Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 63763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Raines nodded. “It was.”
Bex closed her eyes for a long moment. “For the love of….”
The sheriff pointed one finger at me. “I’m only agreeing to this because your house is a fortress. But I want her to stay at home tonight. It’s dark, we don’t know how many people are watching, and I’m not moving her into the backcountry until we control the route.”
“Agreed.” I’d already reached the same conclusion, though I disliked hearing anyone else state where Bex would sleep. “In the morning, she comes with me.”
Bex rested one hand against my chest before Raines could answer, drawing my attention down to her. “I’m going because I understand the danger, but moving me behind your gates does not mean I’ll forget Nina. I want to help.”
“I didn’t expect you to.” My fingers tightened once around her waist, fitting more of my palm over the soft curve that had occupied too much of my imagination since the wedding. “You’ll stay informed about anything affecting you, Nina, or dispatch, and I’ll ask when I need something only you know.”
Her eyes narrowed slightly. “That sounded carefully worded.”
“It was.” I watched irritation spark through her fear and found the return of her fire far more reassuring than any claim that she was fine. “Club business, Black Castle clients, methods that might be less than legal, tactical details. Shit like that isn’t yours to carry. Threats to you are.”
Bex studied me before releasing a breath. “I can live with that, as long as you don’t decide everything is club business the second you don’t want to explain it.”
“I don’t hide behind definitions.”
“No. You don’t play games,” she admitted, the corner of her mouth curving faintly. “You just say no.”
“Efficient.”
My chest warmed when a soft laugh escaped her pretty lips and some of the color returned to her face.
A knock on the door interrupted us. The sheriff opened it and one of Wrangler’s drivers stepped inside to let me know the transport team had arrived. He also handed me the clean emergency phone I’d requested.
While they loaded Bex's car into the enclosed transporter, I configured the new phone with limited contacts, a protected location service, and one-touch alerts. When I handed her the device, she looked at the short contact list and lifted one brow. “You’re first.”
“It isn’t alphabetical,” I informed her so she would understand the significance.
She cocked her head. “I noticed.”
“You call me before anyone else,” I clarified, just to make sure there was no question.
“Why?”
My brow furrowed as I realized that the walls had fallen completely and there was no putting them back up. So I told her the truth. “Because you’re mine.”
A blush moved over her cheeks while she slid the phone into her bag. “You’re very sure of yourself for a man who spent three weeks pretending I didn’t exist.”
“Pretending required more effort than expected.”
The answer stopped her for half a heartbeat, and the warmth that entered her expression sent desire racing through my body. I contained the urge to drag her closer before it became visible to her father, but just barely.
Since I’d ridden my bike, I guided her toward Raines’s SUV with my palm at the base of her spine. Bex leaned into the touch instead of pulling away, and the quiet acceptance made the decision to move her into my home feel like the correction of a mistake I should never have made.
I followed them home on my Harley while two Black Crowns vehicles took separate routes behind us. The property sat on several wooded acres west of town, private enough for the sheriff to value it and exposed enough to irritate me now that someone had already photographed Bex outside. Breach and Trigger arrived before we did, while two prospects took positions along the rear boundary and another brother drove past twice to check whether anyone had followed the convoy.
After a quick recon, I made a note that while Raines’s cameras covered the driveway, porch, and detached garage, the north side of the house had a blind spot between an oak and the guest-room windows. One contact sensor was old enough to hesitate before reporting, the backup battery in the exterior panel had begun losing capacity, and the side gate could be reached from the neighboring fire road without crossing the front camera.
Breach handed me a kit, and I corrected what I could with portable sensors, tied the temporary feeds into the Black Castle mirror, and set a silent alert around every approach before trusting the setup enough to let Bex out of my sight for more than a minute.
When I entered the house, she was just emerging from the hallway in soft gray lounge pants and a faded college shirt that slipped off one shoulder. My cock hardened at the sight of her bare skin and the gentle sway of her tits beneath the thin cotton, while my mind supplied an image of that shirt on the floor of my bedroom and Bex spread naked across the black sheets I had never shared with anyone. Tomorrow she would be sleeping there.