Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 160684 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 643(@250wpm)___ 536(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160684 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 803(@200wpm)___ 643(@250wpm)___ 536(@300wpm)
She looked between him and Grady. Sucking in a breath, she let it out slowly. “I promise.”
“Damn, our baby is such a good girl. Isn’t she, Grady?”
“Like I said before, she definitely needs a reward.”
“Hmm. Tomorrow.”
Was Steele going to kiss her? She didn’t know whether she was more nervous or excited at the thought. But he drew slowly back, staring down at her intently. “You were made for us, Effie. I know this seems to be moving fast, but Grady and I have already talked about this. We were trying to go slow. However, we decided that after last night, it was time that people knew you were ours. Including you.”
Holy. Heck.
“If you were ours, Nate would have known to call us the instant you tried to fill in for Vanessa,” Grady told her.
“That really wasn’t a big deal.”
Both of them stared down at her. From the look on their faces, she took it that they disagreed.
“It was a big deal and it won’t happen again, understand me?” Steele said firmly. “You push us on that, and you’ll spend the next day on your feet or stomach because you won’t be able to sit.”
Holy. Hell.
She wanted to ask them if they were Doms and what they were into. But that didn’t seem like a conversation to have in a freaking diner.
“She looks a bit like a deer in headlights,” Grady said.
“Effie, if you need us to take things slower, we can. As long as we move forward. Understand?” Steele asked.
Not exactly. But she nodded anyway.
“We don’t want to scare you. We know we’re not easy men,” Grady explained.
Steele ran a finger over her lips again. “Why don’t we save the deep and meaningful stuff until we’re alone tomorrow?”
She nodded in relief. That sounded like something she could do.
31
“Could you tell me what happened last night? I can only remember bits and pieces. I’m not . . . I’m really not sure what happened. My pills have never caused me to lose my memory. And I keep getting these weird flashes. Like I was tripping over air. And people were telling me secrets. Bizarre, right?”
“Not quite as bizarre as you think,” Grady said. “There were some secrets being shared, only you were the one sharing them.”
“What? I was sharing secrets? Oh my God, what did I say?”
“Nothing bad,” Grady soothed. “Actually, you were quite funny.”
“I was?” Funny haha or funny weird? She wasn’t sure she wanted to know. “I just can’t understand why I’d act like that. I’m so sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Steele told her gruffly. “It wasn’t you who poured vodka into your drinks.”
“Someone . . . someone put alcohol into my drinks?” she asked. “Who would do that? Oh my God. It was Lucy, wasn’t it? That . . . that bitch.”
“That bitch,” Grady agreed, his face dark. “But don’t worry. She’s going to get what is coming to her.”
“What do you mean?” she asked. “What is going to come to her?”
“Nothing that you have to worry about,” Grady told her. “She’s been fired. Lex escorted her out of Pinkies and she won’t be returning.”
Okay, good.
Although she felt a bit bad too. She tugged at her earring. Steele reached up to free her hand.
“Will she be all right?” she asked.
Steele cupped her chin, tilting her head back. “Spitfire, she put booze in your drinks when you said no booze. And she did this because she found those pills in your handbag and saw that you weren’t supposed to drink with them. And she did that because she wanted to get rid of you.”
“Because she’s obsessed with you.” She nodded.
“What?” Steele asked.
“Oh.” She looked at Grady. “He didn’t know?”
“I think he’s in denial.”
“Wow. Dude, she was obsessed with you, like stalker-obsessed. She’s probably got a shrine to Steele in her bedroom. Gets out her vibrator and comes thinking about you. Maybe she even writes your names together with little love hearts in her diary.”
Okay. Effie probably should have tried to think before speaking. Because they were both staring at her like she’d lost her marbles.
“You really think that she was so into me that she’d have a shrine to me in her bedroom? One she’d masturbate to?” Steele asked, showing no embarrassment as he said the word masturbate.
Didn’t matter, she’d gone red enough to impersonate a stop light.
Oh God.
What had she just said? And in the middle of a freaking diner?
Knowing she needed to hide, she slid under the table. Maybe she could just crawl out of here. Make a run for it. Sure, she didn’t have a car or anything but she could take the bus home.
Right?
“She’s trying to hide again,” Grady said.
“It’s cute.”
“I don’t like her sitting on the floor in a public place where I can’t be sure that the floor is clean enough,” Grady stated.