Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 156796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
I stared at him. He thinks I’m pretty? Enough to somehow notice I didn’t drink caffeinated beverages, at least.
I knew I wasn’t ugly. My skin was pale but clear, due to being lucky with genes and not having acne in the family. Plus I didn’t eat much sugar to promote that. My bone structure was relatively symmetrical, my features slightly too small, making me look slight and innocent. That was magnified by the thick glasses I was required to wear, as I was a little unluckier with my genes in regard to eyesight—both of my parents wore glasses too. I liked to think mine were nice, not fashionable but not geeky spectacles either. I didn’t recognize my face without them—physically couldn’t unless I wore contacts, and they irritated my hazel eyes.
My caramel hair was long and healthy because I took all the right vitamins and researched the best, paraben-free products to suit my slightly wavy locks. Though I almost always wore it up anyway.
No, I wasn’t ugly, but I never thought of myself as overly pretty. More of a wallflower.
I shifted uncomfortably in my chair with Troy’s attention.
He cleared his face to a slightly more professional expression. “Want to tell me what happened? Then we’ll get to finding the car.”
“The car?”
Another grin. “Yeah, your car. The reason you’re here?”
I wanted to whack myself in the head. “Oh yes, my car. The reason I’m here,” I muttered.
Idiot.
I tried to cover up my awkwardness by quickly and succinctly telling him what happened. That I was lucky someone stopped and drove me to the hospital—leaving out the ‘who’ of the situation. And not just because the resident reformed outlaw motorcycle club and the police didn’t exactly enjoy a close relationship, despite the former chief of police being married to the biker princess, Rosie Fletcher, now Rosie Crawford.
No, it was more because I wanted to keep him to myself. Clutch that little sliver of beautiful chaos close to my chest.
I shouldn’t be omitting that piece of information from an officer of the law. Especially since the very man who had picked me up off the side of the road was part of a club that also ran a garage.
But he didn’t even know I’d crashed.
He hadn’t asked what I was doing stumbling and bleeding down a highway in the middle of the night. As if the details weren’t of consequence. As if it was something that happened every day.
Maybe in his world, it did.
“Jesus, Lauren, you’re lucky someone picked you up. And that they weren’t a serial killer,” Troy said, his body tight.
I choked out a slightly hysterical laugh. I wasn’t entirely sure the man who picked me up wasn’t a serial killer.
He narrowed his eyes, obviously picking something up with his cop sensors. Or maybe he was trying to decide if he needed to take me back to the hospital for some kind of psych evaluation. My actions hadn’t exactly been stellar examples of sanity.
So unlike me. I held on to my sanity with an iron grip. Because I knew what it felt like to lose it.
It was obviously the crash shaking me up. Not the man—who may or may not be a serial killer—affecting me in a way I didn’t rightly understand.
Troy looked like he was about to press for the identity of my savior when a uniformed officer approached the desk.
“We’ve got something,” he said.
Troy darted one look at me before he stood. “Excuse me for a second, Lauren.”
I watched him move slightly out of hearing distance to discuss something with the officer I didn’t recognize, inspecting him in his full glory.
He hadn’t changed much since high school—he even had the same hairstyle. His body was slightly more muscled, but not by much. Same square jaw. Nice, tanned skin. Large and pleasing hands.
Everything about him was pleasing.
Nice.
But I noticed it with a kind of detachment that hadn’t been present before that day.
Before last night.
Before I’d become aware of a hunger, a starvation inside of me that a pleasing and nice man could not sate.
Don’t think about it.
Troy helped me with that by striding back over to the desk, arms crossed, face tight.
“We found your car.”
I perked up, but he didn’t give me a chance to answer him, or ask questions.
“It was towed into the Sons compound about an hour ago,” he continued, voice hard and not at all the same as it had been before.
I gaped at him. “The Sons compound?”
He nodded once, obviously as unimpressed as I was, but likely for different reasons. “You want to expand on that?’
I stiffened at his pinched face and accusing tone. “Do I want to expand on that?” I hissed, surprising myself with the anger in my voice. “How would I expand on that?”
“How about by tellin’ me exactly who picked you up last night?” he clipped, the warmness in his voice quickly dissipating. “’Cause apart from you, there aren’t many good citizens driving down the highway in the middle of the night.”