Even after years of trauma therapy, Peyton still believes she’s broken. She has little desire to date or show off her natural beauty, content simply to hang out with her best friends and run her pie shop in New Orleans. But her world turns upside-down when a handsome architect and self-confessed player shows up in her shop and thinks she’s perfect, much more than the usual hook-up. While Peyton does her best to resist his charms, believing she could never be enough for him, she can’t deny the obvious heat between them. With Reed determined to have her, Peyton must decide whether to continue to hide behind her apron and baggy clothes or take a chance and share her scars with Reed, a man with a playboy reputation and scars of his own — a dark past he can’t possibly share with Peyton, not after learning the horrors she’s endured. But if they can find a way to trust each other, and themselves, they just might be able to heal, to save each other, to live perfectly broken together.
Perfectly Broken is on sale for only 99 cents! Be sure to take advantage of this deal while it lasts!
This is the third part of the Exclusive Outtake – to read the entire scene in order make sure you check out Schmexy Girl Book Blog first, then The SubClub Books for the second part – then come back here to read the end! 🙂
Reed walked her to the sofa and placed her on his lap. He couldn’t fix her past, but he was going to do something about her present, their future. He wasn’t going to avoid the topic anymore. There was never going to be a perfect time. He reached between the sofa cushions and pulled out a small box, a little blue and pink ribbon tied neatly around it. “Your Mother’s Day gift.”Peyton looked at him curiously. “I’m not a mother.”“You will be one day,” he said. “This is a promise of that from me to you.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “What is it?”
“Open it.”
Peyton slowly untied the knot and lifted the lid, then her hand flew over her mouth. “Oh, Reed, it’s perfect.”
Reed reached inside and pulled out a gold locket. “I know you never take off the one with your parents in it, but I thought you could add this to the chain.” He opened it up, a small picture of him inside. “There I am,” he said then pointed to the other side. “It’s empty — for our baby one day.”
Peyton buried her head into his neck. “I love it.” She lifted her head. “What if we have more than one?”
“Don’t push your luck.” Reed lifted her hair and reached around to slip the new locket on the chain.
“I’ll never take it off,” she said, looking down at it then up into his eyes. “What does this mean exactly? I mean, does this mean you’re ready?”
“I guess so,” he said, “since I cancelled all your shot appointments.”
“Oh my God!” she cried. “But what about the diapers, losing our freedom. . . .”
Reed tackled her to the sofa, kissing her deeply. “Just promise me you won’t become crazy taking your temperature and doing all that weird stuff that Quinn does.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
He ran his thumb across her bottom lip. “And promise me sex won’t become about just making babies. I happen to like all your holes.”
Peyton laughed and smacked him. “You are so bad.”
“What? Bret told me Quinn said he couldn’t waste his sperm in her mouth anymore. I can’t have that.”
“Is that what the hold up has been all these months?” she asked, still laughing. “Afraid of losing my mouth and ass?”
Reed lowered his head. “That’s only part of it.”
“You’ll be a great daddy. I know that.”
“I have nothing to go on, Peyton. I have no idea how to be a dad.”
“You didn’t know how to be a husband, either. You know how to love, Reed. That’s all you have to do.”
Prescott Lane is the author of First Position and her new release, Perfectly Broken. She is originally from Little Rock, Arkansas, and graduated from Centenary College with a degree in sociology. She went on to receive her MSW from Tulane University, after which she worked with developmentally delayed and disabled children. She married her college sweetheart, and they currently live in New Orleans with their two children and two crazy dogs. Prescott started writing at the age of five, and sold her first story about a talking turtle to her father for a quarter. She later turned to writing romance novels because there aren’t enough happily ever afters in real life.
Thanks so much ladies. I appreciate all the support.