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)
Then I pushed back, leaving her panting where she was splayed out on the desk.
Disconcertment flitted all over her face.
Then she shot back to her feet.
A tall, raging fire.
“You’re an asshole, do you know that?” she hissed.
My chuckle was raw. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Wild curls thrashed around her as she slowly stole in my direction.
Clearly, she wasn’t about to back down.
Hips swaying from side to side as she approached.
A frisson of energy swelled in the room.
She cocked her head. “You want me to tell you something that you don’t know? How about this?”
She reached out with her pointer finger and jabbed me hard in the middle of the chest. “I am not a toy, and I’m not here to entertain you or play your games. If working in this shithole fulfills my brother’s debt, then so be it.”
She kept jabbing the sharp tip of her fingernail in the same spot, driving home her point. “But I will not allow you to mess with me. Not you or any one of these assholes around here. Do you understand me?”
I snatched her by the wrist.
A motherfucking flame licked up my arm.
Ferocity whirled through her eyes as she glared up at me.
I mashed my teeth together, and something very stupid deep inside my chest tightened in a way it shouldn’t.
“I think I like you, Brinley Webber.”
It might have come out a taunt, but I was the motherfucking fool who meant it.
Huffing, she ripped her arm out of my hold. “Screw you, Silas Mercer.”
Distrust and hate blazed out of her as she took three steps back.
“And for the record, it’s pretty gross, you getting that close to me, when you have a kid and a wife or a girlfriend or old lady or whatever the hell you call her. But I guess that’s just another way bikers operate.”
A kid and a girlfriend?
I couldn’t help the smirk that climbed to the edge of my mouth, because her words were pure disgust peppered with a little of something else.
“Ah, the things we discover when we’re sneaking around,” I goaded.
Of course I was aware she was stumbling along behind me through the woods when I walked away from her last night.
There was no escaping the heat of those eyes.
I realized then the assumption she made.
I didn’t correct her.
Instead, I crossed my arms over my chest and canted my head to the side. “You jealous?”
A fluster of revulsion and loathing flashed through her face, but I felt the rest of it, too.
Attraction.
Whatever that wired, swarming energy was that she emitted.
I figured it had to be just as dangerous as the rest of her.
“You wish,” she tossed out.
It might as well have been a lasso. One where she got me right around the neck.
Because I was stalking forward again. Coming to within a foot of her. My stupid hand reaching out so I could trace a single finger down the side of her face.
I was nearly overcome with the need to dip all the way in. Hands itching to sink into her flesh.
What I really needed to do was grow a fucking conscience and step away.
But I was inhaling it. The curious desire that wafted off her skin and filled my nostrils with that sweetness.
Almonds and apples.
A confectionery drug that would poison us both.
And still I was muttering, “Wondering which one of us is really doing all the wishing.”
Brinley’s mouth parted on a wheezed exhale. Those wild curls kissing her pink, overheated cheeks.
Clearly, I was a masochist.
A glutton for punishment because there was no stopping myself from brushing the pad of my thumb across her plump, pink lips.
Only thing it seemed to do was hasten the stirring of her storm.
Woman looking like a hurricane in November.
“Wildfire,” I murmured.
The main entrance door swinging open tore our attention that way.
A plain, local guy waltzed through.
Brinley reeled back like she’d been released from a trap.
Maybe that’s exactly what I was.
A trap.
Trying to touch on something that I knew better than touching.
I knew better.
I fucking knew better.
The dude stumbled once he noticed us standing there. No question he knew he was stepping into a field of landmines.
The tension was stretched so tight between me and Brinley it probably felt like he was inhaling bricks.
At the sight of me, his eyes widened. Natural instinct kicking in and slowing him with a caution flag.
I knew in one single second that this guy wasn’t a threat.
Always a good start to the day when I didn’t have to murder someone before eight.
I looked back at Brinley with a smirk. “Looks like you have your first customer. I’ll let you get to it.”
Then I swiveled around and got the hell out of there before I made any more mistakes.
Because with Brinley Webber? I was afraid they might just prove fatal.
Me
Did you pinpoint anything?
Cash
Still digging.
I blew out a rigid sigh as I read Cash’s response on our secure thread.