Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
She doesn’t come here often, if ever.
Her eyes move straight to me and the baby in my lap before she swallows like her mouth is full of glass.
“Of all the gin joints in all the world,” she says.
Crow invites her in, but she declines.
“You got a minute, Mack?”
“Sure.”
They step out into the hall, and Crow gives me an odd look. He’s probably wondering the same thing I am.
When Mack comes in a few minutes later, she scoops Keeva up from my arms.
“She’s making a fast getaway through the back,” she tells me. “You better go if you want to talk to her.”
I don’t want to be so bleeding obvious about it, but they’re both just staring at me like they already know what I’m going to do anyway.
So, I go after her.
Right through the back and into the dressing rooms, which I know she thinks is forbidden territory.
“There’s a cock in the henhouse,” I tell the ladies as I walk through. “Better cover up what ye don’t want seen.”
“Not like you haven’t seen it before,” Selena says as she parades butt naked through the room.
I don’t even spare her a second glance because I’ve only got one arse in mind. And I see her glancing back over her shoulder at me as she finds the door on the opposite side of the room.
She’s in heels, as always, and Christ she’s fast for such a wee little thing, but I catch her just outside in the parking lot before she can get away.
“Where ye off to so fast, Satan?”
She smiles up at me, and her eyes are all flint. Beyond that, there seems to be an additional wall of armor that wasn’t there the last time we spoke, and I can’t figure out why.
“Hey, Ace,” she says coyly.
“If you keep looking at me that way, baby doll, I’m liable to catch frostbite.”
Another smile.
“Don’t you know the devil plays with fire, not ice?”
“What are ye doing here?” I ask her again.
“Just came to see Mack.”
It feels like a lie, but almost everything the woman says is a lie.
“Well ye’re here now, so come and have a drink with me.”
“Not really my thing,” she says.
“Then what is your thing?”
“You looked cute.” She looks away. “With the baby. You’re good with them. Should have a few of your own someday.”
“I intend to,” I tell her. “How do ye feel about three?”
She’s horrified by the idea, and I laugh. It’s not often I can rattle this chick, but babies are the thing. She’s terrified of them, and I can’t figure out why.
Her unsteadiness doesn’t last long. Scarlett never lets any man have the upper hand. She uses the best weapons at her disposal to throw me off balance by inching closer, running one of her hands over my bicep and down to toy with my fingers.
“I’ve always wanted to do it in a dark alley,” she whispers, and her voice is all honey.
“Sorry, sweetheart.” My own voice is too rough. “I’d need to take you back to my place first. Because once I got my hands on you, I wouldn’t want to stop.”
“Nobody’s telling you to.”
She smiles, but it’s all fucking lies.
I wish that it was genuine want in her eyes, but the only thing there is destruction. And I won’t be another one of her games.
“Scarlett?” I whisper in her ear as I reach down and cop a feel of her generous ass.
“Yes?” she murmurs.
“It’s time for you to go home now.”
Five
Scarlett
One. Two. Three. Four. I declare a blood war.
I need to scrub my eyes with bleach.
Everything is blending together now. One giant sea of color and blurry faces. Voices and pieces of conversation. The Nasdaq. Relentlessly chic restaurants and is the raw food craze really over? Nanny problems and wife problems and shoe sales and yoga classes and…
Jesus, there was a reason I left this behind.
I don’t get it.
Duke was supposed to be here, amongst all these faces, talking shop with a big fat cigar in his mouth. But I don’t see him, and he’s over an hour late now, and I’m the one with a big fat headache listening to this bullshit day in and day out.
I want to leave. To go home and do like the normal folk do. Crawl into my jammies and read a good book and watch something that’s trending on Twitter and then send out one of my own unique thoughts on the same thing everyone else is already talking about.
Because, pop culture.
There’s a woman next to me at the bar and she’s carrying on a revolting diatribe that reeks of self-importance to what I can only presume is her date.
She speaks six languages, she tells him.
And she’s traveled the world, and it’s just such a romantic notion and she wants everyone to know it as she regales him with the many countries that ‘feel like home’.