Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
“Hey! Don’t scare them all away!” Cass pouts. “One of them might be Mr. Curse Breaker himself.”
“Doubtful. And relax.” I tug her in against my side, which looks silly because she’s a foot taller than me in her heels, but I don’t care. I’m the one who knows how to fire a gun and who has been trained in self-defense since I was old enough to walk. Not Cass. I’m always going to be her protector, whether I’m smaller than her or not. “The night is young.”
“The night is you putting in a token lap around the place and then convincing me that you need to leave.”
“That’s probably going to happen as soon as the guys call my dad and tell him I’m here.”
“I don’t understand. If this is his place, and it’s a nice one, and there isn’t anything funky like back room sex and drugs going on here, then why can’t you come?”
“It’s not that I can’t come. It’s that he doesn’t like me to go out without the guys watching and…well…okay, so he doesn’t like me to come here.”
“He doesn’t like you doing anything that might attract a potential mate who isn’t club-sanctioned,” Cass points out. “And the club isn’t going to sanction anyone. You’re twenty-two. It’s freaking time. You know that you can make your own choices, yeah?”
“Of course, but who wants to get tied down this young?”
“Uh, lots of people?”
“What’s the point of meeting someone and dating if you don’t want it to turn into something serious?”
Cass rolls her eyes even though she’s probably only slept with all of two guys in her life, and both of them were serious boyfriends. “Hot sex. Lots and lots of hot sex.”
Okay, maybe she’s taking a different route. After her last breakup, maybe she’d like to have more no-strings-attached kind of adult fun because guys can be serious jerks, and she’s had her heart broken two times already. Like, seriously broken. I mean, full nights of crying, mega ice cream binges, swearing off men, and cursing the universe kind of breakups.
Those baby blue eyes of hers that are so gorgeous roam the back of the club now that we’ve shifted positions, cutting deftly through the sea of bodies. They land on the guys behind the bar at the far side of the club—the shadowy back of the club bar where the hardcore bartenders end up. That bar is always slammed. That bar is for people who want to drink, find someone, and get the hell out and for people who like to stick to the shadows and stay well away from the dancing and shenanigans at the other end of the club, where the dance floor and DJ are.
“If we’re going to get booted, we might as well try our luck and have some fun.”
I wince at her whole try your luck thing. I don’t want to comment on her streak of the literal opposite and the curse she’s always talking about. “No! I came out with you because you begged and pleaded and said you were bored and needed this to get back on the horse. Some flirting—that’s what you said. I came because I felt bad about your breakup, and Jason was an—”
Cass wags a finger in my face. “Don’t speak that butthole’s name again. We agreed.”
“Okay, so Mr. Butthole was a butthole with a big butthole for a brain and an even bigger one where his heart should have been, but the way you’re looking at the bar isn’t about flirting. It’s about trouble, and this is my dad’s club, so I really want to stay out of that.”
“What’s he going to do? Ground you? You have your own place now.”
“Never underestimate my dad’s reach. Plus, I painted most of the inside pink. You know my dad hates pink.”
“What does he expect? For you to do every room in his favorite color? Black on black on black on black?”
“Well, you know my dad…”
Cass doesn’t shudder. She knows my dad is mega overprotective, and she also knows he might look hard and scary af on the outside, but he’s a big softy on the inside. Unless he’s crossed. Then watch the eff out because he’ll be coming for you the way a cactus comes for balls. Okay, sorry, inside joke. But they are. Cacti, I mean. Big ball stabbers. If you ever fall onto a cactus balls first, you’ll get what I mean.
“Him.” All of a sudden, Cass’ eyes latch onto something—no, someone—in the shadows behind the bar. “He’s too cute.”
Oh. Fucking. No. Cute isn’t how I’d describe Smoke Dokie because that’s definitely who Cass is looking at. He’s bathed in shadows, but there are a few token lights in the black ceiling on a track above the bar, so the bartenders can see what the heck they’re doing. There’s a crazy lineup that never ends in front of the bar, but Smokie Dokie isn’t rushing around back there. He moves his big body slowly and methodically. It’s almost sinful to watch him. He might not be part of the club, but he looks like he could be. He’s always wearing leather. At least, the few times I’ve seen him before, he was. He bartends at a few of my dad’s clubs. He got hired six months ago, and the guys talk about him all the time. I’ve seen him outside the club twice, waiting to speak with the guys inside. He was wearing leather then too, and buttery soft, flattering jeans that made it obvious he had more than buns of steel—like buns of steel 2.0 x 2.