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)
Probably didn’t need my lips grazing up her flushed cheek as I inclined toward her ear, but I couldn’t resist that, either.
“You go over that fence, you get dead.”
Figured the warning would hit her like blunt force trauma. That she’d realize what was at stake here.
What I didn’t expect was her sudden assault.
Brinley whipped up her knee and hit me full in the junk.
Pain blacked out my sight.
“Motherfuck.” It was a straight howl, and there was nothing I could do but double over in agony.
And there went that wildfire, scrambling up the side of the fence again.
That time when I ripped her down, I flung her around, cinched her hands tight to her sides, and wedged my knee between her thighs.
Fully caging her in.
A gasp ripped out of her, and Brinley arched.
And fuck, I was assailed with every atrocious thing I wanted to do to her.
Dip my dirty fingers into the fire that she was. Let her burn me up.
Urges of it hit me from all sides.
A sneak fucking attack.
It was obscene the way I wanted to peel her out of those jeans and show her exactly who was King.
Except she was suddenly pleading, “I don’t know what it is my brother owes you or what he did, but I’ll figure out how to repay you. Please, just…don’t hurt him. I know he’s an idiot, but I’ll fix it.”
My mind spun through her turbulent words.
There was no missing what she was leaving out crashing through her impetuous gaze.
She thought I was going to hurt her.
I might be the destroyer, but not in the way she was imagining.
My hands tightened around her wrists as I drew them up between us, and I gave her a good tug so she was plastered against me.
Autumn eyes went wide and wild.
Mouth parted on the remnants of the plea she’d released.
“If I wanted either of you dead, you’d already be that way.” The words were gravel.
Horrified surprise had her boots digging into the ground in an attempt to scramble away.
No question, she saw it plain. She knew right then and there exactly what I was capable of.
I didn’t release her. I only hauled her closer.
That tight body seared into mine.
I dipped in, inhaling a mouthful of hot apple pie.
Then I was gritting, “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Unfortunately, the jury was still out on her brother.
There was a chance I was going to have to put that scum in the ground.
Phoenix was already planning it.
I pressed on, “Believe me when I tell you that you’re much safer on this side of that fence.”
We were lucky the disgusted disbelief that gusted from her didn’t vaporize the trees.
“And why would I trust you?” Brinley fumed it in the direction of my face.
My hands were so tight around her wrists they might as well have been shackles as I drew her knuckles up to my lips.
I whispered against them, hoping she’d fucking get the severity of what I was saying. “Because I’m the only thing you’ve got.”
Then I released her, dropping her hands like they were bricks.
Necessary considering if I kept touching her, whatever insanity I was feeling would crush me.
Hoping to fuck I got through to her, I turned on my heel and forced myself back through the woods, storming in the direction of the clubhouse.
Feeling the heat of that gaze once again scoring into my back.
Wondering when it would be that wildfire finally consumed me.
ELEVEN
BRINLEY
Sleepless nights: 2
Brinley: 0
All thanks to that, I stood in front of the crappy little coffee maker that sat on a table under the far window of the office, praying to the coffee gods for their life-sustaining nectar.
Probably appearing like a rabid squirrel with the way my attention kept skittishly darting in every direction while I waited impatiently for each precious, percolated drop to fill my cup.
It wasn’t like I could show my face in the mess hall this morning.
I could only imagine what these people thought of me.
Could only imagine what they were whispering under their breaths.
That I was weak.
Pathetic.
An easy freaking target considering I’d come skulking back through the trees with my tail tucked between my legs.
And seriously, in what kind of alternate universe would I have thought biker gossip would one day be something I’d be concerned about?
Fuck you very much, Dereck, for getting me into this.
Whatever it was.
And whatever it was, I knew it was very, very bad.
That was what really had kept me tossing last night.
The fact that I had felt it like steel bands woven in Silas’s words, though not quite as loud as I felt it howling from his grip.
My being here wasn’t about me paying off some debt.
Dereck had us in deep.
The biggest problem was I had no details.
I was completely in the dark.
How was I supposed to get us out of it if I didn’t know what we were pitted against?