Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77287 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Weston is there.
And my stomach drops like I’m free-falling on a roller coaster.
When I see his flushed face outside, my panic doubles. Kieran’s behind me in the house. Weston’s out on the porch in front of me.
“The fuck are you doing?” I ask.
“You know what I’m doing,” he says. “Told you I was coming over.”
He has the same look in his eyes that he had right before I fucked him, half-lidded and impossible to ignore.
“Thought you meant later. Aren’t you at least going to go home and shower first?”
He just shrugs one shoulder. “I’ll shower here. With you.”
It’s maddening.
This cocky, suddenly confident attitude emanating from him is hot as fuck, and I also have no clue how to handle it.
I turn around to look back down the hall toward the kitchen. Kieran’s there, but right now he’s caught in a conversation with the other guys.
I look back at Weston and nod, opening the door for him. “Get in here and just go upstairs, okay?”
“I want something first.”
He pushes me up against the wall near the front door and crushes his lips to mine the same way I did outside earlier.
I should push him away, but I don’t. He slides his tongue along mine for a moment and then puts his teeth on my lower lip, pulling it, retaliating in every possible way for what I did earlier.
He palms my cock through my shorts and then quickly pulls away, giving me a look before turning and heading up the staircase.
My eyelids flutter shut for a moment as I stay leaning back against the wall.
Each beat of my heart feels like a wartime drum.
And I feel like he deserves some sort of warning about me.
But how the hell can I warn him about every goddamn thing inside me that makes me who I am? How could I tell him that I learned quickly growing up that I didn’t believe in promises? Or that every man who passed through my childhood home and promised my mom something different would be yet another reason I believed in nothing?
Or how I picked up on the little ways in which my mother was living with a broken heart, and I etched it into my brain? That hollowness. Like she was a piece of trash people discarded along the way, teaching me that love only meant pain.
Broken promises leading to broken years.
None of that is easy to explain.
It’s why I never bother explaining it. I keep my distance from people. I stay far away emotionally.
But I’m starting to realize that might be impossible for me with Weston Knox.
My stomach twists. My muscles are still twitching from the run.
But before I head up the staircase, I glance down the hall and I’m looking right at Kieran.
He’s standing there at the edge of the kitchen, looking right at me, and I know what happened in an instant.
He saw us kissing.
And he looks like he just saw a fucking ghost in the house.
“Bro,” Kieran says, walking over toward me. He glances up the staircase, then at me. “You’re getting that personal with him?”
“Leave me the fuck alone.”
“No judgment, my man,” he says. “I respect it. Got to do what you got to do.”
When he puts out his fist I don’t even know what it means for a moment.
Then I realize he’s trying to fucking fist-bump me, waggling his eyebrows.
“Kieran,” I say.
“I knew his ass was curious about dudes. After his bestie ended up with his brother, he looked like he was about to cry at every party for a while there.”
I fist bump him so that he’ll put his damn hand down.
“The thing with his brother and best friend didn’t bother him that much,” I say.
Kieran is acting… normal.
Too normal.
Too good to be true.
He shakes his head. “Nah. Weston’s a lover, not a fighter. You know that. He’s searching for Prince Charming, and it’s painfully obvious. We’re going to be able to take him down if you’re actually willing to get close like that. Knew you’d be a good undercover guy, but you’re full-on. Fuck yeah, Sev.”
Holy shit.
Kier still thinks I’m faking it.
He thinks my kiss with Weston was an undercover act, and that we’re going to use this against Onyx somehow.
Never going to fucking happen.
“We aren’t taking him down,” I say, vicious bitterness seeping out into my tone. “He isn’t involved in any bribery.”
“You sure about that?”
“Yes, I’m fucking sure. And I’m not pretending to be his Prince Charming. Say that again and I’ll put you out of commission.”
He holds up his hands in innocence. “Chill. It’s fine. Thought you hated Knox anyway.”
“Doesn’t matter how I feel about him. He isn’t a bad guy. Understand?”
Kieran nods, but he’s frowning at me now. “Okay.”
He doesn’t sound convinced, though.
I head upstairs without looking back at Kieran. My head is swimming. I can’t handle shit like this, and that’s precisely why I don’t get close to anyone.