Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 78487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 392(@200wpm)___ 314(@250wpm)___ 262(@300wpm)
When Church ends, Jack asks Shooter and me to hang back.
“I want you both to ride out to Fortune City with me. I want to visit Antoinette and the girls. See if they’ve heard anything unusual. And if these psycho freaks are roaming our territory looking for sinners, the House of Sin might as well have a neon sign pointing arrows inside.”
Antoinette is the madam at the House of Sin. The girls are the women who work for her, women I have gotten to know extremely well over the last five years.
Jack must be taking The Three threat seriously if he’s prepared to ride out to see the woman whose bed he used to warm before he was married. Especially when he’s got a pregnant wife at home who will have his balls if she finds out.
But Antoinette is a good place to start for possible intel on these freaks. People talk. Men get loose lips, especially in the company of a woman who knows how to use her tongue. And because of its location deep in the Appalachian trail, a lot of criminals pass through the House of Sin, dropping secrets like breadcrumbs without realizing it.
I can’t count on all my fingers the number of times Antoinette has called us with useful information about something.
In the parking lot, Shooter and I wait on our bikes while Jack calls Bronte. After what we just learned about The Three, he’ll want to make sure she’s aware of what’s going on and to maybe lock all the damn doors until he gets home.
Not that the threat is immediate.
If it was, he’d already have Bronte wrapped in bubble wrap and surrounded by a hundred armed guards by now.
He’d also be doing everything to protect the men he considers his brothers.
But he’s right. It’s better to be alert than to halt everything for something that might not eventuate.
I look at Shooter. “You’re not calling Beth?”
“Are you fucking kidding me? She’ll have my balls if she finds out I’m spending the afternoon at a brothel.”
“She’ll have your balls if she finds out from someone else,” Jack says, joining us.
“And who’s crazy enough to tell her?”
“My sister is half demon, half psychic. She’ll know. Try and hide this at your own peril.”
Shooter thinks for a moment. “Fuck.” He whips out his phone and walks away to call his girlfriend, the one who is wildly unpredictable, to tell her he is on his way to a brothel.
Jack laughs. Beth is his older sister. She has pure biker blood running through her veins. She is fiercely loyal to those she loves but volatile as fuck if you cross her. Jack wasn’t lying when he said you’d cross her at your own peril. I’ve seen her reduce grown men to tears.
“How is Bronte?” I ask Jack.
“She was more concerned about me bringing home cucumber and balsamic vinegar than she was about me visiting Antoinette. She knows she has nothing to worry about.”
“Cucumber and balsamic vinegar?”
“Cravings. Last week it was sliced apple and peanut butter. This week, it’s cucumber and balsamic vinegar. And what my queen wants, my queen gets.” He grins as Shooter rejoins us. “That was quick.”
“Beth said of course she knows she has nothing to worry about. Apparently, your sister is also one-third bloodhound. Said she would be able to smell sex on me, and if she does, she’ll make me a eunuch.” He climbs on his bike with a grin on his face. “I fucking love that woman.”
We take off into warm afternoon sunlight, and I relax into the ride, letting the meditative calm ease away any tension in my muscles.
But no matter how hard I try to avoid it, my thoughts turn to Rory. I tell myself I’m not going to see her again. That there’s too much going on. That when I get back to the clubhouse tonight, I’ll call her like I said I would, and when I do, I’ll say goodbye.
But as the miles fly beneath my wheels and the Tennessee landscape merges into the beauty of Virginia, she’s still on my mind.
During the night, I had reached out for her and held her to my chest, and she had settled against me like melted butter, a soft whimper falling from her parted lips. Our bodies had started communicating in the darkness before we were even aware. The language was subtle. A slight angle change of hips. The quiet whisper of fingers brushing against warm flesh. The soft sighs that fell from parted lips as our bodies shifted and moved against each other. All this culminating in the moment when we silently reached for each other, and I buried my face in her throat and sank deep into her.
I grit my teeth and begin to grind them, working my jaw as I push the Harley faster and the landscape whips past.