Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 63758 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63758 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
I want to move out and give them privacy. Not be so pathetically dependent. Not get triggered by so many things.
I work hard to swallow. “Yes.”
Kat turns again. “Flynn is way into you.” She knows about my crush on him. She’s the one who cut and colored my hair and did my makeup for tonight. Made me feel like I had a chance.
And it seems she was right. Flynn took me to a party. He kissed me. He brought me in a bedroom to make out.
“I don’t like him,” Adrian interjects.
“You don’t have to like him,” Kat points out. “It’s Nadia’s opinion that matters here.”
“He lacks honor. I don’t trust him. He will hurt you.” Adrian meets my gaze in the rearview mirror. “I’m not trying to cockblock. I just don’t think he’s right guy, Nadia.”
“So you are trying to cockblock, since he’s the one with the cock, and you’re blocking him,” Kat clarifies.
Adrian makes a grouchy sound in his throat.
“He might be just what I need.” I hadn't considered it until this moment, but after tonight's experience, it makes sense.
“What?” Adrian snaps. “Why?”
“I can't be in a relationship. I can barely handle my own life. Mixing it with someone else's would be unwise.”
“You want a no-stress guy. No pressure. No commitment. That definitely seems like Flynn,” Kat says.
Adrian frowns into the rear-view mirror. “Are you serious?”
“Da.”
“You just want…”
“Sex?” Kat fills in.
I shrug. “Maybe.”
“No, not maybe. Don't get involved if it's a maybe. This guy is a player.”
“Yes. It's a yes. I think I want sex. I need to get over what happened. To know I can be intimate without freaking. Flynn might be the guy to help me with that.”
Adrian makes another disapproving sound. “I'm sure he'd have no problem helping you out with that.”
“And you’re not going to kill him for it,” I say firmly.
Wow. I’m already feeling stronger. Making a stand. Demanding what I want. Setting boundaries.
I lean my head back against the seat and rub my lips together remembering the kiss. Flynn's—not Cadence's. I want to remember every detail–how he went in slowly but gradually grew more aggressive. How his masculine scent–like leather and soap–wrapped around me. I want to overwrite my memory banks. For every horrible thing that happened to me, I want a new, shiny memory to take its place.
One with an easy, breezy rock star who makes everything seem possible.
3
Flynn
Sunday, I go to the Kremlin.
Like a dumbass, I never asked Nadia for her number, and I woke up today still feeling like a douche for how things went down last night.
The party was the wrong scene–I’d known that at the time–but the bedroom thing? I don’t know how I fucked that one up so badly. I’m good at reading people–especially women. Chalk it up to growing up with two sisters and a mentally unstable mother. I trust the vibes they give off, and I could’ve sworn Nadia wanted to go in the bedroom. I can tell the difference between when a girl does something because she thinks it’s what you want and when she’s actually into it herself.
At least, I thought I could tell. So either I fucked up, or she changed her mind, which is cool. I just need to talk to her. Make sure she’s okay. Apologize if I’m the asshole.
The building the Chicago bratva call home has security as tight as the actual Kremlin, and the gatekeeper is not a friend. The guy who mans the front desk totally cockblocked me with Nadia last time I invited her to a party. I’m hoping I can bluff my way past him.
But I don’t even know which floor Nadia lives on.
Even though the band practices here once a week, I don’t have a keycard to use the elevator. I have to park below and then walk around to the front door to be let in. The glass doors–bulletproof, I’m sure–are locked tight. No one is at the front desk.
Fuck.
It’s a Sunday morning. I guess they’re closed to visitors on Sundays?
I try dialing Story, but she doesn’t answer. I text both her and Oleg’s phones.
Nothing.
I try banging on the glass door with my knuckles. Not that anyone’s there to hear me. I stand outside, loitering for a while, hoping someone will go in and out, but no luck.
Who else do I know in the building? I consider whether I have anyone else’s phone number. There’s Chelle, the publicist who connected us with Skate 32, the skateboarders. She texted me once. I may have saved her number.
I find her in my contacts as PR Chelle.
“Yes!” I murmur to myself.
I send her a text. Hey, it’s Flynn. I’m outside the Kremlin, but there’s no one at the front desk. By any chance, could you let me in?
I don’t get a reply, but five minutes later, her boyfriend, one of the blond twins stalks out into the cold. I search my memory bank for his name. Is it Dima? Or Nikolai?