Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
But turns out, he was coming here too. Maybe he was trying to avoid me.
Love you, my mom texts.
I shoot her a heart emoji.
And Dad says he loves you and not to forget the meeting with Tom next week.
I let out a long breath and push my phone away. Tom Snyder. Our financial counselor. My dad wants me to start investing.
He won’t be happy until I have a cooking show, a magazine of my own, and a Martha Stewart empire. It’ll be another bomb to drop, in addition to me moving out, when they discover that I have no money left to invest. I spent it all on the down payment on the house.
I’ll call Tom tomorrow to cancel the appointment.
“Is he married?” Mace asks.
Dylan tells her, “No.”
I flip the page and start listing half-assed instructions for the blackberry blondies.
“Is he seeing anyone?”
“Do you care?” Aro retorts.
I tip my eyes up, gazing at Lucas again. I saw him kiss more than a few girls growing up. I saw that body on a young woman in my brother’s pool. He’s not so high and mighty when he’s not playing babysitter. Someone—probably many someones—get to see a side of him that no man is allowed to display with me.
“Quinn?”
I avert my eyes, tracing the words I already wrote. “What?”
“Is Lucas Morrow seeing anyone?” Mace asks again.
“I have no idea.”
“A guy with arms like that doesn’t let them go to waste,” she jokes.
I pull on my headphones to get out of the conversation, but I forget to turn on some music.
Dylan chides Mace. “Cool down. He lives halfway across the world. He’s only visiting.”
“So I’ll move quickly.”
Why did I think Mace liked girls?
“He’s in his thirties,” Dylan warns.
Mace flashes a smile. “He knows what he’s doing then.”
Her long legs stretch out, crossed at the ankle, with her tawny, toned legs bare in black jean shorts.
“And you’re nineteen,” Dylan continues.
“So I’m old enough, you mean?”
Dylan chuckles, and I try to hold back my scowl, but then Mace pushes herself to her feet, and my heart thunders like it’s five times its size inside my chest.
Fluffing her long dark hair, she saunters over in her tank top and combat boots and sidles up to Farrow’s side, propping her arm on his shoulder with the other hand on her waist. The one girl in a group of men crowded around some kind of Honda—I have no idea. I’ll bet Mace knows.
I lower my eyes but raise them again. And then again, seeing her confidence, easy stance, and how her hands move as she talks.
Lucas and Jax smile, Lucas’s gaze on her for so long.
Too long…
I look down. Then back up.
Why wouldn’t he be interested? Why wouldn’t anyone? She’s sexy and can handle herself with anything and anyone. I knew that the first time I met her.
What would I look like with a tattoo?
Dylan reaches over, grabbing a soda from the cooler. “I thought he was leaving.”
I draw a picture of my blackberry blondies, pretending I can’t hear her.
“Quinn?” she says.
I still don’t respond to her, pretending there’s music coming out of my headphones.
“Dylan!” Hunter calls, saving the day. She lays the unopened soda can down and runs over to him.
I let out a breath, finally alone. Lucas still lingers with everyone under the hood, Mace leaning her ass on the edge and looking over her shoulder at him.
He wouldn’t take her home, would he? To my parents’ house? And I don’t think she lives on her own. There’s always his car, but…
Suddenly, someone straddles my back, and I look over, recognizing Aro’s high-top Chucks. She starts tugging at my plaid button-down that I wear over my white tank top.
“What are you doing?” I yell, not giving a shit who hears me.
My arms flop out of the sleeves as she rips the shirt off me and then sinks her fingers into my hair, fluffing and teasing.
“Aro!” I growl.
She slaps a tube of lipstick in front of me, instructing, “Just a little dusting.”
“Why?”
“You let me know if he looks at your mouth,” she whispers, leaning into my ear, “and later, I’ll tell you exactly what he was thinking.”
Huh?
I pick up the tube and uncap it, seeing it’s a fire engine red. It’s not my color.
She must notice me hesitating because she adds, “Don’t you want to know if I’m right?”
Right about what? Lucas not being able to take his eyes off my mouth? What do I care—
She pushes me over, so I’m on my back, and takes the lipstick from me. Brushing it over my lips, she smiles as if unwrapping a present.
“Now, fluff your tits.”
I dig in my eyebrows.
“Do it!” she growls.
Quickly, I reach into my shelf bra and shift my breasts back into place as I rub my lips together. “Now get off me!”
But instead, she tickles my stomach, and I squeeze my eyes shut, laughing. “Stop!”