Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 72931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72931 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Why?
Why him?
I’d overheard him and the other guy talking about a girl named Blaire. Apparently I look like her. Maybe he won’t hurt me and will let me go.
But where would I go?
Home?
I shudder at that thought. When Mom OD’d last year, it changed Dad. It changed both of us. While he worried about his social standing and Mom’s death reflecting badly on us, I could barely breathe. She was the buffer. Calmed him before he became a storm. Now that she’s gone, I got swept up in Dad’s furious winds. His social standing woes were the beginning, but it evolved into so much more.
And when I couldn’t take any more of it—any more of him—I ran.
I was always going to run to Junior, I just thought it would be different. After college or something. Down an aisle in a chapel. Toward a future written specifically for us. Turns out, all I’ve been doing is running. This way and that. Mostly away. No future. Just reminders of the past when I dreamed of impossible things.
Now I don’t know where to run.
A helpless sob claws its way up my throat. The heavy sounds of his sleeping grow quiet and the room becomes thick with awareness. I can practically feel his eyes on me in the dark. With surprising gentleness, he strokes his fingers through my hair.
“A girl like you belongs at home with her parents,” he says, his voice gritty from sleep.
“My mom is dead.” My words clip out bitterly.
“I’m sorry.” The gruffness in his tone reverberates to my heart. I can tell he means it, which is stupid since we just met and under awful circumstances. “Your dad?”
“We’re not speaking,” I snap, unable to withhold a shiver.
He wraps his arm around my middle and buries his nose in my hair. I should be stunned by the way he inhales me in such a familiar, possessive way. Rather than my heart rate spiking with fear, I relax in his hold. His scent is a mixture of some expensive, familiar cologne and cigarette smoke with a hint of hard liquor. It makes me want to twist around and cuddle against his chest.
“A girl needs her daddy,” he says softly, his words tickling my hair.
“Not this girl.”
“And look at all the trouble you got yourself into.”
“Could have gotten myself out too.”
He makes a derisive snorting sound. “My daughter thought she was a badass too…” I can hear the smile in his voice and then he tenses all over. “It’s ingrained in a father to protect his daughter.”
Not my father.
He let me down when I needed him most of all.
“I’ll just run away,” I warn. “Wherever you take me, I won’t stay.” That’s great, Hadley, inform the bad guy of your plan.
His fingers twist around my hair and he tugs, the sting of the hairs pulling from my scalp making my eyes water. “You won’t run away from me.”
“I will.”
“Until I pass you back to your father, you’re my responsibility. And you’re really just a dumb kid if you think I’m going to let you out of my sight for a second.”
“Were you this controlling with your daughter?” I demand, eager to hit him where I can tell it hurts.
He releases my hair and smooths it down. “Worse.”
A sick feeling washes over me.
Did he hurt her?
What kind of asshole’s arms did I land myself into?
“We ride out early tomorrow. Sleep,” he orders, his arm tightening around my middle.
I stay up the rest of the night, staring into the darkness, wondering what the hell I do next.
The men—bikers from what I now know are the Royal Bastards MC—gather outside of some guy named Animal’s clubhouse. It’s nicer than the Roaring River MCs shithole, but it doesn’t take much to outdo that place.
I glower at everyone, my eyes flicking to the open truck door. Koyn stands in front of the truck, talking lowly to the guy I’ve determined is his brother. Their similarities are uncanny. The huge difference is Koyn bears a huge, scarred “X” on his face. I could sneak over there, climb in the truck, and haul ass out of there before anyone knew what hit them.
Then what?
Outrun an entire club of pissed off bikers?
And I still don’t know where I’d go.
I never thought much past Junior.
“Putnam, hmm?” a deep, dark, and sultry voice practically purrs. “To get involved with a shit like him or his son, you’d have to be quite the girl yourself.”
I snap my head to meet the green-eyed gaze of the most beautiful man I’ve ever seen. His dark hair is styled in a just-fucked kind of way—for all I know, he probably was just fucked based on his smirk. He quirks his lips up and a dragon tattoo on his neck seems to ripple and move as though it’s alive on his skin. I become fixated on the intricate green and black ink that covers most of his neck. The dragon’s mouth is open, all razor-sharp teeth, and rather than fire, smoke billows out, covering his exposed flesh to his jaw, stopping abruptly. From the jawline down, he’s a total typical biker with leather and black and swagger. His face is straight out of a magazine or a freaking cologne ad.