Wrong Side Girl (The Girl Series Book 1) by Julia Goda Page B

could had scared me. But I had powered through it and my reward was a contentment I had never before felt in my life.
    Lizzy and I had not slept apart since our first weekend together. Most nights we spent at her apartment, the reason being that I’d had to work late a lot these past two weeks and she didn’t want to be in my apartment by herself. Totally understandable. I wanted her to feel comfortable at my place, but I knew where she was coming from. Liz wasn’t the type of person who would sit and wait for me to come home. She wasn’t a social butterfly. She was content to be by herself, but my place didn’t feel all that homey. I was a guy and my place reflected that. It looked exactly like you would imagine a bachelor’s pad. A loft-like space with a big screen TV, huge comfortable leather couch in front of it, hundreds of movies on my shelves, a kitchen off the living room with dirty dishes stacked in the sink, not much more than beer in the fridge, and a bed in the far corner of the vast room with a matching dresser and wardrobe for my clothes. Yes, all of it was high end, but it didn’t feel like a home. It felt like a crash pad. Or a fuck pad. Which is exactly what it had been since I moved in. And Liz knew that. So I wasn’t surprised that she preferred to stay at her place, especially when I had to work late. Still, it might be caveman behavior, but I wanted her at my place, wanted to take care of her like a man. But I knew I had to tread carefully in that respect.
    Lizzy was an independent woman who didn’t want to rely on anyone else to take care of her. Her father had left her and her mother before she was even born. Her mother wasn’t a person Liz had been able to rely on, the opposite actually. More often than not, Liz had had to escape that house to be safe from her mother’s pedophile friends. So I didn’t blame her for being the independent person she needed to be to escape her childhood.
    With any other woman, I had been annoyed when they were clingy and treating me like their property, but with Lizzy it frustrated me that she wasn’t like that. I wanted her to consider me hers, needed her to rely on me to be able take care of her. Oh, she was possessive. When we went out and other women tried to make a play for me, or when someone she knew I had fucked got too close, she always staked her claim and it was hot as fuck.
    The sex was phenomenal. Every time we touched each other was like a fire coursed through our bodies, melding us together with a need that was indescribable. I’d had more than my fair share of women in my life, but what Liz and I had was something else. When we weren’t having sex, we were comfortable around each other, teasing, nagging, fighting, just like we always had. It was easy being with her. Natural, like she had said our first night together. I was proud to have her on my arm when we went out, proud that she was mine. All those fucktards that ogled her would never touch her. She never paid them any attention. Even after I had laid it out for her how much attention she garnered from the men around her, she seemed not to notice. Or she didn’t care. And I loved it. Loved it that she didn’t need to play games, didn’t try to make me jealous, didn’t need other men’s attention to make her feel good about herself.
    So things were great. We were happy and for the first time in my life, I was looking forward to my future seeing as it was filled with Lizzy. There was only one thing happening in my life right now that I could do without. Or two things actually: Courtney and my mother.
    As promised, I had called my mother to tell her the news of Lizzy and I being together, informing her that she should expect her as my partner at the next dinner party. Just like I expected her to, she had lost her mind, guilt-tripping me about ruining the family’s reputation, her reputation, by being with the daughter of the town’s slut.
    “Why you would lower yourself to be with