Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 90919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90919 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
“What’s your problem?” he asked in exasperation, slamming the front door closed. “For fuck’s sake, woman.”
“Don’t woman me,” I spat, tossing my boot in his direction. It bounced off the wall as I reached for the second one. “And don’t wear your wet boots into my house!”
“Fuck me,” he muttered, scrubbing his hands over his face.
“I tell you everything.” I tossed the second boot. “And you don’t even tell me the big stuff!”
“I tell you plenty.”
“Sure,” I replied sarcastically. “You’re a regular chatterbox.”
“Myla, come on,” he said tiredly. “We had a good night. Can you just stop?”
“I’m not even pissed.” I threw my hands in the air. “Or, I wasn’t until you acted like I was crazy.”
“I didn’t say you were crazy.”
“You didn’t have to!”
“We gonna do this the rest of the night?”
“You can go home,” I snapped.
Cian just looked at me.
“You were just going to move without saying anything,” I said, dropping my purse on the couch. “What the fuck, Cian?”
“Think back, Myla,” he replied quietly. “What was happenin’ with us a few weeks ago?”
My stomach lurched.
“Yeah. We weren’t talkin’.”
“But you said you knew for months.”
“Aunt Ashley offered a couple of months ago,” he said. “But we were negotiatin’ for a long-ass time because she wanted to sell it to me for way less than it’s worth.”
“Well, why wouldn’t you say anything about it then?” I asked stubbornly.
“Because I didn’t think it was gonna work out.”
“Did you convince her to take more?”
“Hell no, she wore me down,” he muttered.
“Oh.”
We stood there quietly for a few minutes, and I’d never been more grateful for my friends for not coming out of their bedrooms to see what the commotion was about. They could probably hear everything we were saying already, but normally that wouldn’t stop Frankie from coming out to watch the show.
“Don’t tell me to leave,” Cian said finally. “You said you weren’t doin’ that shit anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I just meant if you didn’t want to deal with me, you could go.”
“We’re not doin’ that shit anymore,” Cian said, slicing his hand through the air.
“But what if—”
“No.”
“If we’re annoyed with each other, why would you want to stay the night?”
“We’re not datin’, Myla,” Cian replied. “We’re not figurin’ out if this works. We know this works. I’m not sleepin’ without you even if you’re bein’ a bitch.”
“I’m not being a bitch.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
“You implied it.”
“Mother of God,” he muttered, shooing me toward the hallway. “Go. Bedroom.”
“Don’t boss me around,” I griped as I walked toward my room. “I’m home,” I called out loudly.
“We know,” Lou called back dryly from behind her bedroom door.
Cian pinched my ass to get me moving, and I practically leaped through my bedroom doorway in surprise.
“I still can’t believe you didn’t tell me,” I said as he closed us in. “Before—you know, before.”
“I didn’t tell anyone at first,” he replied, taking off his cut and laying it over my vanity stool.
“But,” I paused to watch as he pulled off his hoodie. “I’m not anyone.”
“Maybe I wanted to surprise ya.”
“Did you?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” he said, unbuckling his belt. “I wasn’t sure if I was gonna buy it, and I wanted to think it over myself before I got anyone else’s opinion.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not like you, Myla,” he added. “Don’t run everythin’ by my mom and my girls and the chick that makes my coffee—”
“To be fair, the chick that makes my coffee is my cousin,” I muttered. “I mean, I call her aunt, but that’s more of a respect thing. She’s actually my dad’s cousin—” I met his eyes. “I’ll shut up now.”
“I know who Charlie is,” he replied flatly.
“Okay, I get not talking about every little thing,” I conceded. “But we’re together now, right? That’s what you said. So, you have to tell me now. Especially when it’s big stuff like that. I deserve to know.”
“I woulda told you before,” he said, shoving his jeans down his hips. “You weren’t talkin’ to me.”
“Okay,” I whispered.
“We done arguin’ about this shit?”
I nodded.
He was wearing navy blue boxer briefs, and they didn’t hide anything. Every line of his body was right there for me to stare at, and I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it. I’d found plenty of people attractive in my life, slept with a few of them, admired some of them from afar, but I’d never seen anyone that checked every single box the way Cian did. He was gorgeous and muscular, and his hands were calloused, and his tattoos were fucking fantastic, and I was instantly turned on.
“You gonna wear those clothes to bed?” he asked, reaching down to pull off his socks.
The tattoo on his back was as familiar to me as my own signature. The Aces insignia was distinct and surprisingly beautiful, but seeing it on Cian hit different. It was proof that he was—for lack of a better way to explain it—one of us. He was loyal to my family in a way that would never happen outside of the club and was completely separate from our relationship. There was something profoundly comforting about that.