Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 79959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Tall. Dark. Deadly. And the best looking man I had ever seen in my life.
It was almost wrong for one man to possess so much beauty. Strong, chiseled jaw, stern brows over stunning hazel eyes. And then there was the body. Tall, lean, but strong. Which he had clad in black jeans and a dark wifebeater, with a leather cut over it. That was it. In the cold October rain.
Yeah. Everything about him from the boots to the bike suggested he was trouble.
But he was trouble who offered me sanctuary.
“Say again?” he said in that rough, deep voice of his.
“I said okay,” I said, wiping my hands down the fronts of my shorts, seeing blood. What was a little more blood?
“You're bleedin',” he observed.
“Yeah,” I said, trying to get to my feet without touching my cut palms on the ground.
His hand reached down to me, grabbing my wrist and tugging me onto my feet. “I ain't got no helmet.” Great. I got freedom only to have my head cracked open on the pavement during my escape. “I ain't never crashed either,” he added and I found myself nodding. “Ever been on a bike?” he asked, leading me over to it and throwing his leg over.
“No.”
“Get on behind me and put your arms around me.”
And, with that, he turned the bike over and I climbed on. I paused, not entirely comfortable putting my arms around him.
“Hold on, babe,” he said, then the bike lurched and all my reservations about holding on vanished. I was pretty sure I was holding on tight enough to start burrowing into his skin. I shut my eyes which years of carnival rides told me was the worst idea possible, but I couldn't take the scenery flying by at god-knew-what speed when it was raining and dark and there was nothing to prevent me from becoming some cautionary tale people tell their kids about motorcycles- getting scraped up off the pavement.
It seemed like we drove forever before the bike idled beside a huge wrought iron gate connected to an enormous penny brick fence. I felt my spine stiffen, too many memories of gates and walls in my recent past. But I had no time to freak out because he plugged in a code, the gates opened, and we pulled through. I turned my head, watching the gate close, praying I hadn't just made the choice to trade one prison for another.
We drove up a long driveway. No trees. No there was no greenery whatsoever. The entire space was open. A rolling field surrounded completely by the red brick fence.
The house wasn't as huge as I had been imagining with so much money put into protecting it. It was a one level rustic cabin, all weather-worn wood with a huge porch perfect for sipping coffee on in the morning.
He pulled the bike up next to the house, under an overhang, getting off, then reached for my arm, before turning and moving to the front door to unlock it. Then he waited, door open, for me to hustle through.
The inside of the house was, surprisingly, brick. All the walls, the massive fireplace. Everything brick but the floor which was weathered wood that matched the outside. The main house area had an open floor plan. Kitchen melted into dining room which melted into living room. The living room had two big, worn, caramel colored leather couches with a scuffed coffee table around the fireplace. There was a record player in a corner, an egg crate full of vinyls underneath it.
“Babe, where the fuck are your shoes?” Tall, Dark and Dangerous asked to my side.
I looked down at my bare feet, looking for an excuse. “Flip flops. They ah... fell off while I was running.”
His brows drew together like he didn't quite buy it. But he didn't know me well enough to know I was lying.
“I'll grab a towel,” he said, walking toward the hallway past the fireplace.
I felt myself nod though he was already walking away from me. Curious, I moved further inside the door, glancing over at the kitchen, cut off from the rest of the room by a brick island. The counter tops were butcher block, the appliances stainless steel. The dining room was a few feet from the island and...
Holy shit.
Holy. Shit.
What the fuck did I get myself into?
I needed to get the fuck away.
Before he came back.
Because there, sprawled across the table, was an assortment of guns and an enormous sum of money.
Shit.
Normal people didn't keep guns and cash on their dining room tables.
Normal people didn't keep ten foot fences around their entire property.
Shit.
I needed to...
“Keep your mouth shut about it. Don't ask questions. And we won't have any problems.”
Shit.
I felt myself jerk.
His arm raised and I flinched away from him. Knee jerk. I wasn't even aware I was doing it. But he saw. His hazel eyes darkening, his brows lowering. “Towel,” he explained and I looked and saw the white material in his hand.
Shit.
Again.
Way to let your trauma show, Summer.
“Thanks,” I mumbled, taking the towel and scrubbing it over my face, then rubbing it through my hair.
“What's your name?” he asked, watching me.
“Summer,” I answered automatically. Crap. I shouldn't have said that. I should have come up with some fake name. “You?”
“Reign?”
“Rain?” I asked. “Like... precipitation?”
That made him snort. “No, babe. Reign. Like a king.”
Well then. Okay.
“I'm gonna get changed. Find you something dry,” he said, moving toward the hallway again. “Don't touch the guns less you know what you're doin'. They're loaded.”
Right.
Wasn't planning on touching them. I had never even touched a gun before. Though it seemed like any idiot could handle one. As evidenced by V's ragtag group of morons. Evil, sadistic morons.
I forced my eyes away from the dining table, looking out the back windows into the darkness.
I didn't have to think about them. I was, for the moment, relatively safe. Okay, well, maybe not safe safe, judging by the very criminal looking supplies laid up like Thanksgiving dinner on the dining room table, but safer than I had been. And as soon as the storm let up, I could ask Reign to drive me somewhere.