Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 56651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 56651 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 283(@200wpm)___ 227(@250wpm)___ 189(@300wpm)
Hell, I looked forward to letting off steam by beating the shit out of my buddy whenever I got too cranky. Like if my lady was too busy for me. Or if things got stressful at work. Drake would piss me off, or vice versa, and we would tear the shit out of each other.
It was fun.
Hell, it might even be necessary. I almost picked a fight with the guy now, just to do him a favor. But the stakes were too high.
Raincheck on the brawling, I decided. I’d even let him win the next one.
“Let’s do it by the book. But only if Conn can guarantee he won’t — he can’t — do it again.”
“Not sure he can promise that,” Dev warned. “Should we tell him to go back?”
“Fuck,” Drake growled. “No,” he added, then tore out of the apartment to the street, where we could hear him cursing a blue streak. It was a damned good thing we weren’t going to kill the guy, considering how much attention Drake was currently inviting.
“What do you think he should do?”
“Fuck, man. I don’t know,” Dev said, running his hand through his hair where it fell over his forehead. “This is fucked.”
He looked around at us. It was a rare moment. Dev rarely showed us when he was conflicted. But I understood why. We were inner circle. And this was a tough one.
“I’d kill him,” Donnie said. “It sucks. But it’s the only way to be sure.”
“What about what you did to Sally’s ex?”
“We put the hurt on him. Enough to make him remember it every time he took a step for the rest of his life. And every time he looked in the mirror,” Donnie said, looking grim. He looked like he wanted to do a whole hell of a lot more to the bastard. Not that I blamed him.
“And we’ve got eyes on him. Permanently,” Dev added, resting a hand on Donahue’s shoulder. Donnie instantly relaxed. Fuck man, I thought. I suddenly wanted to kill Sally’s ex, too.
“Dana doesn’t want him dead,” Drake said as he walked back in, almost to himself. Almost like a reminder.
“Yeah, man. We know. It’s up to you though,” Whiskey reminded him. We all nodded. This was fucked. Any and all of us would have followed our old lady’s wishes, but he was our brother.
“Do you want to marry this girl?” Mac asked.
Drake nodded immediately.
“Fuck yes. Already made a date to go ring shopping with the girls.”
“Then you better do what she wants,” Mac said. He was the quietest of the group, other than Jack, who wasn’t exactly quiet. He just spoke very little. But when either of them spoke up, we all listened.
Hell, other than myself and Drake, the inner circle was pretty much all cool headed motherfuckers. Calm and fucking centered, to a man. Well, other than Callaway, who was a wild card. And Tank was made of stone, but if you knew him well enough you could tell it was tumultuous in there. Kind of like lava inside a volcano, always simmering beneath the surface.
But I would trust any of them with my life. With my woman’s life. With my babies. That was because we were a family.
I was kind of the problem child of our big dysfunctional family, truth be told.
So I probably surprised the hell out of them all when I said ‘I have an idea’.
CHAPTER FORTY
Christine
“It was really Lucky’s idea?”
“It was,” I said, raising my eyebrow. I knew my man was a bit wild in the days before we got together, but I didn’t like it when anyone acted like he was still wilding out. Or dumb. He was so far from stupid it made my mind reel. The crazy thing irked me even more.
Even though I knew better than most that he was, in fact, crazy as hell. Lucky was just crazy in a protective, intensely loving, would do literally anything for his friends and family kind of way. In short, he was a fiercely masculine man outwardly with a heart of pure gold.
Sure, sometimes he just cut loose for the hell of it. Especially in bed. Oh Lordy, my husband was a wild man in bed. He would make love to me all night long.
All day long too, if he could get away with it.
Even now he chased me around playing grab ass, and that was with a house full of kids. He was just really, really quiet these days when he was being wild. He always managed to convince me to do something that sounded outlandish and sometimes, slightly dangerous. Sex in a swing in the backyard? Check. Upside down? Tied up? Tied down? Check check and check.
His imagination for how to do various, filthy things to my body was apparently, endless.
“That’s brilliant,” Janet said, shaking her head in wonder. “Hand me those lights.”