This Will Hurt Series by Cara Dee – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read

This Will Hurt Series by Cara Dee – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com Sun, 11 Jun 2023 19:42:01 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 http://www.books2020.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/favicon.png This Will Hurt Series by Cara Dee – Read Books Online Free Ebooks good best novels to read http://www.books2020.com 32 32 This Will Hurt II (This Will Hurt #2) Read Online Cara Dee http://www.books2020.com/this-will-hurt-ii-this-will-hurt-2-read-online-cara-dee Sun, 11 Jun 2023 19:42:01 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/this-will-hurt-ii-this-will-hurt-2-read-online-cara-dee Genre: Contemporary, M-M Romance Authors: Cara Dee Series: This Will Hurt Series by Cara Dee
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Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 481(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)

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Part II of II Angst Awakening Friends to Lovers Family
Buckle in. Roe and Jake have mountains to climb, walls to tear down, and countless private moments to bring them even closer in this final part of their journey.

The ground beneath me had finally settled. I was content. I was all right. I could move forward and live with my choices.

Then I found Jake’s damn journal from… therapy . That was right. My best friend, who defined “man of few words,” was in therapy. The ground started shaking again. I got desperate. I got angry. I…almost lost him on the job when he saved my life.

Nothing was settled anymore.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

PROLOGUE

2014

Roe Finlay

I’d made it this far without making a sound, and Cas was still asleep. I left him in his car seat on the coffee table in the living room, then carefully slipped out through the patio doors.

I should’ve known I’d find Jake and Colin out here.

It was a cute sight. Jake squatting down, Colin in front of him, as they—or Jake—planted something new in three big pots between the pool and the seating area.

Colin was using the gardening tools I’d given him for Christmas.

“I push it down?” he asked to make sure.

“That’s right—push the bulb down in the soil like this.” Daddy Jake demonstrated. “Now you try. Then we’ll send a picture to Nanny.”

I grinned faintly and headed toward them.

Jake glanced over, spotting me first. He looked a little surprised to see me, possibly because I’d been here just a couple hours ago.

“Did you forget somethin’ earlier?” he asked me.

Colin looked over too and waved. “We’re makin’ garlic! Right, Daddy?”

“We’re planting garlic, yes,” Jake confirmed.

“That’s so cool.” I squatted down next to them and ruffled Colin’s hair. He was looking more like Jake for every day that passed, it seemed. “I did forget something earlier, actually.” I scratched my nose. “I forgot that it’s Thursday, and I think we should head over to the food trucks.”

It’d been too long. About four months—and I couldn’t take it any longer. I needed that tradition to stay alive when everything else in my life had changed.

“Ohhh, I wanna go!” Colin exclaimed. “And you can sleep over! Like when you lived here also!”

Aw, damn. That sweet boy—he was struggling a bit with my moving out, at the same time as he was ecstatic the new changes had brought us an extra little one.

“Another time, kiddo,” I promised.

Jake was hesitant about the food trucks, which was all the more reason for us to go. He’d pulled back lately, and I hated it. I knew I couldn’t have it both ways, but goddammit. Did I really have to go home for dinner every fucking night? No. I didn’t. Jake, Colin, and I had our food-truck thing, and today, I wanted to include my own boy. We were the condor family, right?

“I thought those days were over.” Jake got dismissive about it, and I didn’t buy it for a second.

He missed our old routines as much as I did.

“You thought wrong,” I replied. “I’ve let Cas have his infant phase. He’s three months old—perfect time to get him used to the food-truck smells.”

Jake’s mouth twitched with mirth.

“Is Baby Cas here?” Colin asked curiously.

I smiled and nodded. “He’s asleep inside. We’re bringing him with us.”

“Yeah!” The boy got excited and shook his little butt.

Even Jake couldn’t resist that. He sighed and smiled. “All right, I guess we can order pizza another night.”

That’s the…spirit.

“Please rein in your exuberance,” I deadpanned.

He chuckled under his breath and gathered their tools in a basket. “I’m just doin’ what you talked about in Slovenia—managing my expectations.”

There was so much I wanted to say. Jake had been told all his life that he was bad at communicating and expressing how he felt, but I could read between the lines. I knew he missed us.

That was why getting married had been more difficult than it should’ve been, because Jake’s attachment to me fucked with my head. I’d wanted things that weren’t there. I’d wished for his love to run deeper. But, anyway… It still warmed my heart to know he missed me, and we were gonna do something about that now.

“We’re still a family, Jake.”

He flicked me a glance, then nodded once, maybe not believing me fully.

We’d get there. We had to. I needed a sliver of what we used to have—probably more than he did.

Twenty minutes later, we piled into Jake’s truck, and by some miracle, my son was still asleep.

Colin was fucking adorable. He whispered around Casper and treated him as if he were made of glass. “We gots to be careful,” he said, nodding to himself.

I faced forward again, more content than I had been in weeks.

Jake slowed down for a red light and absently drummed his fingers along the wheel. “By the way,” he said quietly, “Nikki’s pregnant.”

My eyebrows flew up. Holy shit, she moved faster than I did. I thought the guy she was into, Russell or whatever his name was, had gotten stuck in divorce limbo where the lawyers did all the fighting. Last I heard, he and Nikki hadn’t even gone out on a first date.

“Hot damn, I guess they went all in after Russell’s divorce.”

Jake furrowed his brow, before his expression cleared. “Oh—it’s not… They’re not dating. She doesn’t wanna start something until he’s done with the divorce, and he’s focusing on his kids.”

Then who—

“It’s mine,” he said.

Oh my God, no.

My stomach dropped and twisted painfully—old fucking habits and wishes died hard—and suddenly I was seeing Jake and Nikki getting back together. To raise their family. Colin and a new one on the way. How wonderful for them. I had noticed them getting closer last year.

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Advertisement This Will Hurt (This Will Hurt #1) Read Online Cara Dee http://www.books2020.com/this-will-hurt-this-will-hurt-1-read-online-cara-dee Wed, 17 May 2023 05:15:48 +0000 http://www.booksnovels.com/this-will-hurt-this-will-hurt-1-read-online-cara-dee Genre: Angst, Contemporary, M-M Romance Authors: Cara Dee Series: This Will Hurt Series by Cara Dee
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Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70485 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)

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Standalone • Part I of II • Angst • Awakening • Friends to Lovers • Single Dad • Slow Burn
Maybe the heart needs to break before one can put together the pieces correctly. This is Jake and Roe’s story.

I used to think leaving the Marines and moving to LA was the defining moment that changed my life. I was gonna become a documentary filmmaker and see the world through my camera. Then I met Roe Finlay.

*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************

Prologue

Jake Denver

Something told me I was gonna remember this guy for a long time to come.

I grinned as he completely missed his mark, and I had to shift the camera to follow his passionate rambling about an old bird. The California condor. I’d thought he’d worn his “Save the Sea Otters” tee as some ironic joke, but I was beginning to wonder if there was an activist in Roe Finlay.

Standing somewhere in the middle of Big Sur’s state park, surrounded by redwoods and bright-green shrubs, I captured every moment of his unscripted speech. Because that was our deal. No script. We’d see what we’d see, and he would talk about it.

I signaled to him to stay put below one of the tall trees, so I could leave the camera on its tripod and grab my other one for some stills.

“Okay, we’ll totally edit this part out,” he said, “but I sort of see us as condors.”

I chuckled silently, watching him through the lens. “We’re scavenging vultures?”

“Well, kind of!” he laughed. “Not just us, but LA people—especially those tryna make it in the business. We’ll take whatever we can get our hands on.”

I could see his point. And I could capture his lazy, dimpled grin as he scratched the side of his head and peered up at the hole in the tree. That was where he insisted a condor had laid an egg. He’d said it fit their behavior. Condors didn’t build their own nests; they used what was out there.

“It’s about more than scavenging, though,” he continued thoughtfully. “Condors are survivors—with a little bit of help. Kinda like you and me. We get by, but not on our own. We have help too. Just like the condors around here had some thirty years ago when they were almost extinct.”

I glanced up from my camera and listened to him.

He smirked after a moment of silence. “We may not have a ten-foot wingspan, but we’re scrappy, aren’t we?”

I smiled. “I guess so. But I won’t eat roadkill.”

He laughed.

I didn’t know if he was right in his comparison, but I did know that without his storming into my life, I wouldn’t be visiting Big Sur for the first time today, and I sure as fuck wouldn’t be filming a pilot for a travel show that so far only existed in our very new dream.

“Let’s see if we can find a banana slug,” Roe suggested.

Another thing I definitely wouldn’t be doing today if it weren’t for him.

Hunting slugs.

Chapter 1

2010

Just go home, you fucking moron. You don’t belong in LA.

I made my way across campus, feeling more out of place every time I left class. Me? Taking a videography class? Christ on a fucking… My pop was right. I should go back home and join the family business. I was too old to be entering a field I knew nothing about.

Almost nothing.

I was leaving behind a good career in the Marines for…random classes at Santa Monica College. Learn videography in twelve weeks. Study the art of documentary filmmaking in one semester. Then I thought about why I’d left the service. How sick I was of seeing death through my lens. Combat photography had been such a fucking fluke anyway. I was infantry. I was more at home on the front lines in Afghanistan than… But no. No. No, I was here because I couldn’t stand the war anymore. I didn’t wanna see another dead soldier, hear another explosion, witness another crying child surrounded by blood and debris.

I went to the coffee shop on the corner of the street where Nikki worked. She had the car, and we’d go home together once she was off her shift.

I ordered a coffee and found an empty table by one of the windows.

Sounded pretty good, though, didn’t it? Go home with my girlfriend at the end of the day… Except, it was her car, her apartment, and my savings were almost gone. By next month, I’d have to take that bartending job in West Hollywood where the tips were so good.

By then, I’d be twenty-seven. March was right around the corner.

Option one. The Marines. Go back as a full-time war photographer and see all the suffering up close once more. Option two, head home to Norfolk and spend the rest of my days working alongside my old man.

With a heavy sigh, I flattened my notebook against the table, and I heard Nikki in the back of my head, telling me again to buy a damn backpack or something. I kept rolling up my notebook when I had nothing else to fidget with—but I wasn’t buying a bag for a single textbook and notebook.

I retrieved my pen from the inner pocket of my jacket, and I opened the notebook.

Final project. Final project, final project, final project. I needed content. I understood filming. Documenting. But coming up with my own content for a fucking college class’s final project? I was doomed.

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