Crossing the Line Read online

  Crossing the Line

  The Complete Series

  Lauren Landish

  Copyright © 2018 by Lauren Landish.

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Design by Mayhem Cover Creations.

  Photography by Jules Godfrey.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The following story contains mature themes, strong language and sexual situations. It is intended for mature readers.

  All characters are 18+ years of age and non-blood related, and all sexual acts are consensual.

  Contents

  Crossing the Line

  Off Limits

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  No Limits

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Epilogue

  Excerpt: Dirty Talk

  Excerpt: Anaconda

  About the Author

  Crossing the Line

  The Complete Series

  From Wall Street Journal & USA Today Bestselling Author Lauren Landish, the complete Crossing the Line Series!

  Like misunderstood bad boys with a heart of gold? Look no further. This set includes 2 complete interconnected standalones.

  Off Limits - Dane’s a man with a horrendous past, and the moment he steps foot out of that medium security shithole, he’s sworn he’ll stay out of trouble. But when he meets Abby Rawlings, all bets are off. She’s daddy’s little girl, but he’ll make her a rebel.

  No Limits - Rafe’s a ruthless perfectionist who’s never needed love. Until he meets Shawnie. His Angel. She’s scarred and broken, running from a past that haunts her. But her wings aren’t broken like she thinks. Her past hasn’t destroyed her, and Rafe can show her what she’s worth.

  Off Limits

  by Lauren Landish

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  OFF LIMITS

  She’s Daddy's little girl, but I’ll make her a rebel.

  They call me a killer — a felon. I spent five years in a medium security sh*thole.

  I swore I'd stay out of trouble, but when I met Abby Rawlings, all bets were off. From the moment I laid eyes on her, I knew I had to have her.

  But Daddy dearest is standing in my way. He thinks I'm no good for her, and he's declared her Off Limits.

  Well, I don't give a damn. In the end, I'll make her mine...

  **Off Limits is a full-length novel with an HEA, no cheating, and no cliffhanger!**

  Chapter 1

  Abby

  "And so, as our country faces the challenges of a new generation, it’s still important for us to remember the values that brought us here. Hard work. Family. And most of all, our faith, both in each other and in God."

  I tried not to sigh too much. I knew that it wasn't what Daddy would want. I hated this sort of political stuff, especially since I thought that the man speaking had absolutely no idea how to lead a dog pound, let alone a higher office. Still, my sigh caught Brittany's attention. She leaned over to whisper in my ear. "Abigail, come now. Try not to fidget so much."

  "Brittany, nobody's paying attention to me. Everyone's paying attention to Greg," I replied, also keeping my voice low. I may not have wanted to be there, but I still was doing my best to be respectful. "He's the man of the hour."

  "Still, people are going to look. And I've asked you before; in public, please call me Mother," Brittany said. Actually, she wasn't my real mother. Brittany Worthington-Rawlings had married my father when I was thirteen years old. After his first marriage was cut short by a traffic accident that took both my mother and my older sister's lives when I was three, Patrick Rawlings had raised me by himself for nearly eight years before marrying again—this time not so much for love, but for what could best be termed advantage. Tired of working so hard and still being stiffed by those in established families with society connections, he married Brittany Worthington. From one of the long-established families in Atlanta, she'd fallen on hard times financially when her first husband had been convicted of insider trading and sentenced to five years in jail. She hadn't signed any sort of prenuptial, so their bank accounts and estate were considered one by the IRS and the SEC, which cleaned her and her family's hundred-year-old fortune out to the tune of tens of millions of dollars.

  She hadn't exactly been living on the streets. People from Brittany's roots don't end up on the streets, but she had been forced into societal situations that she didn't want to be in, such as not going to the Master's Golf Tournament because she couldn’t afford to be even a basic patron.

  For both of them, the marriage had been advantageous. At first, I'd been quietly opposed, because my father shouldn’t marry for anything but the most noble of intentions. I'd held my tongue, however, and I had to admit that as the years went on, they did seem to care for each other, even if there was never quite the amount of tenderness and affection I had seen in the old home videos of my parents. Of course, both also got what they wanted, too. Daddy got access to the society connections that had eluded him for years, and Brittany got access to his bank account, free and clear of the government.

  But, it never really seemed like she wanted to be the mother to a nearly teenage girl, and for that, she and I didn't really get along all that well. She never went to any of my school events, parent teacher conferences or anything of the sort. The only time my presence was really important was when she wanted me to grow into a young society woman that she could mold into the image she wanted. It was the last thing I wanted, but there wasn't much I could do about it.

  Around the house, at least, we could avoid each other as we were three people living in a house that had five bedrooms along with ten acres of property. As long as we weren't in public, that suited both of us just fine. On the positive side, though, Dad still kept a bit of his blue collar roots, and at least at home, he didn't mind if I acted like a bit of a tomboy. I could wear shorts and t-shirts and go hang out in the back yard however I wanted. On the weekends or when he had free time, he and I
would go riding our ATV's, go fishing at the river that ran through the back of the property, and all sorts of things that we both enjoyed.

  In public, though, he let Brittany have a much freer hand in her critiques of how I acted. "Honey, I spent too many years breaking my back because too many people around these here parts still think who you know is more important than what you know. They'd let me build their houses, their office buildings, hell, even their country clubs, and they never let me inside, no matter how much money I had. These people have ways of doing things that I don't know, or perhaps I do, but I know that there's no way I could get through those ways on my own. Brittany does know, and she can get through, and I want you to learn from her. Because I’ll be damned if I'm going to let my daughter scrap and scrape the way I had to before you were born."

  I sat there as Brittany corrected me for the tenth time that night. The upside? At least I didn't have a stepbrother or stepsister to go along with the whole deal, a sibling who would know all of the rules that I didn't—or did know but didn't want to follow. There was nobody my age, at least, to give me the hairy eyeball. That would have been too much.

  "Abigail, you must learn the most basic lesson. In public, you’re always being watched, and you must always be watching as well," Brittany whispered, continuing her lesson. "For example, did you notice that Henrietta DeKalb has already drunk four glasses of wine during her husband's speech?"

  Henrietta DeKalb, wife of Gregory DeKalb, was one of Brittany's frequent points of observation. There seemed to be some sort of long-term animosity between the women, but I never quite understood what it was. For all I knew, it stretched back generations. That was the way things ran in this level of society. Still, for all of Brittany's pointed commentary, I didn't really care if Henrietta was sucking down Old English Malt Liquor straight from the bottle, or if she was primly sipping Darjeeling from a china cup. I just didn't want to be there.

  Unfortunately for me, my father’s desire to be accepted into the upper crust of central Georgia society meant I had to endure such events on a much more frequent basis than I'd have liked. This night, we got to listen as Greg DeKalb gave a campaign speech in front of the *ahem* fraternal club that both he and my father now belonged to. Dad had been accepted only after his marriage to Brittany. Greg was running for Governor in the next election, and he was certainly hitting up his cronies at the club for funds. While I saw nothing wrong with trying to get money from his friends, the dog and pony show that was this speech and dinner just dragged on my nerves. Seriously, why not just go around the golf course while shooting a round and ask for support? At least then I wouldn't have to sit through it.

  Thankfully, Greg's speech went on for just another few minutes before he wrapped it up, and the two hundred dollar per plate dinner started. I glanced at the ornate grandfather clock against the wall near where we were sitting, stifling a curse that certainly would have earned another rebuke from Brittany. Once the lights rose, I spoke up. “Dad, I understand that this is something you wanted to do, but would you mind if I go?"

  "Go where, honey?" he asked, reaching for his knife. Two hundred dollars was a lot of money for a steak dinner, and inwardly, I was thinking that for the price of just one of the three plates he had paid for, we could have had a lot more fun doing something else. "Dinner just started, and if you go now, you'll miss dessert. It's supposed to be the famous bourbon vanilla pudding. Since you're over twenty-one now, I don't think it'd be too bad if you had some."

  I looked down at my steak, which despite the price tag looked like something I could have gotten at Outback, and tried not to push it away. It's not that I have anything against a good steak. In fact, I'll eat just about any meat you put in front of me, but that night, I didn't want to even touch it. What I wanted to do was get out of that club.

  Dad’s marriage to Brittany had certainly solved some problems for him, and I gave him credit. He didn't let it change who he was at the core. But there were still issues that I didn't like. It made him even more desperate to be accepted in this upper class of Atlanta society, and as anyone who's been to high school in the past generation can tell you, the worst way to be accepted was to act desperate for acceptance. The society types begrudged him a seat at their table, partly because of Brittany's connections but also because of his money. He'd built so many houses and owned enough housing subdivisions that he could have ignored them, but he didn't, probably because of his roots in the working class. He wanted to show them up and at the same time force them to accept him after they'd ignored him for so long.

  But, the biggest problem I had with the marriage to Brittany was that it made his overprotective streak even more stifling. When Mom and my sister, Connie, had been killed, it was just us two. For eight years, Dad protected and cared for me, and I was the only girl in his life. I was all he needed, and he was all I needed. We took care of each other, like the times I'd make Kraft mac & cheese with cubed ham on the nights that he had to be at the job site late. He'd come home to a warm meal, and I'd already fed myself and cleaned up everything but his bowl, and if I was awake, I'd be either doing my homework or watching a bit of TV like a good girl should.

  When Brittany came along, though, things changed. Brittany was able to set all sorts of rules about where I could go, what places were good enough for me, and worst of all, which people I could and could not see. She wanted me to carry on these society connections she lived for, including making sure I met up with the right kind of boys. Most of them were snobbish losers, and more than a few I felt even I could kick their asses. It was the biggest source of conflict within my family, and now that I was nearly twenty-three, I was sick of it.

  “One of the girls from my European history class invited me to an art exhibition, and I told her I’d go. I didn't know at the time about tonight. But if I leave now, I can meet up with her in time for the opening event," I said, trying not to put a hint of whine into my voice. I was a senior at Georgia Tech, for God's sake!

  "I don't know, honey," Dad said, looking at me worriedly. "Who is it?"

  "The artist? I'm not really sure. I think it's someone from Germany," I said, blatantly avoiding the question since I already knew the reaction. I'd known Brittany long enough to practically read her mind on this subject.

  "I think what Patrick wants to know is, which friend are we talking about?" Brittany asked. I didn't really like Brittany, but I didn't hate her either. She thought she was doing the right thing for me, even if she did treat it more as a duty than as a relationship. I could respect that, even if I didn't like it. I’d promised myself when I was younger that when or if I had a little girl, I would be more emotionally involved in her life than Brittany was in mine. "Is it Arianna?"

  "No," I grumbled, not lying. I was raised better than that, and even if I was upset with Brittany or didn't like what she sometimes said, I wasn't going to lie.

  "Who is it, Abby?" He asked, slicing through his steak. He dipped it in his little cup of sauce, chewing happily. Ever since his cardiac incident a few years prior, he'd been warned by his doctor to limit his red meat intake, and while he did his best, he relished opportunities like this to cut loose a little bit.

  "Shawnie," I answered. Before Brittany could object, I started in on my defense. “She's really doing well, and her grades are good. We both graduate this year, and she's looking at going to grad school far away. So this may be one of the last chances the two of us have to do a social event together. Besides, the exhibition is near the bus stop, and I know that I can . . .”

  "No," Brittany said, cutting me off. "Not with that girl. And certainly not after sunset. Do you know what sort of places girls like that go to?"

  For the first time, my feelings drifted from annoyance toward anger. Brittany had never given Shawnie a chance for quite a few reasons. First of all, Shawnie was from the wrong part of the country, an out-of-state girl from the Sand Hill section of South Carolina. She'd grown up not just blue collar, but no collar at all, raised by
her grandmother in Section Eight housing after her mother had abandoned her and her father went to jail. Second of all, Shawnie was independent, and fiercely so. She'd earned a full ride scholarship to Georgia Tech and was majoring in aeronautical engineering. It was only because she still had to take some core classes that we'd met at all, first by chance in a freshman English class, where we'd clicked despite the differences in our backgrounds, and then this year by design in European history, a core course that we'd both put off for far too long.

  "Brittany, Shawnie's a good girl," I repeated, doing my best to keep calm. At least being angry took the whine out of my voice. "She's never been in trouble, and she's as smart as can be. A lot smarter than some of the people in this room, in my opinion. Besides, this exhibition is at The High. It's a high-class sort of event, it's close to campus, and it's going to be attended by a lot of the influential people."