Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 82893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82893 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“So… where are you from?” she asks, getting comfortable and placing her elbows on the table, a move that presses her tits together and accentuates her cleavage.
I’m not fucking doing this.
“I’m not looking for company.”
“What?” She laughs, shaking her head like she misheard me.
“You heard me.” The smile slides off her face, and she glances across the room to where I was staring earlier.
“I see.” She starts to stand but stops before her ass is off the chair. “Just so you know, if you’re interested in Elora, you’re wasting your time. She’s been here for five months, and the only thing she’s given any man is a smile.”
I doubt she’s even given them that.
I let out a bored sigh, and she glares before standing and sashaying her ass back toward the pool table, where she begins flirting with a group of men.
Her assumption that I’m interested in Elora isn’t a surprise, not when she’s the most stunning woman in the room. Her beauty is unique to only her, from her wild mass of hair when she lets it down to her big doe eyes, full pink lips, and the smattering of cinnamon-colored freckles across the bridge of her nose and cheeks. And that’s just her face. Her body is curvy to the point of lush, and although that has never been my thing, after seeing her, I now understand the appeal.
On that thought, I finish my water and toss a few bills on the table before I stand.
I make it halfway to the door when two men who had been playing pool begin to argue, their voices getting louder and louder as they sling insults back and forth at each other. I scan the room for Elora without thinking and notice her making her way around the pool table to the men as one of them shoves the other.
“Guys, you need to calm down or take it outside!” she shouts over their voices. Neither of them acknowledges her, the two of them are so caught up in the adrenaline rush of their anger they don’t see her when she gets between them, and the first punch is thrown.
In three steps, I’m next to her, but I’m unable to grab her and get her out of the way before a fist slams into the side of her head, causing her to gasp and stumble into me.
Rage burns hot and quick through my veins, so I don’t think when I push her toward a group of people watching the fight, nor when I spin and grab the guy who started the fight by the collar of his shirt and throw him wide-eyed with shock into the pool table. And all I see is red when I turn to face the guy who punched her and slam my fist into his face, sending him stumbling and landing on his ass a few feet away. I take a step toward him when he starts to get up. He’s holding his nose, which is bleeding all over the place. I want him on his feet, so I have a reason to beat the shit out of him.
“Roman.” Hands press against my chest as the smell of vanilla and some kind of delicate flower drifts up to me. “Don’t.” The plea is whispered, and I look down. My eyes catch on the red welt on the side of Elora’s face, and my jaw clenches. “Stop.” Her soft body presses tight to mine, distracting me, so I almost miss the guy coming at me. I grab her hips to move her to the side when two men tackle him and pull him back.
“Get him out of here!” a female shouts, and the next thing I know, a hand is wrapped around my wrist, and I’m being tugged. I don’t put up a fight. I follow Elora out the door to the bar and allow her to lead me down the sidewalk.
“If I get in trouble because—”
“Because you stepped in the middle of a fight between two men and got punched in the face,” I grit out, and she spins to face me, her chest heaving and her eyes glittering with anger. Opening her mouth to say something, I get there before her. “What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I had it under—”
“Don’t fucking say you had it under control.” My eyes move to the mark marring her cheek, and my hands ball into fists. “You need ice on that, or you’re going to have a bruise.”
“I’m fine.”
“Where’s the ice machine?”
“I don’t need ice.”
I turn to head back to the bar to get the ice for her my-damn-self.
“Fine,” she says, sounding exhausted, and I look at her over my shoulder. She hasn’t moved from the middle of the sidewalk, where she’s standing with her shoulders slumped. “The ice machine is next to the housekeeping room.” I turn back toward her as she begins to storm off. “You don’t need to come with me.”