Total pages in book: 212
Estimated words: 207966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1040(@200wpm)___ 832(@250wpm)___ 693(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1040(@200wpm)___ 832(@250wpm)___ 693(@300wpm)
Beyond being open and having her guard down when we fucked, she was otherwise holding back, wouldn’t get deep. And it was starting to irk me.
She was a shit cook, she was shy outside of fucking. She loved watching movies, no matter the genre, and she could bury herself in her notebooks for hours. She didn’t need to talk 24/7, which I liked. But when she was stressed out or trying to avoid a topic, she’d babble in a way that could get dizzying, info-dumping facts about herself or ugly shit about her childhood.
But I could do with more. More depth when it wasn’t a dizzying babble. I found myself hoping that a few more days and she’d stop holding back. She’d start to trust that she could open up. The shit she spewed the first night in my room above the roadhouse along with the little bits she’d revealed about her family along with the bit I’d read in that notebook let me know there was a lot of shit buried.
Yeah, it’d been a bubble of fucking, music, movies, and relaxing by the fire but unfortunately, the bubble was about to burst.
***
It was Sunday night, just going dark and I was poking the fire outside, roasting foil-covered potatoes and just about to go in for the steaks that were seasoned and ready to go. I had an old grill from a rusted-out barbecue propped over the fire.
She was coming outside in that sexy little tank dress of hers with a beer for me.
“Smells good. You’re a great cook. I’m so shit at it,” she said.
“I can make breakfast, use a microwave, and I can grill. That’s the extent of my culinary skills,” I replied, but then I heard the familiar sound of motorcycle pipes. More than one set. I straightened, taking in the rumbling as it got closer. I dropped the poker.
“Get in the house, now!” I snapped and ushered her inside.
“Oh my God. Oh my God!” She was panting, following me into the middle bunk room. I hadn’t slept in that bunk, I’d been sleeping with her in the other room since that first night together, but my gun was under one of the bunks inside my bag of clothes.
“Stay here until I call you out,” I ordered and took the safety off. “Things go wrong, climb out the window and run. You’ll hit a road about a mile through the bush straight back and if you go left, it’ll take you to a cluster of houses about two miles up from there.”
“Oh my God,” she whispered, shaking hands covering her mouth.
“Take this.” I passed her my sheathed knife. She shakily took it, eyes filling with tears.
“I’ve got you,” I assured, and dropped a kiss on her shoulder before shutting the door behind her, hoping that I did, in fact, have her.
I had a gun in one hand, my phone in the other, and I moved with my back against the wall toward the front door until I could slide the curtain aside to peer out the window. I immediately recognized the bikes and the riders. Deacon, Spencer, and Rider were off their hogs, walking toward the house.
The front doorknob jiggled, then the smart lock beeped and the door swung open. Deacon who came in first froze in his tracks just inside the door, eyeballing the gun in my hand. Rider walked into the back of him a second later.
“Fuck, sorry my brother,” Deacon said as I set my gun down on the table and exhaled. “No signal where we stopped, or you woulda known we were comin’.”
“You guys want a beer?” I asked, slipping my phone into my pocket. “Got some in the…” I didn’t finish the sentence because I could see by the expressions they wore that this wasn’t a social call. Spence who was now inside too, gave me a chin jerk in greeting. All three faces were stony.
“Should I tell her to stay in there? You got shit to tell me?”
Deacon shook his head. “Bad news is for her.”
Fuck. By all three faces, I suspected I knew what this news was gonna be.
“Gigi!” I called out. “It’s okay, baby; it’s the Valentines. C’mon out.”
The door creaked open, and she wandered down the hall curiously. “Phew. What a relief. Hey,” she greeted with a smile. “How are you, boys?”
“Let’s talk, Gianna. Yeah?” Spencer said gently, eyes bouncing toward the couch. I wrapped my arm around her, and her head jerked in surprise as I guided her toward the couch.
And Spence’s eyes moved between me and her. Likely noting the big, still relatively fresh-looking love bite on her neck beside the fading one I’d put there first.
She let go of me to sit down on the couch. “Something’s wrong.”
Spence shoved the coffee table back a foot and sat on it, facing her.