Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
X frowned. “Are you okay?”
I nodded as I pushed away memories of the years before my father’s death. “Yeah. I… I’m fine.”
“You’re not, but I’m the last person who’s going to push you to talk about it. If you need to, though, I’m here.”
“Thanks.”
“So what the hell is Rogue up to these days?”
“You mean you didn’t investigate him before offering the ranch to me?”
X smiled. “Indulge me. Pretend I didn’t.”
“I haven’t been to see him yet, but last I heard, he was still one of the darlings of the rodeo circuit.”
We continued talking about Rogue and his rodeo exploits. Then X caught me up on what he and his closest associates had been up to.
Jacob returned to see if we needed anything else.
“Just the check,” I said.
“Okay.” When he gave me another of his shy smiles, I knew I wasn’t going to walk away from this opportunity.
“Are you working until close?”
“What? Oh… um… yeah.”
I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. I felt X glaring at me, but I ignored him.
“You get a break anytime soon?”
Jacob looked down as he nodded. “I have one in about half an hour.”
“I’ll be out by my truck. It’s a black Silverado with a Semper Fi plate on the front.”
“You… Oh.” His eyes went wide as he comprehended my meaning.
When I winked at him, he opened his mouth, then closed it and started to walk away without taking our empty plates.
A second later, he spun around to grab them. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”
“No problem,” X said. He might be a scary asshole when he was working, but he was always gracious. That was one of the things his fellow soldiers had appreciated most about him. That and his brilliant strategic thinking.
X grabbed the check, glanced at it, and placed far more bills than necessary on the table. Jacob was getting a hell of a tip.
“You heading out?” I asked.
X nodded. “I sure as hell don’t want to stick around for your parking lot rendezvous.”
I stood as well. Maybe if I sat in my truck long enough, I’d be able to talk myself out of defiling sweet little Jacob. If not, I’d have to move to a darker, more remote area of the parking lot because I didn’t intend to put on a show. He was all mine.
2
JACOB
No way was I actually considering meeting a stranger in a dark parking lot—a very big, muscular stranger who was or had been in the marines.
That would be insane. I’d just gotten out of a nightmare relationship, and now I was basically begging to get kidnapped or murdered or… actually have decent sex for the first time in a very long time. Maybe ever if I were honest, and damn, Grant was everything I’d dreamed of. He exuded protection and possessiveness. No one would hurt me if I was with him.
But this wasn’t a romance novel. This was real life. Grant wanted to fuck me in the parking lot, not sweep me into his arms and make me his forever.
Why was he interested anyway? I should be more suspicious, yet he seemed so nice.
I mentally scolded myself. How stupid could I be? If I were a good judge of character, I would never have gotten involved with Trey.
Except the situation with Grant felt so different. Something had drawn me to him. I’d never even noticed Trey until he’d worked his way over to me on the dance floor. Even when I agreed to go home with him, my gut had told me he wasn’t as great as he seemed.
But I wasn’t stupid. Meeting Grant was dangerous. If I got into his truck, he could take me anywhere. Still, it had been so long since I’d done something just for myself, and Grant was so hot.
The bar grew steadily more crowded, but despite me being crazy busy with more tables than I could easily handle, the last minutes before my break crept by.
I was picking up an order when one of the other servers took it from me so I could finally go on break. I told myself to head to the sad little room in the back where I usually sat and read when I wasn’t working. My feet disobeyed, moving me toward the side door that led out to the parking lot.
My sensible side was screaming no, but I kept on walking. Just because I was stepping outside didn’t mean I had to find Grant’s truck.
I scanned the lot. There were a lot of trucks out there, many of them black. As I reached the far edge of the lot in my survey, I saw a truck parked away from the bright lights that made it relatively safe to walk through the lot, even after closing time.
That’s a red flag. He wants you where no one will see him kidnap you.