Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“And before long, he liked to punish me in front of them too.”
“Punish you?” Rook asked, tensing.
“He didn’t… hit me often. It happened. But Randy was much more into psychological abuse. Like, like if I, you know, refused him for any reason—even a legitimate one—he would drag me out to the common room, grab a club girl, and force me to watch him have her go down on him, or fuck her, while telling the club how I didn’t know how to satisfy my man.”
“Christ,” Rook said. “How the fuck were you even able to look at me, if that was your experience with bikers?”
“I’d like to claim I just saw the goodness in you, but I honestly just saw safety in you.”
“Safety?”
“Randy didn’t have a lot of morals. But he did respect club rules. Namely, that no one touches another biker’s old lady. I thought being married to you would protect me from him. I guess I was wrong there.”
“I don’t think you were,” Rook said, surprising me enough to pull back to look at him. “In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t kill Randy tonight. I would have. But Slash pulled me back. Make no mistake, he might be wishing for death right about now, but he’s still breathing. As much as he can through a nose that broken, anyway.”
“Okay,” I agreed.
“I get the feeling he doubled down out of shock and not being used to having someone stand up to him.”
“That’s definitely how he is.”
“Once we were pulled apart, he was, I don’t want to say… reasonable. But he said he didn’t know you ‘belonged’ to me when he came to take you back. Putting aside the disgusting language, he agreed that if I married you, that you’re mine. And he isn’t going to come for you again.”
“Do you believe him?”
“I think so. I mean, the guys are riding out of town with that whole crew right now. Who probably should all be in a hospital, not doing a road trip, but they will follow until that crew crosses out of state. And we will be on high alert for the next few months. But I think it’s done, babe. And if it isn’t, I will put an end to it.”
“Thank you for coming for me.”
“Babe, I’d go to the ends of the fucking earth to get you back. In a strictly non-controlling way,” he added with a little light in his eyes. “Not because you belong to me, but because I think we belong together.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, heart squeezing. “I think we do too.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. We do have a problem, though,” I said, wincing a bit at his face.
“What?” he asked, tensing.
“What the hell are we going to tell Nancy happened to your face?”
To that, he shot me a wicked little smile.
“Out of curiosity, how attached are you to that car of yours?”
Rook - 3 days
“A deer?” Nancy asked, squinting her eyes at my face.
“Yeah, it was awful. It ran out right in front of the car,” Tessa lied effortlessly. “I tried to brake, but there was no avoiding it.”
“Then why are your knuckles all torn up?” Nancy was as observant as ever.
“It was so horrible. It kind of… got trapped, you know, under the car. And Rook just… he felt so bad for it.”
“It was still alive?”
“I wasn’t going that fast. The speed limits around here are pretty low. And, yeah, it was hurt, but still alive and trying to get itself free. And Rook jumped out and kind of helped pull him free. It worked. He got up and ran away. But Rook’s knuckles got all chewed up from the pavement.”
Nancy’s lips pursed.
She wasn’t quite buying the story. But she had no way of proving anything else but what we said happened.
“Where’s the car?”
“I had to junk it,” Tessa said, sighing. “It was kind of… temperamental already. But after the accident, it was all jerky and weird. The mechanic said it could be fixed. But it was going to pretty much cost more than the car was worth. It just made the most sense to get rid of it.”
“Hmm,” Nancy said, looking between us. “How are you going to visit Lorna then?”
So she had found out.
It was inevitable.
Tessa’s chin lifted ever so slightly. “I’m sure there are busses that go out that way. I’m sorry, but is that a problem?” she asked. I had to admit, the slight hint of attitude in her voice was kind of hot. “It was my understanding that only Rook couldn’t visit Lorna.”
Nancy bit the inside of her cheek, knowing Tessa was right, but wanting to be able to do something to stop her from going.
“Lorna is the reason Rook ruthlessly beat a man within an inch of his life.”
“A conman,” Tessa reminded her. “And I think we can both agree that men who lie to and screw over women for weeks, months, years, or even decades,” she went on, digging in, and I had to say, the way Nancy paled was fucking priceless, “shouldn’t be able to just… get to go on and live their lives happily, leaving damaged women in their wake.”