. Go back to Texas. When I want you I will call for you.”

I nodded, keeping my head down. Terror crawled up my back as my future played out in front of me. Perhaps death would be better. A hot tear streaked down my cheek. Where the beating hadn’t brought me to tears, the thought of my life and the lack of those in it who would even care if I were dead did. The last time I’d known what it felt like to be loved, I’d been six years old.

“The blonde you were fond of has been taken back to a private room,” the voice I realized was Saeed, Arun’s very close friend, said.

“Send someone to deal with this one,” Arun ordered. “But first, leave her here to remember what it feels like when she shows me disrespect. It will be a lesson that serves her well.”

“Yes, sir.”

I’d come here on a flight my father had put me on and when I landed Arun hadn’t been at the airport to get me. I had called my father who had told me to find him then hung up. Arun’s father was behind my being here. My father would rather I never leave the house. But for both our fathers, appearance was everything. It had taken me hours to find Arun and he’d ignored all my calls and text until his father had contacted him. That had been the beginning of Arun’s wrath.

The sound of footsteps as he began to walk away sent relief through me. I didn’t want to die. There might not be anyone who would mourn my exit from this earth, but I still clung to the hope that, one day, I’d know happiness. The fairy tale my mother had once told me when she tucked me into bed at night, where a prince would come along and love me, remained a dream I clung to just as I held the memories of her close.

Short, labored breaths were all I could manage. With my good arm, I slowly tried to sit up, but the agony that came with it stopped any real movement. I couldn’t stay out here like this, and I couldn’t go back to the house that had been more prison than home for the past twenty-two years. If I was going to survive, I had to find the strength to get up, walk, and keep walking until I was so far away that no one could find me. I had a jump-start on getting lost. I was in Mississippi. Not Texas, where I could be recognized.

Staying here meant Saeed would come back like Arun had ordered him, and I’d be taken wherever it was he wanted me to be. My father wouldn’t question Arun. I was part of a business deal for my father and nothing more. I’d been raised to be the perfect wife, pure, obedient. The merger my father had been orchestrating the majority of my life. Texas oil wasn’t enough for him. He’d bought all the oil land in Texas that he could and wanted the wealth that would come from a connection to the oil in Abu Dhabi. Arun was his key to that power, and he’d sell his own soul for it. His daughter was an easy price to pay.

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All Tied Up (Mississippi Smoke #7) Read Online Abbi Glines http://www.ilovenovels.com/all-tied-up-mississippi-smoke-7-read-online-abbi-glines Sat, 30 Aug 2025 08:42:37 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/all-tied-up-mississippi-smoke-7-read-online-abbi-glines Genre: Alpha Male, Forbidden, Mafia Authors: Abbi Glines Series: Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines
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Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62197 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 311(@200wpm)___ 249(@250wpm)___ 207(@300wpm)

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Noa

The man I’d grown to know over the past ten years through our texting was much different from the possessive, secretive, and dangerous one I was slowly unraveling. The different personalities he seemed to have were giving me whiplash. When he was with me, it was perfect, I didn’t question anything.
It was when he was gone that the insecurities crept in, and soon enough, those fears became reality. Like so many before me, I became one of Ransom Carver’s cast offs. Not only going completely silent, shutting me out, but he had broken me in ways not even my mother had been able to do.

Ransom

When called out, I had admitted to my mistake. But the price for it was too high. Never had I disobeyed an order, but I had never been told I couldn’t have the one person I depended on for peace. Being born into the southern mafia left you without a choice. It was simply a life you grew up in. You didn’t leave it. You lived it.
Staying away from Noa was asking too much of me. I’d tried, but my will was breaking along with my weak grip on my sanity. I was crossing lines that could get me killed, but even if she couldn’t see me, I had to protect her. Keep her safe. Do unsavory things to those who got too close or wanted what belonged to me.

Without her in my life, then the rest no longer mattered.

This is the continuation and conclusion of Noa and Ransom's story

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

One

Noa

My eyes swung from the security camera at the entrance to my building complex back to my bedroom. The sound of running water reminding me that Ransom Carver was in my shower. That still seemed unreal. The bubble of excitement at the thought was burst quickly, when the front entrance buzzed again.

Frowning, I stared at Thurston on the screen. Why was he here? I hadn’t given him my address. I would have to blame that on my best friend, Jellie. She meant well, but there was no spark with Thurston.

While there was a raging fire with Ransom. One I was afraid was going to burn me to the ground, but I wasn’t about to tread carefully.

Ransom had shown up in my apartment last night and said things that I never thought I’d hear him say. Then there had been a lot of sex. I smiled, biting my lip and thinking about what all we’d done.

Thurston sighed heavily and pulled out his phone to begin what looked like texting. I bit down too hard on my lower lip, unsure of what to do, then let it go with a wince. He hadn’t texted or called me first. We’d just met this weekend. Shouldn’t he have at least sent me a text before showing up here? And why was he already back from Boston? What about his car?

I’d forgotten about that already—well, until now. Although it had just been yesterday morning, it felt as if more time had passed. Ransom had a way of distracting me. He always had. Even when it was just his words I read on my phone.

Deciding that ignoring Thurston would make things weird and he’d probably start calling, I pressed the button that unlocked the door for him to enter, then ran a hand through my tousled hair. Not that I was trying to look good for Thurston, but I didn’t want to answer the door with a just been fucked look. I doubted Ransom would want that either.

I stared hard at the door, wondering if I’d made a mistake. Maybe I should have ignored him and dealt with this later. I wasn’t positive if I even had anything to deal with at all. Ransom had said things about not sharing me. The memory sent a warm surge of joy through my chest. One that I would probably regret later.

Facing a future heartbreak was a price I was willing to pay if it meant I got Ransom. Even for a little while. The fear that I could lose him and our friendship was annoyingly there in the back of my mind, but it didn’t have much time to bloom before the knock on my door interrupted it.

Crap. I should have just ignored this. I could have sent Thurston’s call to voicemail and dealt with it later.

Sighing, I unlocked the door and opened it up. Dressed in a pair of freshly pressed khakis and a polo shirt that matched his sea-green eyes stood Thurston Coburg. I refused to call him Thurst, like Jellie’s boyfriend, Zeke, did.

His eyes did a quick sweep of my body, which was currently wrapped in a knee-length pink satin robe. I should have put on clothes, but too late for that now.

“Did I wake you up?” he asked as his blond brows drew together in a frown.

While it sure appeared that way, it was also almost eleven. I could see where his confusion might come from.

I shook my head. “No. Just a lazy morning,” I replied, which was a lie. Nothing about the past two hours I’d spent with Ransom was lazy.

He gave me a crooked grin at that response, then stepped forward, as if to come inside. That wasn’t a great idea, but before I could think of a reason for him not to, he walked past me and into the entryway. I began to panic when his gaze swept the area, as if he was inspecting it. That annoyed me, but I was too busy trying to decide how to get rid of him.

“Nice place. I looked at this complex before I leased the flat I’m at now, but it was a touch too steep for me. Smut novels must be profitable.”

Eh, okay, he was starting to piss me off. The tone in his voice, as if what I wrote amused him, was one I was familiar with. It was often one I heard when I was asked about my “smut writing” or something equally insulting. I wrote romance novels. My books had plot. They weren’t just porn. Sex was a minor role in the storyline. There was angst, pain, drama, all wrapped up in a pretty bow.

“You could say that,” I replied, not trying to mask my dislike of the word smut. Although he didn’t seem to pick up on it.

Turning back to look at me, he flashed his perfect white smile that I would bet money was fake.

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All Jacked Up (Mississippi Smoke #6) Read Online Abbi Glines http://www.ilovenovels.com/all-jacked-up-mississippi-smoke-6-read-online-abbi-glines Mon, 30 Jun 2025 19:08:22 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/all-jacked-up-mississippi-smoke-6-read-online-abbi-glines Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Forbidden, Mafia Authors: Abbi Glines Series: Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines
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Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 73021 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >77

Ransom
Within the family, we had no secrets. Our lives were intertwined, and the darkness that came with our way of life was something we all shared. Accepted. Had been born into. But for ten years, I’ve had one thing that was mine. Something I kept to myself. A source of light when things got heavy. The nerdy, overlooked tutor from high school who had been a breath of fresh air while helping me pass British Literature was someone I hadn’t let go of. Sure, it had been ten years since we’d seen each other, but that wasn’t important. Our texting was what I needed. Her wittiness had the ability to make me laugh and lighten my mood with her comebacks. She had never tried to impress me or flirt. It was the strongest relationship I’d ever had with a female, but it was also platonic, which was why it lasted. Noa Raines was my calm in the storms of life, and I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.

Noa
When faced with a situation you weren’t expecting and have no idea how to navigate, one normally asks for advice from someone they trust. Typically, I’d text out my problem to my texting pen pal and ask him what to do. Except this time, my issue was with him. In the flesh, in front of me, glaring at me like he’d rather lick the bottom of his shoe than speak to me. I had no logical reason why he should dislike me on sight. He didn’t recognize me, that I knew. The name he’d been given was my pen name. One I had actually chosen because of him. Ironic that he’d made a snarky comment about it.
How was the man sitting across from me the same one I’d talked to almost daily for ten years? This man was cruel, rude, and although he was still mouthwatering, I didn’t like him. And he didn’t deserve to know who I was now. I’d walk out of here keeping that to myself. The next time he texted, he’d go unanswered. If he wanted to treat others so harshly, then I’d return the favor.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Noa

The Past-Age Sixteen

The smell of wood, combined with a slight mustiness and a twinge of smoke, enveloped me. It was my absolute favorite scent in the world. I inhaled deeply, letting it seep in and remind me that this was all I needed to be complete. Friends were drama—or at least, it appeared that way. I didn’t have much experience, unless you counted Becca Walters in the sixth grade, who had shown up midyear. She’d been quirky, talked nonstop, and liked to ask me about whatever book I was reading at the time. Her father was in the military, and she’d moved that summer, leaving me once again the loner. Except for Becca, my friends had always been found in the pages of the stories I read.

I picked up the next returned book in the pile that I had been tasked with placing back on the shelves of the library at the high school I attended; it gave me a sense of purpose. I might not cheer on the sidelines for the football team or march across the field at halftime with an instrument, and I might not perform onstage with the theater department, but I had this. I volunteered every day in the library during my study hall and after school. Except on Thursdays, when I tutored whatever student Ms. Richie—the head of the Literature department—had assigned to me.

“I believe you’re who I’m looking for.”

A deep voice jerked me from my thoughts.

I spun around, confused by the close proximity. It was as if he’d been speaking to me. Which was unlikely since no guys ever spoke to me—at least on purpose.

Jeremy Tucker had bumped into me yesterday and said, “Excuse you.”

The air in my lungs felt as if it had seized when my eyes collided with a pair as golden as he was. I’d heard him speak before, but never up close. The warm tingle that raced through me from the sound still radiated as I stood there silent. Frozen. And awkward. Always awkward.

“Noa Raines?” He said my name like a question, his brows drawing together.

I nodded. I couldn’t do more. Nothing seemed to be working correctly. My ability to speak had vanished with my ability to inhale much-needed oxygen.

A crooked grin curled his lips, as if he knew the effect he had on me and it amused him. My face heated from the embarrassment. This might be the one time in my life that Ransom Carver spoke to me, and I was managing to humiliate myself. It was quite possibly going to go down as my biggest regret. The one that kept me up at night as I relived it in horror.

“You are Noa Raines?” he asked.

I nodded again. Still no words.

Speak, Noa. Stop acting like an idiot.

“Well, Noa, seems I’m in need of your help if I’m going to pass British Literature. I’ve been informed that you’re the translator I require to understand what the fuck Shakespeare is saying.”

He needed a tutor. Of course. Life made sense again. Air filled my lungs, the world stopped spinning on its axis, and I was back on solid ground. I should have guessed that this was the reason he had been looking for me the moment I realized the husky timbre belonged to him.

“Is it Hamlet or Macbeth that is giving you difficulty?” I asked, relieved that my voice hadn’t cracked or hitched. My heart was still racing even if my head had caught up with what was happening here.

He smirked. “Romeo and Juliet.”

My eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t get to choose which of his works that you wanted to analyze and review? I mean, I’m assuming you’re taking British Literature with Ms. Richie. She always lets you choose.”

I knew that seniors were tasked with choosing one of Shakespeare’s works every October and doing a complete literary analysis and review. I was only a junior, but I’d been helping seniors delve into Shakespeare and understand his writing since my freshman year. Because of this, I also knew that the student got to choose their own Shakespeare piece—or they had in the past.

Ransom Carver picking Romeo and Juliet was the equivalent of the entire football team showing up in pink leotards and tutus tomorrow and performing Swan Lake on the stage in the theater. And I wasn’t exaggerating. I was serious. The swagger with the edge of danger that came off Ransom was in the form of massive, powerful waves.

“I’m feeling a bit judged,” he drawled.

I opened my mouth, closed it, and opened it again before blurting out, “You just don’t seem like the Romeo and Juliet type. I mean, it’s a tragic romance, and normally, it’s girls who choose that one. It’s only ever been females that I helped with it, but I’m, uh—I was, uh—what I mean is that maybe you didn’t know what it was about.” I decided to stop with my rambling as I stared at him. Not zoning in on the slight cleft in his chin or that ridiculously chiseled jaw of his was hard, but I managed. For the most part.

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >77

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Hell or High Water (Mississippi Smoke #5) Read Online Abbi Glines http://www.ilovenovels.com/hell-or-high-water-mississippi-smoke-5-read-online-abbi-glines Thu, 01 May 2025 18:18:48 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/hell-or-high-water-mississippi-smoke-5-read-online-abbi-glines Genre: Alpha Male, Bad Boy, Erotic, Forbidden Authors: Abbi Glines Series: Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines
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Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >95

Montana

Momma hadn’t been gone from the world for twenty-four hours before the first letter showed up. Blue paper, folded into an origami heart, left where the writer knew I’d find it. Dealing with my grief, I was able to put it out of my mind until the next one came, then the next. Each one more disturbing than the last. Until I woke up to find one beside me.
He’d watched me sleep.

Only desperation could drive me to ask the man who had fertilized my momma’s egg for help. I preferred to forget him and his existence, just like he had us… me. But with Momma gone, I had no one, and I needed a safe place to escape—out of this town and away from the stranger who was stalking me.

To say I was shocked that he turned me down would be a lie. I’d expected as much. He’d left me with no choice but to threaten to expose his sins to the God-fearing people of Mississippi who placed him in office. The nineteen-year-old daughter of a stripper he’d knocked up and deserted would know a lot about his transgressions.

However, the two men he sent to get me weren’t what I’d been expecting, but I didn’t really have much of a choice. It was trust the devil I knew or stay and live in fear of the one I didn’t.

Than

Waking up hung over and naked on the sofa of a friend’s house wasn’t out of character for me. Being woken up and told I was being ordered to babysit the Governor’s accidental offspring was another. It wasn’t fair that I’d been handed this task. Why me? I didn’t want to watch some stripper’s daughter who had decided to blackmail the governor. Why didn’t we have the philandering bastard hand over hush money, and then we could put enough fear in her that she kept her mouth shut?

When I didn’t believe it could get any worse, the stripper’s daughter opened the cheap ass motel room door she had been staying in and knocked the wind out of my chest

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Playlist

Pretty Little Devil

Shaya Zamora

Do it Like a Girl

Morgan St. Jean

I’m Gonna Show You Crazy

Bebe Rexha

Lose Control

Teddy Swims

Call Me Devil

Friends in Tokyo

Power Over Me

Dermont Kennedy

Shadows

Sabrina Carpenter

Pretty Little Poison

Warren Zeiders

Ain’t Nothing ‘Bout You

Brooks & Dunn

Never Say Never

Cole Swindell and Lainey Wilson

Sin So Sweet

Warren Zeiders

The Champion

Carrie Underwood and Ludacris

Devil I Know

Allie X

No Mercy

Austin Giorgio

Shoot Me Dead

Cameron Whitcomb

Prologue

Montana

The scent was one I’d grown up with. It was likely I had even smelled it in the womb. There were folks who stuck their noses up at it and complained about it, and those who craved it and couldn’t walk away from it, no matter the cost.

My momma had once been the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I’d wanted to be just like her—that was, until I understood her. We were an odd pair. While my friends believed she was the coolest mom around, I knew better. As much as I loved her, I wished she were different.

Even now, as I sat in her bedroom, watching her shrivel up as the disease took more and more of her every passing second. She was only thirty-eight, and just like her momma, she would die too young, leaving her daughter behind to figure out life. I’d never met my grandmother. She had been taken by the same thing that was taking Momma. Some got to smoke for decades and not face the consequences, but not the Carrigan women.

When I’d been old enough to understand how my grandmother had died, I had begged my momma to stop smoking.

But she’d just smile at me with her red-painted lips. “Tana, baby, it’s my meal. You like living in this house and having nice things? Well, I can’t gain a pound. It’s a miracle you didn’t ruin me with stretch marks.”

Momma had been a stripper from the age of eighteen until she turned thirty-three. When she turned thirty-three, the smoking and years had started showing on her. She took over the job of managing the dancers until two years later, when the coughing started. Then the diagnosis. It had all changed after that.

Thankfully, I’d managed to stay in school and work a job to help pay the bills. But we’d used every last penny of Momma’s savings. Especially the last four months, when she’d gotten so bad that she couldn’t even sit at the computer and handle the office tasks that Peg—the owner of the club where she worked—would give her so that she still got a paycheck.

In less than three months, I would graduate high school…and I knew my momma wouldn’t be there to see it. She’d never gotten her high school diploma or even a GED. She’d dropped out at eighteen and started working at Diamond Club when her momma died. I didn’t want that. I was so close though. I wasn’t like Momma. The idea of dancing in nothing but a sparkly G-string and stilettos in front of men was something I knew I could never do. Momma had come into this world oozing confidence—or at least, that was what she’d told me her mother used to say—but I hadn’t.

For the past two months, as Momma faded, I’d lie in bed at night, wondering how I’d feel about that smell of nicotine when she was gone. Would I hate it? Despise it for what it had taken from me? Or would I think of her and wish more than anything for her arms to wrap around me one more time? But the real question burning in the back of my head that I was afraid to acknowledge was, what would I do? How would I survive? I couldn’t pay the bills and the mortgage without her income and still go to school. The house would have to be sold. We were already a month behind on mortgage payments. We should have put it up for sale months ago.

“You go make him help you,” Momma wheezed.

I shook my head. We’d had this conversation before.

“I want nothing to do with him,” I replied.

She knew that, but she kept insisting that I go to Mississippi and demand the man who had knocked her up at nineteen help me until I could graduate and work full-time.

“He owes you. He—” She stopped, struggling to inhale, and I winced.

“Please, Momma. Don’t talk. Just relax.”

The effort it took for her to pick up her arm and move it toward me so she could hold out her hand in my direction was another ache in my heart. I’d painted her nails her favorite color of OPI Big Apple Red just two days ago. I moved closer and encased her frail hand in both of mine.

“He owes me,” she rasped, then coughed weakly.

“We never needed him, and I’ll be damned if I go ask him to help me now,” I told her. “I’ll be fine. You don’t worry about that. I’m a badass, like my momma.”

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >95

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Outlaw (Mississippi Smoke #4) Read Online Abbi Glines http://www.ilovenovels.com/outlaw-mississippi-smoke-4-read-online-abbi-glines Wed, 12 Feb 2025 07:22:13 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/outlaw-mississippi-smoke-4-read-online-abbi-glines Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Crime, Mafia, New Adult Authors: Abbi Glines Series: Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines
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Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 110694 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >117

“They were kings, and for a brief part of my life, I was allowed to live inside their kingdom.”

Branwen

Little girls grow up, and time steals their innocence. Memories fade, and things you love change. Except for me. You see, I fell in love at first sight when I was six years old. The problem with that was he was a grown man. My young heart had believed that he belonged to me. That should have faded with time. It didn’t. Although I hadn’t seen him in over twenty years, I still found myself measuring up the men I dated to him. That was until the day he walked into a nightclub in Vegas and sat down beside me at the bar.

He didn’t recognize the woman I had become, but I knew exactly who he was. My heart had soared, and the flutters in my stomach that no one else had ever stirred came roaring back to life. Fate had brought him back to me.

Waking up in his suite alone the next morning with a note and a morning after pill with no way to contact him had taught me that flutters were not to be trusted and that fate was a mean bitch.

Five years later, I am engaged, happy, and about to give my four-year-old daughter the life I want for her, complete with a white picket fence and a father.

That is… until I find out that I can’t get married. Because I already am.

Linc

The fact I never asked a woman I slept with her name served a purpose. If I didn’t know it, then I wouldn’t have to remember it. No getting them confused and saying the wrong one in the heat of the moment. Hell, I didn’t remember most of their faces. I got what I needed and left. My life wasn’t meant for relationships. I’d tried it. My ex-wife now lives in Europe with her current husband.

The day I walked outside to find the gorgeous blonde I’d had a wild drunken night with in Vegas five years ago handing me divorce papers and demanding I sign them, I’d been sure it was a joke or scheme to get money. The tiny replica of her that crawled out of the backseat of her car, however, struck me with an odd familiarity I couldn’t place. My gut had clenched tightly, and I knew my world had just changed. The paternity test confirmed it.

This woman who had been number one in my spank bank for five years had lied to me. Stolen the first four and a half years of my daughter’s life from me. She may have the face and body of an angel, but she was cruel.

The man she planned on marrying and bringing into my daughter’s life wasn’t happening. I’d end that. I was going to be the only father she had. I wasn’t sharing her with a stepfather.

If I had to make sure her mother only wanted me, then I’d do it. When she was addicted to me, and I owned her soul- she was going to suffer. I wouldn’t hurt her body, but I would break her heart. Over and over again.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Branwen

The smell of hay, cigars, and sunshine still haunted my dreams all these years later. My dad’s deep belly laugh, his big smile, and thick Southern drawl were also weaved within them. Reminding me of a time when everything had seemed simple. Perfect. Easy. If only it were just my father’s memory that came back to me when I slept, then I would wake up with a warmth in my chest instead of an ache that had become my constant.

Eyes the color of the sky as a storm churned; dark brown hair, left long enough to pull it back at his nape with string from a feed sack; a black cowboy hat on his head; dirty, worn snakeskin boots; and a crooked grin that was mine alone. He’d never smiled at anyone else like he did me, and it’d made me feel special.

Linc Shephard had stolen my six-year-old heart from the instant he walked into the stables at my daddy’s new job and looked down at me.

He had smiled and reached for one of my wild curls that were never tamed. Wrapping it around his finger, he chuckled. “Well, hello, Ringlets. I didn’t know Demeter had such a pretty little helper.”

It hadn’t taken me long to realize he was important. Him and the others who were always around. They were kings, and for a brief part of my life, I was allowed to live inside their kingdom. The way others respected them wasn’t lost on me. When they arrived, the workers at the stables all quieted with a reverence as they went about their jobs more diligently. Even my daddy, who was the head horse trainer and told the others what to do, treated them with a respect he didn’t show anyone else.

When I got a glimpse of them, no matter how far away they might be, my eyes would search him out. Looking for the face that outshone the rest.

That was what I’d lived for. Seeing Linc smile at me.

He would always wink, and I’d go running to him. His amused laugh as he waited for me would make my heart flutter like a swarm of butterflies in my chest.

A memory flooded my mind, and I let it play out, knowing I shouldn’t…

“Miss me that much, Ringlets?” he asked me, dropping down to his haunches so he could look me in the eye instead of towering over me.

“You’ve been gone for days,” I accused him, not realizing why he would go missing for gaps at a time.

He reached behind him and pulled out a yellow daisy. “But I came to check on my favorite girl as soon as I had the chance,” he told me, then tucked the flower behind my ear. “Remember what I told you about boys and flowers?”

I nodded. “That even an outlaw can give a girl flowers. But not to trust one because he brings them to me,” I replied. “But I trust you, and you always bring me one,” I added. Because I did trust him. Maybe even more than my daddy.

He shook his head. “See now, that’s where you’re wrong. I’m the worst kinda outlaw, Ringlets.”

I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think you’re an outlaw. I think you’re a king.”

He smirked, and I heard laughter behind me, but I ignored it.

“You can fool them at any age with that fucking charm of yours.” The voice that I knew belonged to Creed Kingston sounded gruff and sarcastic.

I didn’t turn around and glare at the giant man. I kept my focus on Linc.

Linc’s eyes flicked up to him. “Not this one. She’s too smart.”

“Let’s hope so and that her taste changes with age,” he drawled, then nodded his head toward the big house. “Garrett is waiting on us. We need to go.”

Garrett was the boss. I’d heard Daddy say that many times. They were all scared of him, even if they didn’t say it. Everyone at the stables would speak about him as if he was to be feared. He looked the same age as Linc, but he owned all this. The stables, the big house, the land that Daddy said went on for miles.

Linc’s eyes met mine again. “I’ll be back later, and you can show me the new colt.”

I nodded my head vigorously. Wanting nothing more than a reason to have Linc all to myself. When I had his full attention, my world was complete.

“Boss called. Everyone, up to the house now!” Kenneth Houston shouted from the entrance on the other side of the stables.

Linc tapped a finger to the tip of my nose, then stood up. “You take care of that colt for me, Ringlets,” he said.

Then, I watched as he walked away with Creed, wishing more than anything that he could have stayed a little longer.

I touched my bright yellow daisy and smiled. I’d add it to my others tonight when I got home. I kept every single one that my outlaw had given to me.

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >117

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Oh Hell No (Mississippi Smoke #3) Read Online Abbi Glines http://www.ilovenovels.com/oh-hell-no-mississippi-smoke-3-read-online-abbi-glines Tue, 28 Jan 2025 08:15:23 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/oh-hell-no-mississippi-smoke-3-read-online-abbi-glines Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Erotic, Mafia, Suspense Authors: Abbi Glines Series: Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines
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Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >97

Taking her was a means to an end. The task was to weed out the man who had stolen millions from us. He may have succeeded, but he’d pay with his life. Hiding from us was a grave error he’d regret soon enough because once he found out that we had taken the one thing he cared for as repayment- he’d show up. When a man had a weakness, it was foolish to make a mistake like this. He would come for her, and when he did, he wouldn’t walk away unscathed, nor would the sister he adored.

This was my fault. I hadn’t seen his scheme. It was my mistake, so I had to fix it. However, it seemed the joke was on me. What I had thought would be an easy job proved more difficult than I’d imagined. I had underestimated the power of her big brown eyes, full lips, and sweet, sultry voice. Keeping my focus on torturing information from her- when what I really wanted to do was touch her, have her, own her- would not only be a painful obstacle but possibly my biggest failure.

Except she hated the sight of me.
But I couldn’t blame her.
I’d walked out of her nightmares as her own personal monster.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Winslet

December 12, 2013

I do not hate my mother. I do not hate my mother.

Glancing down at my younger brother’s black eye and bloody nose as I pulled him close to me while I hid us in the bathroom closet, I decided there was no use in lying to myself.

I hated my mother.

She was a terrible human. I didn’t care that she was an alcoholic and her daddy had sexually abused her when she was a child. That was no excuse for her to throw Perry against a wall and curse at him because he’d used the last of the milk in his cereal.

Perry had been born two months early. He’d always been small for his age. Mom had never forgiven him for it either.

My eyes stung with unshed tears as I clenched my teeth tightly and tried to think of mean things to keep me from crying like a baby. Perry needed me to be strong. I was all he had. I was all he’d ever had. Thankfully, I wasn’t weak.

I didn’t know for sure who our fathers were, but I did know they were not the same. There were very little similarities between us. We shared our mother’s brown eyes. That was it.

“She’s been quiet awhile.” Perry’s soft words weren’t even loud enough to be considered a whisper.

I nodded. She had stopped ranting and throwing things, but that didn’t mean she was passed out. This wasn’t our first time hiding from her, and I knew from experience that coming out too early could mean she was still ready to take a swing at Perry or me if I stood in her way. And I always stood in her way.

I had been late getting home from school today because of some extra credit I had signed up for in the library. I should have known better. Allowing Perry to come inside the apartment without me was a bad idea. We never knew what mood she would be in or how drunk she might be.

It was too dark for me to see the damage on Perry’s face and assess how bad it was. I’d lowered the washcloth I had pressed to his nose to stop the bleeding he had several minutes ago. Knowing it had worked was a relief. But his eye was going to draw attention at school. Miss Luneze, the counselor, would see it, and she’d start asking questions again. I knew she meant well, but if she told anyone about Mom, they’d take Perry away from me. Then, who would take care of him?

He grunted, and I realized my arms had tightened around him when I thought about some stranger walking in and taking him away. I knew they would take me, too, but it was very unlikely we would be placed in the same home. It was a chance I wasn’t willing to take.

Perry needed me. Kids picked on him at school. To get Bartley Headson to stop bullying Perry—putting him in the trash can, knocking his books out of his hands, and giving him awful wedgies—I had agreed to sit by Bartley at lunch and let him call me his girlfriend.

I hated Bartley Headson almost as much as I did my mom. But I did it for Perry. Bartley was a spoiled rich kid who was good at all sports. Everyone thought he was so cool. He was a bully. There was nothing cool about him.

“Winzy,” Perry’s hushed tone said, drawing me out of my thoughts.

“Yeah?” I replied.

“I’m sorry I used the rest of the milk.”

I swallowed against what felt like a rock clogging my throat. He was nine years old. He shouldn’t have to be sorry for eating cereal after school. It wasn’t fair.

“Don’t be. I’m sorry that she is our mother.”

He sniffled, and I felt his head nod against my shoulder. “Me too.”

The floor creaked, and I stiffened, then shoved Perry behind me the best I could in the limited space. When the door opened and the light flooded the darkness, I glared up at my mother, ready to fight before I let her near Perry again. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail. I doubted she had brushed it in a week. The golden color of her hair was faded with the brittle, unhealthy look it had, but I had seen photos and knew it had once been as thick and shiny as Perry’s.

“Get out, you!” she screeched, then reached in to grab my arm.

I kicked at her, causing her to stumble backward.

“GO AWAY!” I shouted.

Perry’s body was trembling so hard that I could feel it. That gave me the courage I needed to stand up to her and not cower.

“Get out, you little bitch! He deserves this whooping! All he does is mooch!” She hissed the last word.

I pushed Perry back further before climbing out and quickly slamming the door behind me to keep him locked away and safe.

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >97

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Hotter N Hell (Mississippi Smoke #2) Read Online Abbi Glines http://www.ilovenovels.com/hotter-n-hell-mississippi-smoke-2-read-online-abbi-glines Fri, 06 Dec 2024 20:24:05 +0000 http://www.ilovenovels.com/hotter-n-hell-mississippi-smoke-2-read-online-abbi-glines Genre: Alpha Male, Angst, Dark, Erotic, Forbidden, Virgin Authors: Abbi Glines Series: Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines
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Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 86841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 434(@200wpm)___ 347(@250wpm)___ 289(@300wpm)

<<<<1 2 3 11 21 >91

Saylor

Was it a sin to hate the dead?

It was something I had pondered many times over the past ten months. Although it wasn’t why I required medication to sleep at night. I wasn’t truly concerned about the level of darkness that resided in my soul. It was the images of the night I had watched a bullet take down the boy I had loved most of my life. Seeing the life leave his body, the way his eyes had gone void. It haunted me. Even now that I knew he’d betrayed me. That what I thought had been real had all been a lie. Crosby Cash had been in love, alright, just not with me.

Those closest to me, the ones who were supposed to love me, all accused me of being dramatic. Because that made sense. I just loved the panic attacks that robbed me of my ability to breathe. And the passing out from lack of oxygen was the best. Looking in the mirror and not recognizing the girl looking back at me was my favorite.

Perhaps that was the reason I sought solace in the last place anyone would think I’d go. We weren’t religious people. I’d been born into a family of organized crime. The day I walked into the catholic church seeking… forgiveness, closure, something…anything to find the girl I had once been, I hadn’t expected him. The man ordained by God to lead his people to salvation. Well, that man in the sky so many believed in made a grave mistake allowing a man who looked like Jude, or rather Father Jude, to wear that white collar.

I could lie and say I found what I was looking for standing in front of the altar, staring up at the crucifix, but even those with tarnished souls have their limits. I found something alright, but it wasn’t forgiveness. My answer wasn’t going to come from the one they called their Savior but the one they referred to as Father.

Jude

Temptation comes for all of us. I had thought I could overcome whatever Satan placed before me. This life had held little meaning for me after the day I lost the girl I loved. My first and only love. Too young, sweet, and beautiful for this world. But men are often fools. And I would soon learn just how weak I was - when a pair of bright blue eyes stood in my sanctuary staring back at me.

She was lost. Hurting. Seeking comfort.

She was the one temptation I never expected and would never regret.

Hotter N' Hell features mature themes and content that may not be suitable for all audiences. Reader discretion is advised. TW include: religion, death of a loved one, mental health, sexual content, and some violence.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Saylor

Was it a sin to hate the dead? Not that I was worried about sins, but I was curious. To think, two months ago, I had not only witnessed someone dying, but it was the boy I loved. The one I had loved for as long as I could remember. It was a horrific nightmare, except I didn’t wake up from it. It was all real. One minute, it had been a normal Friday night, his arm around me, and the next, he had been bleeding from his mouth, struggling to breathe as he lay on the pavement. And all I could do was scream.

The details of every second replayed in my head when I closed my eyes at night. Sleep only came for me now because of the meds my parents had insisted I be put on. Not just for sleep, but also the panic attacks. They were new as well. I hadn’t understood them at first and thought perhaps I was about to die too. The world had slowly faded to black, I passed out, and my body had started breathing again.

Dramatic.

That was what they were all saying about me. I didn’t have to hear it. I could see it in their eyes. The way they saw my reaction as selfish. Seeking attention. Making it all about me. Bane Cash, my dead boyfriend’s older brother, had actually said that to my face. He was a bastard like that. Apparently after witnessing the death of the boy you’d loved and then finding out that he had left a baby momma behind, you should be okay with it. Accept it and carry on.

My life had been a lie, and I’d not even known it. But falling apart over that was selfish. I was a bitch because Crosby Cash was dead and he’d been fucking some other girl behind my back without a condom. Now, she was having his baby when I had always thought I’d have Crosby’s babies. That I’d marry him.

Crosby wasn’t here, and yet I hated him so much. I wished he were alive so I could scream at him, hit him over and over again. Demand he tell me why he had done it, tell me when he’d stopped loving me. Because I swore to God, if my mother, my father, or my best friend—Gathe Bowen—told me one more time that Crosby had loved me, I was going to jump out of a fucking window. He had not loved me. Lying to me did not take away the pain of his betrayal.

I was angry. It boiled inside me, ready to explode at all times. The rage that I couldn’t find an outlet for was taking over the person I had once been. I didn’t recognize myself when I looked in the mirror. That girl had died with Crosby. He’d taken any hope of me eventually healing and finding happiness.

My mother wanted to claim it was PTSD, like the doctor had said, but I knew that wasn’t it. She could hold on to her excuse for my behavior if it made her feel better. I would keep my truth to myself. There was nothing left of who I had been. I was a cold, empty shell who had to go through the motions to make everyone around me happy—or at least ease their worries.

I wouldn’t mourn him. Not anymore. It was impossible to mourn someone you hated.

One

Jude

Eight Months Later

“…and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.”

The relief that Mrs. Furthlow’s penance was done for the week was sweet, as she was the last one of the day. The hours of reconciliation had ended ten minutes ago, but seeing as it took Martha Furthlow a while to admit all her gossip, which she told me in detail even though I had assured her that it wasn’t necessary, I was still here. The two years since I’d been placed at Holy Rosary in Madison, Mississippi, I had learned to just take it as a given that she would show up for no other reason than to spread her gossip in a place where she felt it wasn’t a sin.

I really didn’t need to know about the affair her postman was having with the lady who owned the drive-in, but now, I did. Hopefully, she could refrain from a sin until Sunday. That way, I wouldn’t have to listen to more town gossip before Mass tomorrow.

Sighing, I stood up and took off my stole, thankful we didn’t have a reconciliation room where there was a face-to-face option. I preferred the screen and the booth. While I was sure most of the parishioners would be fine with my jeans and boots, there were a few who would want me to be in slacks and something other than my worn Tony Lamas for their confessional.

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Tore Up (Mississippi Smoke #1) Read Online Abbi Glines http://www.ilovenovels.com/tore-up-mississippi-smoke-1-read-online-abbi-glines Wed, 30 Oct 2024 13:05:14 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/tore-up-mississippi-smoke-1-read-online-abbi-glines Genre: Alpha Male, Dark, Forbidden, Mafia, Suspense Authors: Abbi Glines Series: Mississippi Smoke Series by Abbi Glines
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Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94513 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)

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Calculating, cold, often without emotion was how I was described by those closest to me. I had thought perhaps there was truth to their depiction until this endless searing pain took the place in my chest where my heart used to be. Vengeance now ate away at my soul. The wrath I planned to unleash would make the demons in Hell appear mild.

At least, that was until…

The twisted crux came in the form of eyes bluer than the sky on a warm summer day, a slightly upturned nose with a scattering of freckles, a pink cupid bow mouth, and a smile that made a man’s knees weak.

The events that brought us here meant I should loathe her existence for eternity, yet my need for her grows with each passing day. She’s too young, she’s vulnerable and broken, but somehow, she’s not damaged. She was the cause of what had left me with this raging agony, and yet, the balm that eased my soul. Still, I can never forgive the destruction she caused me and those I love.

I had become a mockery of my revenge because holding her at night while she slept was the only thing keeping me sane. She’ll pay the price through my cruelty, never knowing that while she dreams, I find my solace.

My story begins with my worst nightmare.
And she’s the reason behind all of it.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Crosby

The familiarity of the evening felt like a well-rehearsed act was playing around me. I knew this scene and the one after it. They all bled into the next, then hit repeat. The only thing that was different was me. My smile was fake. I had no interest in the story my best friend, Than Carver, was telling, although the others at our table were laughing.

“I Love This Bar” by Toby Keith played over the speakers, and the pungent smell of cigarette smoke and stale beer clung to the air. This had once been what I looked forward to every Friday night—Proof Pony had been letting us in the door and allowing us to drink well before the legal age. It wasn’t something they did for anyone else. They’d have been closed down long ago if they had. We were an exception. The family was always an exception.

Glancing down at my phone, I checked the time. Only thirty more minutes. I needed to leave soon. Saylor wouldn’t be ready to end the night. She’d want me to take her down to the creek or the stables on my family’s ranch. It was something we hadn’t done in a while, and she was getting insecure about us. We’d been together for almost eight years now. Hell, probably even before that. There wasn’t a memory I had from my childhood that she wasn’t connected to. I could read every expression on Saylor Rice’s face. She was … all I had known. Until a little over a month ago.

Than started to order another beer and looked at me. “You want another, or are you still the DD?” he asked.

I had slowly been drinking the one beer I’d ordered. Not because I wanted to make sure someone could drive us all home safely. But I’d let them think that was the reason. Even when Saylor laughed at me. All I had to do was call for a driver. I’d insinuated that I didn’t want to have an employee of one of our fathers knowing what we were doing or going to do later. Which wasn’t a lie. But once I took her home, I had somewhere to be. Someone else to see.

“I’ve got a fucking headache,” I lied. “I’m ready to head out.”

Than frowned as if I’d spoken a language he didn’t understand. His gaze shifted to Saylor, then back to me. “Uh, okay,” he replied. “I need to go see if Gathe is staying or going with us. He’s still working his charm on that redhead.”

Gathe Bowen didn’t give a shit about the redhead. He just wanted a hot fuck. She was new, and that was rare here—Proof Pony was a locals bar. Nothing about the exterior appealed to visitors coming through town.

Several of the others left to go get another drink while one couple headed to the dance floor now that Than wasn’t holding court with his storytelling. I stood up, not glancing down at Saylor, but holding out my hand to her so she wouldn’t notice how anxious I was to get out of here. The unspoken questions in Than’s eyes had been easy to ignore. But with Saylor, it was harder.

I loved her. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I also knew I wasn’t in love with her. The realization that I had never been in love with her hit me the moment a pair of eyes the color of a clear sky on a warm summer day looked up at me as I sank deep inside her. I couldn’t even blame it on the fact that I’d taken her virginity. When I’d taken Saylor’s virginity, the fierce emotion to own her, keep her, mark her as mine hadn’t pounded in my chest. But with Halo, it had hit me so hard for a moment that I’d lost my breath.

God, just thinking about Halo made my need to get out of here more urgent. I wanted to turn and run out the fucking door. Leave the people who had been my closest friends since birth behind. I would walk away from them all if I had to. For her. For Halo, I’d do anything.

Saylor slid her hand into mine, and I gently pulled her up as she stood.

“If you drank more than one beer, your headache would go away,” she suggested, then slid her hands up my chest. “And we could go have some fun alone.”

I couldn’t fuck her anymore. The last time I’d done it was a week ago, and the entire time, I’d fought with the tormented ache of my betrayal. I hated myself for it. What had once been familiar and comfortable was wrong. After the call I’d gotten from Halo today, I knew I’d never be able to make myself do that again. There was a truth that was coming, and I had to find the right way to handle it. Saylor might not be who I wanted in my bed and by my side, but she was one of my best friends. Losing that was gonna hurt like a bitch, but it wouldn’t rip my heart out, like losing Halo would do to me.

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