Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 79338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 397(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
I'm only twenty-one. Two weeks ago, the idea of settling down, if you can call this that, would never even have occurred to me. I’ve never thought much about getting married or having kids. I've got a career to work on first, but at the same time, I'm pretty sure the boys won't demand any of those things of me, if I don't want them. But I'm starting to realize—like really realize—that maybe one day I could have that with them.
“Have we shocked you?” Summer puts a friendly hand on my shoulder. “Reaper, Scrapper and Mack are good guys. All the Screaming Eagles are, or at least it seems that way to me. They're rough, but there's something about the comradery, the feeling of family here—I've never seen anything like it, and I grew up in a place where everyone said the right things but was horrible under the surface. This is a hundred times better.”
I smile. “A little shocked, mostly overwhelmed.”
“Don’t worry. It’s not like you have to give up your life if you do decide to stick with them. Faith runs a bookstore. Natalie's has a bakery. Emily finished a nursing degree, and I'm working on a degree for early childhood education. We all have our things. Heck, even if you happen to get knocked up—which has been known to happen with so many virile guys around—there are a lot more hands to share the work with. It's like a dream come true, if you ask me.” She grins the grin of a mom who knows her triplets are well taken care of and she's free to relax with her friends.
“Hey, you're Mila, right?” One of the old ladies drops onto the couch arm next to me and shows me her phone. Her brown hair is styled into a cute pixie cut, and she's wearing thick-rimmed glasses that nicely frame her steel gray eyes. She's also wearing a friendly smile. “I'm Faith. You've probably met my Dad, Eagle-eye.”
That explains why the steely gray looks so familiar.
“I help your guys with the FixerUppers account. I know you've been looking at it.” She smirks knowingly, and I think I'm turning red again.
“Um, yeah, sometimes.”
“Don’t be shy.”
“Oh God, they haven't shown you, have they?”
She breaks out into a deep belly laugh. “Let’s just say that I used to monitor the account because at the start they didn’t want to. And then Alpha, one of my men, was there when they started sending you dick pics and he made me stop. Now I just help them with planning and filming.”
“Can we all help?” asks Natalie with a laugh, the one with the bakery. I'm starting to remember who's who here.
Faith grins. “I'm pretty sure all of us here have some pretty good ideas of what kinds of sexy things we'd like to see our guys doing on film. Brainstorming session?”
A cheer goes up, and then the day devolves into suggestion after suggestion, each one dirtier and more outrageous than the other. And I get dragged right into the middle of it, like I've been one of their friends for years. The brotherhood that the Screaming Eagles have seems to have created a bit of a sisterhood, too.
Maybe the guys were right to send me here. There's no way I'll stop worrying about Danny until I know more, but it's hard to be too down when I'm surrounded by a bunch like these girls. And when the suggestion of tear-away pants come up, I can't help but get involved.
Don’t worry, Danny. I won’t stop until we get to the bottom of this.
27
MACK
Hellfire is a tall fucker, with thick, black hair that he ties back with a leather band. He's built like he could carry a chain gun in each arm and mow down an army. And with his military background, he probably already has, at least once. After the chaos this spring, he's in the middle of rebuilding the Outlaw Sons MC, a club that’s known for its mercenary work. They make their money taking bounties and assignments and completing them with military precision. And because of that, they've got all sorts of contacts in the part of the grimy underworld where someone might look for guys to—just as a wild example—beat the shit out of an innocent journalism student because she's getting a little too close to the truth.
He's got his arms crossed over his chest, glaring at me under dark eyebrows. For a moment, he works his square jaw like he's chewing something distasteful. “There's assignments coming through to rough up people all the fucking time. We don't take them, because it’s scraping the bottom of the barrel. High risk, low reward and a waste of the skills of my men. But yeah, there’s always someone willing to pick up a quick buck.”