Someone to Love — Pepper Pace

"God, I'm happy she's gone," one of Jill's friends said. "Yeah, looking at her face makes me sick to my stomach." Words like those have followed Raina ever since she was a child when a portion of her face was destroyed by a tragic fire. Once upon a time, she was one of the ‘beautiful ones' with her hazel eyes, light brown skin and long flowing hair. But now, Raina only watches the world around her. Too ashamed of her looks to actually interact, she finds joy in following Bill with her eyes. With her head down and her hair obscuring her scars she manages to get by.
Bill doesn't like anyone and has little patience for Jill's flirtations. He has been described as looking like Brad Pitt on crack -- and it's not very far from the truth. The only thing that matters is getting through the work day so that he can get high. But one day he literally crashes into Raina and for the first time in either of their lives they allow themselves to actually be ‘seen'.
This short Pepper Pace romance initially appeared on Literotica.com and then more recently in her collection of short stories entitled Love Intertwined vol. 1. This is one of the stories that helped propel Pepper Pace's popularity as a writer of interracial/multicultural romance. Word count 8,846. Adult themes include drug use, language, sexual situations.