Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75833 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
He reached for the door and paused with his palm on the steel push plate. “I don’t know that I want you to be anything but who you are.” He glanced over his shoulder and caught me square with it. “Only I haven’t yet figured that out yet, have I?”
If he’d punched me I might have stood up straighter. Instead, I swayed, a small step without moving. There wasn’t space to answer. A thousand answers crashed into each other anyway.
I don’t know either.
I’m figuring out life outside of the shelter I came from.
I know who I don’t want to be more than who I want to be.
Don’t kiss me again unless you mean it.
No, kiss me right now.
All the thoughts ran rampant in my head. I was dizzy from the chaos in my mind.
He didn’t wait for a single word from me. The door swung, and he left, his steps a slow drum down the stairwell, each one falling through me after he was gone.
Without a care he left me spinning wildly in my mind. A new desire burned in my belly, one begging for another taste.
I was definitely in over my head.
10
THRASHER
I didn’t like being distracted.
Distraction was a risk, a full on liability. It made you slow, made you sloppy, made you take a hit you should’ve seen coming. But she wouldn’t leave my head.
The laundry room should’ve been nothing, a pit stop on the way to find Tiny. Instead, it was a live wire I’d been chewing on for days. Her mouth against mine, her breath catching in my grip, the way she’d gone rigid and soft all at once.
Two nights, and I still couldn’t shake the taste of her.
Her eyes were the worst part. Not the color , though I could recall that any time I wanted, but the way they looked at me like she was standing on the edge of something and wasn’t sure if she should step back or fall.
I’d had women look at me like I was dangerous before. Hell, I was dangerous. But this was different. She looked at me like she wanted to see if the danger was something she could tame.
I told myself to let it go. I had club business to handle, brothers to keep in line, deals to close. My life didn’t have space for a woman who didn’t know the rules of this world.
But every time I closed my eyes, I saw her pinned between me and that steel table.
By the second night, I stopped pretending. If something gets in your head like that, sometimes the only way to shut it up is to look it in the face.
That morning, I was halfway through a supply run for the club when I found myself slowing outside a storefront I’d never had a reason to step into. Women’s clothes. Not the skimpy crap the bunnies draped themselves in, but practical stuff. Jeans. T-shirts. Boots meant to be worn, not looked at.
I walked in and got the kind of stare you give a wolf that’s wandered onto the wrong farm. “Need something for my woman,” I told the saleswoman, though ‘my woman’ was still a stretch even in my head. I gave her my size estimates and didn’t miss the flicker of curiosity in her eyes.
She bagged it up without a comment when I dropped cash on the counter. The bag felt heavier than it should as I secured it in my saddlebag. I swung a leg over my bike and took off.
The ride to the hotel was short. I parked in back, went straight down to the laundry room where the machines roared and hissed.
I pushed the door open without knocking. I knew her shift. I had memorized it yesterday when I couldn’t get her out of my head.
She was there, head bent over a table, folding towels into stacks so neat they looked like they’d been measured. Her hair was pinned up, a few strands curling loose at the nape of her neck.
Her head came up fast when she saw me. She froze for a beat, like she wasn’t sure if she should bolt. I tossed the bag onto the table.
“Change,” I commanded.
Her brow furrowed. “What?”
“Jeans. T-shirt. Socks. Boots.” I tapped the bag. “Back room. Now.”
She could have told me to fuck off. Could have crossed her arms and made a point about how I wasn’t her boss, or her dad and I had a feeling I was old enough to be her dad. But she didn’t. She picked up the bag, glanced at me once, then walked into the back without a word.
My ears keenly listened. The sound of the zipper carried over the hum of the dryers. Fabric slid against fabric. I imagined her stepping out of that plain uniform shirt, the soft skin I’d only gotten a hint of before. My hands curled into fists in my pockets.