Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 46081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46081 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
And that was it. They didn’t speak again.
Rachel should be grateful for the quiet. It allowed her to observe the scenery passing and be with her thoughts, but the driver’s reaction had her nerves surging to life.
Maybe this was a terrible idea. Maybe she should have called, texted, or emailed, as Jen suggested. There were many ways to meet Curly and inform him he had a sister without showing up in person and making herself vulnerable. But Rachel hadn’t been able to do any of them. She’d needed to look her brother in the eye. To find out for certain if they stood a chance of being family.
So there she was with a hoard of mutant butterflies throwing a rave in her stomach.
“Miss? We’re here.”
She blinked. “Oh, thank you.” She climbed out of the car, tipped the driver on her phone, and then glanced up to find a beautifully renovated farmhouse decorated with white lights for the holidays.
Weren’t motorcycle clubs supposed to be housed in rundown warehouses with peeling paint and boarded-up windows? Maybe some bullet holes in the walls? She glanced over her shoulder to ask the Uber driver if she was sure this was the right location, but all she found were retreating taillights. The many motorcycles lined up in front of the building should have been confirmation enough, but it still seemed incongruous with the holiday decor.
The door opened, and a man in a leather vest stumbled out. He had a woman under each arm and a beer dangling from each hand. The trio laughed as they wobbled around the side of the building.
That was more in line with her original thinking.
Time to get inside. It was either that, or she had a feeling she’d be getting a show for her ears in the next few moments.
“Here goes nothing,” she whispered.
With unsteady legs and a fluttering stomach, Rachel made her way toward the clubhouse. Her jeans and fitted black T-shirt seemed out of place compared to the two women in club wear who’d just left, but she wasn’t one to attract attention to herself with her dress. Her outfit would have to do. Hopefully, there wasn’t a dress code. Or a lack-of-dress code, judging from the skimpy outfits of the other women.
She pulled the door open to find, well, chaos. Wall-to-wall people filled the space, dancing, drinking, laughing, and a few were getting pretty damn frisky. Her eyes widened as she focused on a couple practically devouring each other in the middle of the dance floor.
The man, tall with a Mohawk and countless tattoos, had his hands full of the woman’s ass over her leather shirt. They’d need a stick of dynamite to separate their mouths and a jackhammer to pry their bodies apart.
Rachel fanned herself.
Shit, that’s hot.
It’d been a long time since she’d had a heated moment like that with a man. If she thought about it, she’d never experienced passion like that before. The kind of desire where it didn’t matter if they were in a room full of people, they had to have each other then and there.
Lucky lady.
Though she supposed it was her own fault for picking passive, quiet men. She bet Mohawk wasn’t passive. He seemed like the type of guy who’d throw his woman on the bed and ravage her.
Rachel shivered.
Someday she’d be brave enough to go for a man like that.
“Shut the fucking door.”
Rachel jumped. “Sorry,” she muttered as she closed the door behind her. Whoever had yelled didn’t seem to care. The partying continued around her.
Big men were everywhere. Typically, she could handle being in a crowd better than one-on-one, but this crowd was full of giants, and her anxiety began to creep toward the danger zone.
Drink. I need a drink. A little liquid courage to settle her nerves.
With her eyes locked on the bar, she wormed her way through the mob of bodies. Every few steps, someone knocked into her, but she never took her gaze off the bar. If she looked up to find the jostler to be a big man, she’d lose her shit and embarrass the hell out of herself.
“Well, hey there, darlin’. What’s a beautiful thang like you drinking tonight?”
She chuckled at the thick southern accident so different from up north. The man had an open smile on his young, handsome face. He wore a leather vest like many of the men, with a patch on the chest, reading prospect.
“I’ll have a vodka and seltzer, please.”
“So polite.” He winked, and her insides tumbled over each other.
Men didn’t flirt with her. Mostly because she didn’t put herself in situations where they would, but still. The feeling was foreign. Unnerving too.
“Yo, Rosco, I need a scotch for the prez and beers for Spec and Jinx.”
“You got it, Frost,” the man behind the bar said.
Frost? Rachel risked a sideways glance at the man who’d sidled up next to her.