Beautifully Decadent (Beautifully Damaged Book 3) by L.A. Fiore Page A

She was clearly intrigued. “Conditioned how?”
    “My dad married a twenty-four-year old when I was eighteen. The lessons started in high school. There was a boy in my senior year I really liked and one day I brought him home and he met my stepmother. Now my stepmother is a total b-i-t-c-h. She didn’t like that I had a boyfriend and so she went out of her way to make it so I wasn’t comfortable bringing him home. I guess if it had been real I’d have fought harder, but the fact that I caved as easily as I did was a sign.”
    “What did she do?” Ember asked.
    “One time she came out of the bathroom, soaking wet, wearing only a towel that did very little to cover her. She acted appropriately embarrassed and hurried back to her room, but it was intentional. The next time she strolled into the kitchen wearing her very sexy nightie and thin little robe. What teenage boy isn’t going to drool over a woman with a size four figure and double D cup? She wasn’t even subtle about her scheming because when I didn’t have a boy over she didn’t even acknowledge my existence let alone walk around barely clothed.”
    “She is the b-word.” Ember said, chancing a glance at the girls as if they would somehow know the b-word really meant bitch.
    “When I was at culinary school I was so focused on school that I didn’t make any serious commitments.”
    “Are you a vir…” Darcy started to say; my bark of laughter cut her off.
    “Seriously with the filter. But no, I had boyfriends I liked enough to explore s-e-x with.” Glancing at the clock I almost fell off my stool. “Holy crap, I’ve got to go.”
    Immediately a chorus of, “Holy crap” came from the living room.
    “Oops.”
    Ember waved off my faux pas as she stood and started collecting the dishes. “I swear Faith can hear a bat belch three miles away. It’s unreal. Trace soundproofed our bedroom, hand to God. He didn’t want to traumatize Faith, but he wasn’t going to curb his appetites, if you know what I mean.”
    I wanted to put my hands over my ears because talk about too much information. Jesus, now when I looked at Trace I was going to be thinking about the various appetites he didn’t want to curb. “That is too much info to know about my boss.”
    Ember’s wicked grin was an indication that she didn’t agree.
    Within a few minutes, my kitchen was spotless and the five of us were walking out the front door. “You hang here, Loki. I’ll text your daddy and let him know where you are.”
    Since Loki made no attempt to move from the sofa, I knew he was very happy with this plan.
    Both Ember and Darcy were staring at my car when I finished locking up.
    “It’s a classic.” I said in way of explanation.
    “It’s a piece of sh—” Darcy caught herself; she even blushed. “I’m sorry, that was rude.”
    “Rude, but true.” I acknowledged because it was a piece of shit.
    “Does it hold a special meaning for you? Did you lose your virginity in the backseat or it came with a million dollars?”
    Ember had unknowingly hit it on the head. “My dad bought it for me. He’s usually pretty unapproachable, so the memory of us spending the day searching for a used car is a good memory.”
    “Well, now I feel like crust on dog poop.”
    “What? Crust on dog poop? How would you even know that dog poop forms a crust?” I asked and then put my hand up to stop Darcy from replying. “You know what? I really don’t want to know.”
    Darcy was grinning at me now and Emily was jumping up and down, giggling. “Mommy said poop.”
    To which Faith immediately replied, “Poop, poop, poop.”
    “They’re like parrots.”
    “You’ve no idea.” And with the way Ember said that, I suspected someone dropped a few words they shouldn’t have in front of the little one. And after Trace’s near slip the other day, I suspected he was the culprit.
    “I do have to go though. I’ll see you on Friday.”
    “Absolutely and thanks for feeding us, the