A Dirty Business (Kings of New York #1) Read Online Tijan

Categories Genre: Contemporary, Forbidden, Mafia, New Adult, Romance, Suspense Tags Authors: Series: Kings of New York Series by Tijan
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Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 126580 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 633(@200wpm)___ 506(@250wpm)___ 422(@300wpm)
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No rules, regulations here. No suppressed emotions. No box I’d have to be stuffed into.

No roommate. No thoughts about Trace or our last times together.

Me and paint and vodka and my feelings.

Fuck my feelings, but I needed this shit out of me. This was always the best way. Who needed therapy? Talk therapy my ass. This was quicker, cheaper, and way more cathartic.

And as I stepped back, black paint dripping from my hands, I stared up at the canvas.

Apparently fuck me, too, because it was a huge stormscape. But at least I had painted Trace’s images out of me. Now all I wanted to paint were storms, over and over again, because they were coming. I could feel them. They were just on the horizon, and I wasn’t talking about weather storms. I was talking life storms.

I shouldn’t have been feeling this. My life was boring. It was so fucking clean that there was no drama. Squeaky clean. Maybe I was missing the storms. Maybe that’s what I was feeling . . . or hell.

I missed Trace.

God.

I hated him. I missed him. I wanted him here, but I hated him too.

“That’s beautiful.”

Oh, hell to the no.

I turned, my whole body seizing because it was Trace. He was here, looking damn good too. “Get out.”

Damn my voice. That came out as a rasp.

Dressed in a suit. His wide shoulders. Trim waist. Those cheekbones. His chiseled jawline. He looked tired, with mussed hair, but it always made him look better.

Goddamn him.

“Jess,” he murmured, his voice low. Also raspy.

My heart squeezed, and damn even that.

“Get out.”

“Jess.”

“It’s been three months and nothing. You asked for time, and I get it. Family stuff. Your family stuff isn’t typical, but there were no calls. Your numbers were gone. I’ve moved on.” I was lying, through my freaking teeth. Even seeing him had every nerve ending on high alert.

“I know you’re lying.”

“You’re lying.”

He paused, frowning. Then, a small laugh left him. “We’re in kindergarten?”

“You’re in kindergarten.” So stupid. I didn’t care.

I turned back to the canvas, and that storm wasn’t dark enough. There wasn’t enough texture on it. I was tempted to dip my hand into the entire paint can and start flinging it on the canvas. Over and over again. I wanted it covered in black paint.

He sighed. “You’re quitting the nightclub.”

I had my back turned to him. “I’m quitting you. You’re just attached to the nightclub, so I’m leaving.”

“I couldn’t contact you.”

“I don’t care.” Still going with the childish theme here.

“Yes, you do. Jess, my father knew about you. My uncle. My sister. You were becoming a target. I couldn’t have that. Especially if we’re going into a war.”

I turned back now. “A war?” I remembered the article. “They said there were shots fired at your warehouse.”

He nodded, looking grim. “There’s a family pushing in. That’s another reason I stayed away.”

I got that. I did. Logically, I got all of it. It made sense, and my god, it’s what we had both been trying to do for so long.

Logic went out the window when the heart was involved.

The dangers aside, I couldn’t get the pictures of those women out of my head.

My heart was back to feeling squeezed.

Why the women?

“Did you touch them?”

“Who?”

“Those women.”

“No. I didn’t even want to. It was all for image.” He stepped up behind me, so close that I could feel his body heat.

“Jess.” His voice dropped low, raspy.

“What?” I didn’t turn around. God. I wanted to . . .

“Why do you paint? Why do you come here and do this?”

“I’m not a parole officer in here. I’m not Chelsea Montell’s daughter or my brother’s sister in here. I’m no one. Painting takes it all away, and it lets me breathe.” My heart was pounding. “I paint because I have to, and when I wasn’t—I can never return to that again. I’m not naturally an artist, but I think that somewhere deep down in my soul, I am. Painting is helping bring that part of me back.”

I wanted to close my eyes, lean my head back.

I wanted to rest against him, let him hold me. The ache was so strong, so fierce, but I couldn’t. We were back there, all over again. The same woes and feelings. All angst and drama and yearning.

The same hurt, but I just wanted to touch him.

He dropped his voice and his head. I felt his lips almost grazing my shoulder. “I want to talk to you about it. I’d love to be able to do that, but I can’t. You know who I am and what I do, and there’s no getting around it. Even if I wanted to leave that world, there are steps I have to take in order to do that.”

He was right. All of it.

Why did I feel more alive in the last few minutes he was here than the three months he was gone? And why did I feel the pain that came with him too?


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