Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
They slowly bring me back to Earth until I’m completely boneless in their embrace. I yawn and close my eyes, fighting the pull of sleep but having days of rest to catch up on.
“Sleep, baby. We’ll watch over you,” Tank murmurs.
“Promise?” I ask, snuggling into the covers as they tuck me in.
Wraith smooths a hand over my forehead. “Promise.”
16
KAYLEE
“Come on, princess. Let’s just go walk around.” Nitro grins, but his sexy green eyes look a little concerned. “Just because you can’t go home doesn’t mean you can’t leave this fucking room. You’ve gotten the okay to move around so long as one of us is with you.”
Cross-legged on the bed, I fiddle with the strings on the front of the hoodie he loaned me. “Are you sure it’s okay? People were really mad at me when you brought me here. Maybe it’s safer if I just stay in the room. I don’t want you to get in trouble or anything. Actually, yeah. I think it’s probably best for everyone if I just stay here.”
I deal myself another round of solitaire, spreading the cards out on the blanket. With no phone, no laptop, no nothing, all I have to entertain myself with is a pack of cards and some weird old sci-fi books full of strange aliens and women with oversized breasts.
He sighs and sits down across from me. I peek up through my lashes, hoping he doesn’t see me looking. Does Nitro know what I did with Wraith and Tank? He hasn’t said anything, but guys talk, right? I feel a little unfaithful and I have no idea why.
“Put your fucking shoes on. We’re going out.” Nitro sweeps a hand through the cards
“Hey! What are you doing?”
“I’m saving you from your fucking self,” he growls. “Take it from someone who’s been blown up a couple times. Hiding can fuck you up almost as much as the shit that made you hide in the first place. We aren’t your enemies. The club took a hit and guys like Sledge want someone to blame. You ain’t it, but hurt people, hurt people, right?”
I gape at him.
“What? You think I don’t read? I spent six years in the Army, princess. As much of it deployed as they’d let me. This?” He gestures to himself. “This is me after I worked through some of my shit. I’m still fucked up, but I’m a self-aware fuck up. Now put your fucking shoes on. You need to touch grass before you forget you’re not a dainty little hairdresser anymore. You’re a badass motherfucker who resisted torture.”
My jaw drops even farther. Nitro puts a finger under my chin and pushes it up with a sexy emerald wink.
I don’t feel much like a badass as he leads me out of Cannon’s old room and towards the common area, but in the light of day after sleep, food, getting clean and… other stuff, it’s not quite as scary. “Hey, Nitro? Do you think it would be okay if I said thank you to the woman who got me the clothes and stuff?”
“Yeah, sure.” He looks around. “Snark! Is Alessa home?”
A wiry man with short cropped hair looks up from a laptop he has set up on the bar. “Last I knew.”
“Thanks.”
I stick to Nitro’s side like glue. The glances I get aren’t very friendly, but it mostly feels like people aren’t sure how I fit in, and they need to assess if I’m a threat or not.
A couple women who look like the definition of ‘biker chicks’ wander out of a door in the back of the room. One has awesome long pink hair, and the other is a bottle blonde whose yellow tones make my fingers itch to fix. Their looks are assessing, too, but they don’t seem hostile, just curious.
“Where does Alessa live?” I ask Nitro as he holds the door open for us to go outside. A blast of February air hits me and I pull my hands into the ends of Nitro’s hoodie. We don’t get snow here like at my grandparents’ place in Colorado, but it’s still pretty cold if you ask me.
“Round the side. Their house is in the compound. Don’t fucking know how they are making it work with five adults and three kids in that house.”
“Five adults? Do they have family living with them? Even living with my parents feels like a lot sometimes.”
“Nah, it’s just them.” Nitro says like that answers anything. He slips off his jacket and puts it around my shoulders without even asking if I need it. Immediately I’m enveloped by his body heat and the rich scent of leather and his cologne.
On cue, Alessa, the pretty, dark haired woman from the meeting is standing in the doorway of one of the houses inside the compound. She has a toddler with a mop of shaggy blond hair on her hip. “Izzy. Take your brother, go next door and see if Liam wants help walking Jupiter.”