Free Sapphire Falls: Going Too Fast (Kindle Worlds Novella) (Big Easy Book 7) by Mari Carr Page A

filled the quiet night. “Standing invitation to hop on anytime, darlin’.”
    “I like the way you call me darlin’. No one’s ever really given me a pet name.”
    “I’m sort of glad to be your first on that…and the other thing.”
    Zac still marveled at the fact she’d struggled to have orgasms with her past lovers. Probably because he only had to call her that sweet nickname with that sexy southern accent of his, blow in her ear twice and she was coming hard enough to shake the ground more than a stampede of cattle.
    They fell silent for a few moments, both staring into the dying fire.
    “My mom was a drug addict, crack, heroin, shit like that,” he started.
    She had just decided she wouldn’t push him for the story, not wanting to make him uncomfortable or sad.
    “Oh.” It was a lame response, but really…what else could she say to that? No child deserved to grow up around something like that.
    “I only have a vague memory of our lives before she got addicted. It was just her and me for three years. Then my brother, Noah, came along. She’s never told either one of us who our dad is. Or I guess I should say dads. I’m pretty sure we don’t have the same one. She wasn’t always hooked on drugs. At first, she worked in a liquor store. A neighbor in the apartment next door looked after us. But then Mom lost the job and the woman who took care of us died. Someone introduced her to coke. After that, most of the years I can remember are of her strung out. Prostituting for money that she would spend on drugs. I learned to grab as much of the cash as I could without her noticing after she and the johns passed out. Used that to feed me and Noah.”
    “Jesus. Zac.” She failed to keep the tears at bay. Her heart shattered as she considered how hard his life had been. It made it even more incredible to see the man he’d become today.
    “Hey, it didn’t kill me, so no tears, okay?” He stood up, reaching out for her and Tacy went to him. He sat down in the sand and tugged her in between his legs so that she could rest her back against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her tightly. “That’s better. I missed touching you.”
    “Was that really your life until you were fifteen?”
    Zac shook his head. “No. Not exactly. The state stepped in when I was twelve and Noah nine. Teacher spotted a nasty bruise on Noah’s side. He’d gotten hit by one of my mom’s boyfriends for breaking a glass in the kitchen.”
    Tacy bit her lip, trying not to cry any more. “What an asshole.”
    He chuckled, but the sound wasn’t a happy one. “Yeah. There were a lot of assholes in and out of our apartment. We got put in the system. First home they sent us to was almost as bad as the one they’d pulled us out of. I grabbed Noah after three months there and ran. Cops found us, put us back in foster care. That was when we met Mama Lewis. She was one of the few foster parents willing to take both of us. I’d made it pretty clear to the social worker that Noah and I were not getting split up.”
    “But I thought you said you went to live with Mama Lewis at fifteen?”
    “We stayed with Mama Lewis off and on for two years. My mom was trying to get straight, doing everything the court asked. It looked like she was going to pull herself out, get off the drugs. I’m no different from any other kid, I guess. I wanted to be with my mom, and I resented the hell out of the system and Mama Lewis for keeping me away from her.”
    “What changed your mind?”
    “My mom managed to convince the court to give us back. She stayed clean for exactly eight weeks.”
    “Shit,” she murmured.
    “Yeah. And when she fell off the wagon, she fell off hard. That was when she started doing heroin. The johns were back in her bed, the cabinets were empty and I stopped believing in…well…basically everything. I was an angry little prick blaming the world for all the shit in my life. Started smoking pot, stealing, drinking, doing