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  SIMPLE MAN

  Lydia Michaels

  Erotic Romance

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

  ABOUT THE E-BOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED: Your non-refundable purchase of this e-book allows you to only ONE LEGAL copy for your own personal reading on your own personal computer or device. You do not have resell or distribution rights without the prior written permission of both the publisher and the copyright owner of this book. This book cannot be copied in any format, sold, or otherwise transferred from your computer to another through upload to a file sharing peer to peer program, for free or for a fee, or as a prize in any contest. Such action is illegal and in violation of the U.S. Copyright Law. Distribution of this e-book, in whole or in part, online, offline, in print or in any way or any other method currently known or yet to be invented, is forbidden. If you do not want this book anymore, you must delete it from your computer.

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  A Secret Cravings Publishing Book

  Erotic Romance

  Simple Man

  Copyright © 2013 Lydia Michaels

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-61885-950-1

  First E-book Publication: October 2013

  Cover design by Dawné Dominique

  Edited by Elise Hepner

  Proofread by Rene Flowers

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2013 by Secret Cravings Publishing

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Secret Cravings Publishing

  www.secretcravingspublishing.com

  DEDICATION

  To Michelle, you cardigan wearing book slore.

  I love you, admire you, and want to be you when I grow up.

  Cheers!

  ~Lydia

  The Cravings e-book Club

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  Have you heard about the newest idea in ebooks, the ebook club? Secret Cravings Publishing has started two ebook clubs and we invite you to become a member of either The Cravings e-book Club or the Cravings Paranormal e-book Club. Join now and get two books absolutely free!

  As a member, you will receive Trouble With a Cowboy* by Sandy Sullivan and Forget Me Not** by Jaden Sinclair FREE, just for joining!

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  *Trouble With a Cowboy, a western, erotic romance:

  Can some slashed tires and an ornery bull bring two hard-headed people together for some fun in the sun and a little more?

  **Forget Me Not, paranormal erotic romance:

  A war is brewing, a war that could destroy an entire vampire race if left unchecked, and Julian Marino has been requested to participate in it. He stops his search for a long time friend to go home and discovers there is more at stake than just his wants.

  As a member of the Cravings Club, you’ll receive 4 books in a variety of genres every month. We will try to match your books to your preferences, however, if you’re a major paranormal fan, I suggest you join the Cravings Paranormal Club. Everything is the same, 4 books every month for $9.99 except that 3 of your 4 books will be paranormal. The remaining book will be of a different genre.

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  SIMPLE MAN

  Lydia Michaels

  Copyright © 2013

  Prologue

  September

  “Who left their pizza on the back of the toilet?”

  Shane glanced up from his guitar only to catch Duce taking a huge bite out of said pizza. “You’re disgusting, man. I haven’t cleaned the john in weeks.”

  Duce plopped down beside him on the vintage couch—and by vintage, he meant seventies porn pea green with tarnished duct tape accents.

  “It’s all one big cycle, my friend. My immunities are superior. I can take it,” Duce said as he shoveled the last bite of crust in his mouth. “Hand me a beer.”

  “Did we even order pizza tonight?” Sims asked from the floor, hands fused to a game controller, gaze plastered to the TV.

  Shane stilled as he reached into the cooler parked beside the couch and thought about the last time they ordered pizza. He laughed. “Nope.”

  Duce shrugged. “Doesn’t taste old.”

  “You’re an idiot,” Sims muttered as he decked Duce with a piece of trash he found on the floor.

  Shane went back to strumming his guitar, not that anyone could hear him over the pounding stereo and the incessant loop of music coming from the video game on television. His friends had showed up sometime that evening, waking him up and demanding beer. His trailer seemed to be the place they flocked to each weekend, which was fine with him. Since his truck wasn’t working and he didn’t have the money to fix it at the moment, having them come to his place was beyond convenient.

  The stench of weed flowed from the backroom. “Who’s in my room?” Shane yelled.

  “Tucker. He’s on the phone with Lisa.”

  “He’s whipped,” Russ said over the music and the popping crack of can tabs. Lisa was one hot piece. Shane didn’t hold it against Tucker for doing what the rest of them couldn’t seem to do. Lisa was a good girl. Shane sort of hoped she’d hit it off with Tucker and bring some other good girls around for the rest of them. He’d never admit out loud how lonely he sometimes was, but deep down he thought it would be awesome to have a girl look at him the way Lisa sometimes looked at Tucker.

  Shaking off his thoughts on the comforts of dating, he got back to the topic at hand. “That better not be my stash he’s smoking.”

  “You said you were out,” Duce pouted, eating another slice of mystery pizza.

  “No,” Shane corrected. “I said I didn’t have any for you. Dude, where the fuck are you getting the pizza?”

  “This is from that box over there,” Duce mumbled over a mouthful of cold chees
e and sauce, shrugging toward the box on the floor.

  Shane’s lip curled. “You’re disgusting. That’s from last week.”

  There was a sudden pounding coming from the aluminum door. Everyone quieted and stared. Shane did a quick head count. Everyone they hung with was already there.

  The pounding rattled the door again. “Shane? Shane, it’s Noel. Let me in.”

  Shane frowned. What the hell was his sister doing there? Standing from the couch, he walked to the back room. Tucker was lounging on Shane’s unmade bed, joint between his lips, phone to his ear.

  “That better not be my shit,” Shane warned before slamming the bedroom door.

  He stumbled to the front door. Fuck, he was wasted. Thumb pressed into the latch, he threw the meager door panel wide. “What are you doing here, Noel?”

  His sister stood on the sand lot outside his trailer looking a little dried up and sour. Climbing up the crooked, metal step, she shoved past him and scowled at his company.

  “Hey, Noel,” Duce greeted.

  She glared. “Don’t you guys ever go home?”

  They all shrugged. Shane waited as she took in the dirty space with clear revulsion. Hey, no one invited her. He loved his sister, she was the only family he had, but lately she’d been hanging with a crowd that was bad news. It royally pissed him off that—when she did stop by—she made a clear show of disdain for his home and often spoke to his friends in that stuck up, scornful manner she did so well.

  By no means was he living the highlife, but that was a result of sacrificing so much to raise his sister when their parents died. He had no idea where this sudden sense of entitlement she presumed came from. She never used to be like that and he wanted his sweet little sister back.

  So what if he and his friends killed a few cases of beer a night? And yeah, maybe he toked up from time to time. They weren’t hurting anyone. To his way of thinking, what they did with their weekends was a lot better than what the people Noel hung around with did. He hated the fact that she thought those coked up assholes she hung with were actually friends. Yes, they had nicer cars and more money than Shane’s friends, but that was likely because they were dealing.

  He’d tried to talk to Noel, but every time he said one bad word about her ‘friends’ she flew off the handle and got all high and mighty on his ass, putting down his life from her pedestal. Where did she get off? The past few months their relationship had definitely been strained compared to what it once was.

  Turning on him, Noel’s sharp blue eyes zeroing in on his appearance and the one pack of warm beer dangling from the rings looped over his fingers, she snapped, “Shane, I need to talk to you.”

  He shot her an expectant look.

  She huffed and glared at his friends. “Alone.”

  He didn’t feel like dealing with her drama at the moment, already picking up on her self-righteous tone. “Sorry, sis, I’m sort of entertaining at the moment.” He pulled the last beer from the rings and cracked it open, allowing the plastic to drift to the floor.

  “Yeah, I can see I’m interrupting a great meeting of the minds here.” She turned to his friends. “Go home.”

  “Hey!” Duce cried. He was still eating pizza.

  “Don’t talk to my friends like that. This is my place, not yours,” Shane snapped.

  Her jaw clenched. “Shane.”

  “Hey, Noel, how come you never come around anymore?” Sims called from his spot on the floor where his gaze was still drilled into the TV. His arms swung with animation as he played war on the game screen.

  “To do what? Watch you losers knock out last year’s record holders for most brain cells lost in one sitting?”

  “More like record holders of awesomeness,” Sims quipped.

  “Yeah, that’s what Tracy said,” his sister commented dryly. Tracy was an acquaintance of Noel’s—one Shane approved of. She and Sims had something going for a while, but Tracy bailed on account of Sims needing to “grow the fuck up”, in her words.

  Noel rolled her eyes. “Did you cross those enemy lines in your game yet, big winner?”

  Sims actually put down the controller and gave her a wounded look. “You’re mean.”

  “Whatever. Tracy’s my friend and, unfortunately, after she wasted two years on your ass, I’ve had to do insurmountable damage control. You and I aren’t friends.”

  Sims stared at her as if trying to process what she’d said. Shrugging, he went back to his game.

  “Shane, can we please talk?”

  He plopped back onto the couch. “Talk.”

  She shifted from foot to foot. “Not here,” she begged, growling through ground teeth.

  He shrugged, hefting a bowl of stale chips into his lap and sifting through for the best ones. “This is where I am.”

  All of his life he’d done his best to be there for Noel. This new attitude wasn’t doing it for him. When had they gone from friends to enemies? He wasn’t any sort of expert on raising little sisters—never claimed to be—but he supposed he was trying for what might be called tough love. It sucked, because it went against his nature not to jump to her aide. That’s all he’d done since she was little.

  Noel was going through a stage—an ugly one—and he wasn’t sure how to handle it. She was an adult now. He figured she’d figure it out and go back to being cool sooner or later. Sometimes he really missed chilling with her, but this person, this bratty girl he didn’t know, he wanted nothing to do with her.

  There was a ruckus coming from the small kitchen across from the couch. Beer exploded from a can and Duce and Russ started hollering and cracking up as they mopped up the foamy spill with a rag.

  “Jesus Christ, Shane, how do you live like this?”

  She had a lot of nerve, especially when she hung out in the ghetto with bunch of drug dealing pricks who only managed to have the nicest phones and shoes as a result of criminal acts. At least he and his friends made honest livings. “You don’t like it, there’s the door.”

  The stereo was suddenly jacked up, bass trembling through the house. “This song’s badass!” someone yelled.

  Noel gave Shane an exasperated look as he drained his beer. Duce passed him a bottle of Jagermeister and he took a long swig. Tucker came out of the bedroom along with a huge cloud of skunked air.

  Shane returned his sister’s glare. “You gonna just stand there all night with a stick up your ass?” His vision blurred as he shifted, making room for Tucker.

  Why couldn’t she just go back to being the sweet girl she was six months ago? He was tired of worrying about her. She never stopped by anymore unless she wanted something from him. His days of bending over backward for her were over. She talked to him like he was a pile of shit. He didn’t expect admiration, but he’d been a pretty good brother and didn’t understand how she could judge him so harshly. What made her so perfect?

  Duce bumped into Noel and splashed his drink down her jeans. “Sorry, Noel.”

  She growled. “Shane.”

  Shane listened in as Tucker told Sims what Lisa had said. She was coming over. Sweet. “She bringing friends?”

  “Shane.”

  Russ turned from whatever he was doing in the kitchen. “Is she bringing Holly Big Tits?”

  “Shane!”

  Goddamn it. “What?”

  His sister looked beyond pissed. Her cheeks were flushed and she appeared about ready to cry. “I need four hundred dollars.”

  He snorted. He’d like four hundred dollars too. “What do I look like, Western Union?”

  Four hundred was pretty steep for his pockets. He could probably hit up a friend for a loan, but he didn’t trust her. She’d asked for money a few months ago—money he needed to pay bills—but Shane gave it to her. He figured she really needed it. A week later he saw her new tattoo. There was no way he was going to enable more dumb choices.

  Her cold eyes narrowed. “I don’t have anywhere else to go. I need the money.”

  For someone asking for that
much money she was sure going about it in a bitchy way. “Uh, sorry, I’m broke.” He turned to the television. “Let me try, Sims.”

  His sister’s glare burned through him as he took the controller from Sims.

  “Shane, I’m pregnant.”

  Everything stopped. The room grew suddenly silent. Someone even shut off the radio. He turned to her in slow motion. His twenty-one-year-old sister glared at him like a petulant twelve-year-old.

  He swallowed multiple times, giving his brain a moment to connect to his mouth. “What?” he whispered.

  Her jaw worked as she raised her chin. She gave him the same conceited look she’d had since she was five, clearly thinking she was better than him. “I’m pregnant and I need four hundred dollars to take care of it.”

  “You’re pregnant,” he rasped. “Who the fuck is the father?” His skin weighed like granite on his face as he scowled, a million thoughts racing through his head at once. This was his baby sister. After their twisted upbringing he couldn’t help the paternal reaction he suffered at the idea of someone knocking her up.

  She dropped her gaze to his filthy floor. “He’s not important.”

  Oh, he’d kill the bastard. “Maybe to you. Who the fuck is it, Noel?”

  She met his gaze head on. “I don’t intend on telling him, so I don’t intend on telling you.”

  A low whistle came from one of the guys. “That’s messed up,” Tucker commented. “A guy deserves to know.”

  “I’m gonna kill him,” Shane hissed. “You’re gonna tell me who he is and then I’m gonna get my bat and go kill the fucker.”

  “No, Shane—”

  “No?” He laughed derisively. “With the company you’ve been keeping, I can only imagine the piece of shit that did this to you.” Pregnant? Fuck! What about her future?