Free Dirty Little Secret (Dirty #1) by Amber Rides

phone so she would hear it. “Are you making a point, here? A fun one, maybe?”
    “I just don’t see why you can assume I’m a bitch because I own a designer purse, and not expect me to judge you based on the fact that you’re a painter.”
    “I work in a lumber yard, actually,” I corrected. “The painting is community service.”
    Shit.
    I hadn’t meant to bring that up, and Melissa picked up on it right away.
    “The country club needs community service?”
    “Forget it,” I muttered.
    “Seriously,” she persisted. “If you’re going to do community service, why waste time on the people who already have everything they could possibly want?”
    I forced a chuckle. “People like you?”
    “You’re jumping to conclusions again. I have what other people think I want. Not what I want.”
    “I think I’ve got something here you want.”
    “We’re talking about the country club, not about me.”
    “I just go where they tell me to,” I informed her. “Service whoever they tell me to service. But you can vouch for that, can’t you?”
    “ Whom ever,” she corrected in a cool voice, ignoring my innuendo.
    “Whomever,” I agreed easily. “And I accept your apology.”
    “Apology for what?”
    “Jumping to conclusions about me .”
    “What conclusions? You’re the one who’s been sitt ing there, judging me!” she replied, exasperated.
    “The conclusion that I’m fucking irresistible.”
    “More like that you’re a fucking jerk.”
    “Melissa?”
    “What!”
    “When you say the word fucking, I get hard as hell. Almost as hard as when I think about smacking your ass with my paintbrush and the sexy little look on your face when you came against my hand,” I said. “I’m going to hang up now, and let you think about that.”
    I pushed the off button on my phone before she could reply, and grinned.
    “Don’t worry, baby-doll,” I murmured out loud. “We’ll talk again soon.”

 
    MELISSA
     
    One hundred and thirty-five hours.  That’s how much time had passed since my accidental engagement. 
    And f orty-eight hours.  That’s how much time had passed since I last heard Cutter’s amused, sexy-as-hell chuckle, sending heat straight to every erogenous zone on my body.
    I didn’t know which amount of time seemed liked longer.  Either way, the days were dragging by.  Going out, coming home, avoiding Shelby and Danny, and unable to ease the perpetual want. 
    And I couldn’t sleep.
    At three in the morning, I was standing in front of my mirror, twisting the ring on my finger, trying to find a way to make it look natural.  Any way I turned the stupid thing, it looked wrong.  Too shiny.  Too big.  Too much.
    You might be thinking I felt guilty, and that the ring served as a grim reminder that I had betrayed what it stood for before it even landed on my finger.  But it just wasn’t true.  I didn’t feel bad at all.  Not on Danny’s behalf, anyway.
    Instead, I felt like I’d betrayed my body by placing the ring on it.  Because my body didn’t flip-flop the way my mind did.  My body knew what it wanted, and what it wanted was Cutter.
    I gave the ring a final frown, then slipped it off and dropped it on my dresser.  I immediately felt ten pounds lighter.
    But I had no sooner crawled into bed when the shrill sound of my home phone - which my parents insisted I keep - made me jump.  I grabbed the plastic receiver with my heart in my throat.  I knew it was him, even before he spoke.
    “Did you miss me, baby-doll, like I missed you ?”
    His voice had that honeyed tone again, and my relief at hearing the sound of it was acute.  My blood went hot.  I couldn’t form an intelligent retort.  I could barely form a coherent thought.  It was instinct that made me hop up from my bed, glance out into the hall, and then close my door softly.  Not because I didn’t want to get caught, but because I wanted him to myself.
    I climbed back under my covers, wondering why the frilly,