Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 169013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 845(@200wpm)___ 676(@250wpm)___ 563(@300wpm)
The realization of what was coming finally catching up to the indignation that had steered me in this perilous direction in the first place.
In three days’ time, my entire crew would be rushing into enemy territory.
Lives and realities and hopes at stake. Every step treacherous and pitted with peril.
Yeah, we faced down demons all the time. Took chances and risks. But this time, it was different.
This time, there was a very good chance some of us would not be coming back.
Then there was Brinley. Brinley who was blurring the lines in beauty and ambiguity. Mucking the straight shot I’d always walked and sending me stumbling to the side.
It wasn’t an exaggeration since she nearly knocked me onto my ass when she came strutting through the office door and out into the shop, still clad in that ridiculously sexy dress that this morning I’d had shoved up around her waist while I’d had her bent over the bathroom counter while I ate her out from behind. Then I’d gotten as close to fucking her as I ever had, rocking my dick through her butt cheeks then coming all over her back.
Even though she was trying to front her normal sass right then, I saw the vulnerability swirling in the whorl of golds as her gaze slanted toward me.
The connection we shared flash-fired across the space.
In it was that thing that had grown and changed over the time she’d been here.
Trust.
Affection.
I could feel it bleeding out of her.
The dam we’d tried to keep between us had been completely wiped out, and my stupid, mangled heart hadn’t gotten the memo that I had to rebuild it.
I attempted to dip my focus back to my bike like it could be more interesting than her.
After the call with Cash, I made the decision that I’d tell her we had to put an end to whatever we thought we were doing tonight. Put on the brakes and stop this trainwreck before it happened.
Pack her things up in my room and escort her back to the room above the clubhouse.
Right where I should have left her.
The burn of her gaze seared through me as I forced myself not to return her attention.
Too bad she was nothing but persuasion.
Unable to stop myself, I glanced that way, probably looking like a fucking weirdo trying to remain aloof. Itching as I fought with the urge to cross the fucking garage and drive my fingers into the wild locks of her hair.
Claim her in front of everyone.
“Bwinwey!” Kai’s sweet voice cut through the tension, and her gaze snapped to the back door that gaped open wide.
Kai was trying to lift his head from his backward-facing car seat so he could get a better view.
That baby beaming with every ounce of his innocent little heart, excitement and joy as he waved his hands, same way as he’d done when he’d gotten a look at me when Elena had first opened the door.
The sight of him had wrung my spirit in that thing I kept struggling not to feel.
I’d ruin him, too.
Just like I’d done to Elena and Brody.
I had to figure out a better solution.
Fix this.
Promise me. An echo of my mother’s voice clawed through my mind. I swallowed back the sob it nearly elicited.
It’s your heart.
She was mistaken because it was thoroughly bad.
Brinley cleared her throat, shucking off the gravity that clawed through the air in a dire fucking effort to merge us together.
“Hi, baby,” she wheezed.
“Are you talking to me or Kai?” Elena teased. Her expression shifted through exuberance and that fat needle she kept trying to drive under my skin.
“Oh wait, maybe you’re subconsciously talking to my brother because whoo-ee me…is it hot out here or what?” She fanned herself. “I’m not sure how I didn’t find you both passed out. Deceased. Because this girl can’t breathe.”
Awesome.
Now she sounded like Meems. Maybe she should spend less of her days locked up in that house.
“It is summer.” Brinley was all cheek as she strutted her way toward the truck, those sky-high pumps crunching on the gravel.
“I am aware, but Meems and I just watched the news and there was no indication that there’s a heatwave at the precise location of Torque & Talon Autobody Shop. Because it is a thousand degrees hotter here than it was when I stepped out of the house.”
I would have laughed at my sister’s absurdity if it wasn’t for the fact I was actually being burned at the stake.
Flames licking up, my flesh charred as Brinley cast a searching glance over her shoulder back in my direction, trying to play it cool but wondering if we were ever going to fess up about what had been going on with us.
But it was like I told Phoenix. Nothing was going on other than a few mind-blowing orgasms. There couldn’t be.