Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
One single swallow gets the unpleasant mixture of blue curaçao, Hpnotiq, and coconut rum into my stomach and one excited tug to each of our hands gets us into the wet mess of a dance area.
While the music pouring through the speakers is more enjoyable than the gag worthy shit, we just chugged, it’s the sight of her nipples hardening in her top that’s really something to savor.
And of course, the way they brush against mine when she thrusts her chest forward to let her head hang backwards and her locks wildly swing to the rhythm, presenting a hypnotic hair show.
Between her rolling against me in the front – hips begging mine to move faster and harder – and Garcia openly, possessively – not giving a fuck who sees we’re together – grinding against me in the back, I damn near bust in my shorts when they collectively start clawing at my slick skin to the mesmerizing melody flooding our ears.
Fuck, this shit feels like virtual reality.
Too good to be true.
Too real to actually have.
“Eres mio,” fiercely pants the person I’ve probably loved from the moment we met. “Mine, no matter what happens.”
Any opportunity to reply is stolen by the Addam’s family member lookalike we previously spoke to. “Now.”
The one word – meant to be an order – is more than enough to facilitate our relocation to the roped off space we tried to visit earlier.
“Fiorenzo,” Thaddeus acknowledges, arms spread wide along the edge of the couch he’s occupying alone. “Garcia.” His eyes waste no time swinging to my soaking wet girlfriend – er almost girlfriend? – and drinking her in. “Salacia.”
“Yeah, I’m not interested in becoming a princess or cumsort, so you can point your Pixar approved eyes elsewhere.”
“Consort,” Garcia casually corrects.
“Not with the way he’s eye fucking me.”
Thaddeus lets the corners of his lips curl upward in tandem with him propping one boat shoe heel on top of his knee. “Is no one going to wish me a happy birthday?”
“Can we make it a happier one by leaving?” Salay swiftly snips prompting Garcia to curl an arm around her waist like a wordless reminder to watch her mouth.
He could make us disappear.
It’d take a bit of work.
And a lot of money.
And someone like me behind the keys.
But he could do it.
Meaning not provoking the birthday brat is in our best interest.
“Why are we here, Weslington?” I ask, fingers folding with hers to aid in the silencing. “Why did you yank us out of the house and demand a meeting?” Tightening my hold precedes me further investigating, “What is it that you couldn’t send in an encrypted email or text?”
“Father will be dead soon.”
“That’s information we already had,” Garcia grumbles. “Hence you blackmailing Zero to begin with.”
“I prefer bargaining to blackmailing.” Thaddeus devilishly smirks. “Better branding. Better PR.”
“And you better get to the point,” Salay demands.
“An inside source on his medical team – a source I have that my sister does not – is reporting that he is now deteriorating faster than he was.”
Quirking an eyebrow can’t be stopped. “How much faster?”
“Exponentially.”
“In other words?” Garcia cautiously investigates.
“You have less than a week to provide me with proof that you’ve located the treasure I need to guarantee my place on the throne, or I will use every pull I have to guarantee that Fiorenzo is not only extradited but lives just long enough to be. Publicly. Executed.”
Chapter 18
Garcia
We can’t afford rain.
Not now.
Not because it makes our resident Ariel cranky – although it does – but because every minute, we’re trapped in here, in this beach house – that’s beginning to oddly feel like home with the way all of their things are haphazardly spread out – means we’re not out there, on the water looking for treasure I’m fairly certain doesn’t exist.
Except I need it to exist.
I need it to exist because I have yet to find an alternate solution to keep the man, I love safe.
And I have to keep him safe.
Them safe.
It’s my job.
Not as their attorney but as their…partner.
Person?
Are we people?
Together?
More than a fling?
Can we be more than a fling?
Fuck.
What’s even the right term for that?
For when there are three of us?
Is there one?
It’s not a subject that’s come up often in paperwork nor is there a box I’ve ever had a client need to check.
Legally, I understand how this doesn’t work; however, the law is not always up to the true realities we face.
And even when it is…it can be slow to change.
Which is how we get loopholes and exemptions and cracks that allow justice to slip through our fingers or verdicts to be manipulated into our favor.
I can’t let the former happen to Zero.
I won’t.
Scribbling another note on the legal pad in my lap barely precedes his toes wiggling beside it, a tell that tells me his brain is overworking…overthinking…overanalyzing. “Respirar.”