All the Waters of the Earth (Giving You ... #3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  OTHER WORKS BY LESLIE McADAM

  DEDICATION

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Copyright © 2016 by Leslie McAdam.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual living or dead persons, businesses, events, or locales is purely coincidental.

  Photograph of Mitchell Wick, book cover model, copyright Wong Sim, used with permission.

  Cover design by Jennifer Watson.

  Back cover design by Michele Catalano Creative.

  Interior formatting by Shanoff Formats.

  Editing by L Woods LLC.

  Other works by Leslie McAdam

  The Sun and the Moon on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B016M8HXW6

  The Stars in the Sky on Amazon here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01A3QTJA2

  For Erika

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks and love to:

  My family and friends.

  Kristy Lin Billuni, www.sexygrammar.com, for holding my hand.

  Maxine Donner, for endless Skyping to plot this baby.

  Little Dude, www. … nah. I can’t do a link here of his NSFW Tumblr site (thingsmydickdoes). Well, thanks to him for giving me a list of positions for one of the—SPOILER—sex scenes in this book.

  The Wattpad community, including early readers Liz Madrid, B.G. Davies, and Amanda Cheairs-Cabral, along with many others I only know by username, for comments and feedback.

  Mary Carr, www.romazingreads.com, for being the most amazing beta reader ever.

  Deb Markanton, Temitope Awofeso, Melanie Martin, Catherine Bibby, Maria Monroe, and Margaret Provenzano for very helpful feedback.

  Jerica “no comma for you” MacMillan, www.jericamacmillan.com, for a whole lot, including proofreading, although all errors are mine.

  Heather Roberts, www.obsessedwithmyshelf.com, for being my spirit animal and my stripper pole of sanity to cling to.

  Mitchell Wick, Wong Sim, Jennifer Watson, Michele Catalano (michelecatalanocreative.weebly.com), Shanoff Formats (www.shanoffformats.com), and Social Butterfly PR (www.socialbutterflypr.net), for making everything better.

  The Mariposa County Superior Court for verbiage.

  And Wild Child for writing the song, “Break Bones,” which was the only song I listened to while writing this.

  . . . and he shifted, pressing his full male heat into her petals.

  Delete.

  . . . and he gently slid his member into her secret center.

  No. Delete.

  . . . and he impaled her on his straining shaft.

  Ugh. Delete.

  I rapped my fingers on the side of my desk.

  What’s on Facebook?

  No. No distractions. Keep writing.

  Or . . . take a break.

  I got my ample booty out of my chair and walked into the kitchen of my duplex to pour a glass of water. Today’s writing wasn’t going very well. Romance novel number sixteen, I feared, was falling into the pitfalls of cliché and drivel. I needed something new. My hero wasn’t making me wet. At all. I was tired of typing and deleting, typing and deleting, not getting anywhere.

  The thing was, I loved being a romance novelist. I loved everything about it—the meet cute, the hot men, the secret, tragic past, the chemistry, and the sex. Oh, the sex. I loved all of it.

  My fictional guys tended to have a few things in common. They were all tall with chiseled good looks—high cheekbones, strong jaws, full heads of hair, and ripped bodies. Uniformly Alpha males. The type who’d fuck you hard against a wall and make you moan in pleasure. Order you around and then show you their soft underbelly. Ooh, baby, make me quiver. I liked them to be men, you know, not wishy-washy. But I liked them to have a soul, too.

  For some reason, however, I was having trouble with this book. I always start with the sex. If I can’t get that right, then I know the rest of it won’t work either.

  I needed inspiration.

  And to tap into my imagination, because I hadn’t gotten any in too long to admit. Since I’d had my son, my dates on my child-free weekends were of two types. Either once they found out I had a son, they suddenly got an important text and had to leave, or there was no way in hell I’d let them around Roberto. So while I waited for Mr. Right (and the Mr. Right Nows didn’t measure up), the only action I saw was between the pages of a book. No wonder I wrote such steamy scenes.

  Given my profession, I had this habit of always looking for the real life versions of my fictional heroes. That sexy-ass DILF in line at Target, with broad shoulders and a beard, balancing a tiny baby girl on his impressive bicep? He looked like Zack from my fourth book. That tattooed masterpiece at Home Depot, all jeans and legs and boots and body? If you grew his dark hair a little shaggier, he kind of looked like Clint in book twelve. And that artsy hottie standing by the bar with the Smith and Wesson belt and what had to be a giant cock? I was going to have to write a book about him next.

  The thing was, I had banged out fifteen romance novels in seven years and I wasn’t stopping anytime soon. I’d done this long enough that I knew the secret to finishing a novel—keep at it. And I kept at it, almost every day, all day. Normally, it was pretty easy for me to do. Just not today, for some reason.

  While I worked from home, I certainly didn’t do so in my pajamas. No manky old college sweatshirt for me to write in. A girl had to show some pride. You’d never find me without full makeup on every day and a Brazilian blow-out for my naturally frizzy hair. I had to look good to take my kid to school.

  I was no writer recluse either. I got out of the house often, going for drinks with my friends. Life was too short not to play. I just made sure to get babysitters.

  Still, I loved to write, and I did it almost daily. I was glad to make a living at it. To make ends meet, however, I had to supplement my income in two ways. I got child support from my ex, Carlos. And I also modeled nude at an art school.

  No judgies.

 
; My body was womanly and I flaunted it.

  The nude model gig brought in a little bit of cash to spend on high heels for me and videogames for Rob.

  It’s true that there was no way that I could be a regular five foot ten, one hundred twenty-five pound model. No way. I was what you’d call fun-sized. Five foot nothin’, baby. Because of that, I never really took off my high heels when I went out.

  You know those magazine articles about how to dress for your type that ask if you’re an apple or a carrot or something? Me? Pear shaped. And how.

  I defined the term, junk in the trunk. My booty entered the room thirty seconds after I did. My waist? Nothing there. Tiny. My boobs? Small, but perky. My legs? Short and strong. When I bought pants, they never fit because they were too big in the waist and too long in the legs.

  But you know what? That was the problem of the clothing manufacturers, not me.

  Though my body was not made for high fashion modeling, it was ideal for modeling for art classes, where they celebrated shapes and curves. I’d decided a long time ago not to waste precious brain space wishing I had a different body. This was the one I was born with and I accepted my looks. This was how tall I was and I wasn’t getting any taller. This was how long my legs were, and they weren’t getting any longer. And my booty? Yeah, I showed it off in a tight mini skirt and heels when I went out dancing.

  As I drank my water, I looked around my nice Santa Barbara duplex. A royalty check for my fourth novel made the down payment. Royalty checks on the fifth and sixth helped to pay the mortgage. The rest of the books paid for food for me and my twelve-year-old son, Rob, as well as clothes, taxes, insurance, and all of the other grownup things in life.

  I must say, though, I was really not a fan of the grownup things in life. I’d rather be a romantic. Who had any use for the real world? That was why we had books.

  My home felt cozy and lived-in. Rob had his Xbox and games out, but other than that, we kept it neat. We had a small kitchen, a large great room that was both a dining room and a living room, three bedrooms, one of which I used as an office, and two bathrooms. I’d call the decorating style early Target, with a dash of Restoration Hardware, meets Día de los Muertos.

  The duplex was part of a larger complex. Because I was home a lot, I could probably tell you about everyone in the complex—the elderly couples who watched television together, the college kids who had one too many parties, and the newlyweds with a baby on the way. But my unit was off to the side and shared a wall and a laundry room with the unit next door, which was a rental. Someone moved in over the weekend but I hadn’t met them yet. It was probably a bachelor, what with the dark furniture and big television. I’d only seen the moving truck—and the movers, jean-clad and wiry, but young, sweaty, and cute.

  My patio adjoined the neighbor’s, and looked out over the pool. I loved to swim—I really loved being in the water—and I used the pool often. We were lucky in California that the time of year did not hamper our ability to go swimming and I could go in the pool now even though it was early December.

  Thinking about my current writer’s block, I decided that maybe I just needed to get out of the house and take a break. Rob wouldn’t be back from school for a while. Sometimes doing mindless, automatic things like laundry or swimming helped with the writing. Good ideas came to me then.

  Downing the last of my drink, I went into the bedroom and put on a pink string bikini. As I said, I was very much a girlie girl. I lived so close to the pool, that I didn’t need any cover-ups—just a towel and my oversized sunglasses.

  Grabbing my keys, I slipped on my high heeled sandals and threw open the door to a man standing there, with his hand raised to knock on my door.

  A very handsome man.

  The most handsome man that I had ever seen.

  Thick, ebony hair. Sapphire blue eyes. His face had the curves and the edges of a romance hero, with high cheekbones, hollows in his cheeks, and a shapely jaw.

  He was dressed in Mr. Businessman attire—a crisp white shirt, perfect, thick, and lush; a gray and blue silk tie that matched his eyes, not too shiny, not too matte; and a dark gray suit that enhanced his frame. He was tall, but of course everyone was tall next to me. Short girl problems. That said, he was probably a foot taller than me, or more, with muscular legs, a flat waist, and broad shoulders.

  For a second, I couldn’t react. Or rather, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. My fictional hero at my door. I almost laughed. That didn’t happen to me. I mean, really, despite the evidence, there was no fucking reason why this man should be at my front porch. He was the kind of man I wrote about in my books.

  But I knew for certain that those men didn’t really exist. They were just figments of my imagination. Real men have bellies and are too short or too lanky and wear cargo shorts and Star Wars t-shirts and need to manscape. They don’t show up at your door looking like Gideon Cross.

  He looked at me, equally startled, and then his vibrant eyes went up and down my curvy body, taking in my tiny pink bikini and high-heeled sandals. Well, guapo, nice to meet you too. He rocked back on his heels, bringing a hand to the back of his neck, and stared down at me. Like he wanted to say something but couldn’t. I was mesmerized by his partially open mouth displaying a glistening tongue and perfect white teeth. Putting his hand down and shoving it in his pocket, he opened his eyes wider. Then he seemed to recover, took a step back, and started talking in a great baritone voice.

  “Hi, I’m Jake Slausen. I moved in next door. I’m staying here while my place gets remodeled. So, I guess I’m your neighbor. Nice to meet you. What’s your name?”

  He was chatty. Aren’t most romance heroes quiet? But God, the sound of his voice. Sexy chatter in a deep voice that I could feel in my body. He made me not want to do anything that would make him go. I wanted him to stay on my porch forever, even if I was in a string bikini. Especially if I was in a string bikini.

  And him? He looked equally flustered—a red tint to his cheeks and a shortness of breath that told me he noticed my curves. But I answered his question.

  “Lucy Figueroa,” I said, shaking his hand. His hand was warm, firm, and strong. I noticed that he held my hand just a second longer than most people did. I wanted to get to know that hand better.

  I wondered what it would feel like between my legs.

  Probably pretty damn fine.

  Shaking off my naughty thoughts and remembering my manners, I continued, “I was just heading for the pool. Have you been down there yet?”

  “Not yet. I have to get back to work.” Regret washed over his face. He looked genuinely disappointed that he couldn’t go. “I stopped by here because I forgot my walk-through papers and I needed to return them to the management office. I thought maybe I’d left them in the laundry room because it was the last part on the list. I went to check it—we share it right?” I nodded. “Well, I went to check it and I found my papers but I also found these and I figured that they were yours.”

  And he held out his other hand with a funny look on his face that was embarrassed, amused, and if I wasn’t mistaken, turned on. There dangling, in those hands that I wanted to meet, were a pair of my red lace thong panties.

  No way.

  “Those yours?” I asked, trying not to be too embarrassed. Talk about meet cute.

  His cheeks burned as red as my panties and he laughed. “No. Not my style. Well, I mean they are my style. I mean, I like them but they aren’t . . .”

  I took pity on him and grabbed my undergarment with a grin. “Thanks.”

  Then we stared at each other. I bit my lip and jutted out my hip. He ran his fingers under his jaw and then behind his neck again.

  “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Lucy. Good to get to know my neighbors. I work long hours but I’m sure to see you around. Let me know if you need a cup of sugar or anyth—”

  “I’ll have to bring you some tamales,” I offered, coming up with an excuse to see him again. “Christmas is coming. My mom an
d I make them for the holidays.”

  “That sounds good,” he said absently, still looking up and down my body. It made me shiver even though it wasn’t cold outside. And then he took a step backwards and brushed up against the large potted ficus that sat on my front porch, tripping slightly. Pushing it aside, he turned to leave and said with a smile that made my insides get all squishy, “Well, I’ll be seeing you. I have to go back to the office.” And then he turned and left.

  Yes, I did want to be seeing him again and I wanted it right this minute. I couldn’t help but think that his job was really inconvenient, because it got in the way of me getting to know him better. I stared at him as he left and then I closed my door slowly, went down the hall, and deposited my red panties in my bedroom.

  A pulse of excitement ran through my body from top to toe. Of course I was short so this didn’t take too long. But this thrill that I felt? I hadn’t felt it in a long time. Maybe since high school? Since my rat bastard ex?

  And this guy was my new neighbor?

  Life was about to get more interesting.

  I needed to cook up a plan to get to know him better. He seemed just perfect—perfect looks, perfect manners, perfect voice. I wonder if he was perfect in bed, too.

  Retracing my steps to my front door, I took my towel, sunglasses, and keys to the pool, now on a mission to think about not only the plot to my new book, but also this new romance hero, living next to me.

  I was up to my elbows in masa. Seriously.

  Rob sat on the floor of the living room, the annoying music of Minecraft droning on, playing with his Xbox. He once tried to explain the point of Minecraft and I never got it. Endermen? Steve? But it seemed harmless and actually creative, so I let him play.

  Twelve year old boys like videogames and I struggled with the tension of wanting to be a cool mom who let him do what he wanted, such as rot his brain in front of the television, versus wanting to be mom the enforcer who’d tell him to ride his bike or read a book. As a single parent, I was both, and I couldn’t decide which one was more important. Sometimes he needed a friend. Sometimes he needed a parent. Although I tried, it felt impossible to do both well. Today was cool mom, since he was OD’ing on the Xbox. What can I say? I did my best.