Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 78237 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78237 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
“Maven,” I growl, but she’s too angry to hear me, her fists still keeping up a furious pace. “Maven,” I call a little louder and wrap my hands around her wrists.
“No! This is my business. My building and my space. You don’t own it, and you have no say over what happens!” Her knee went up almost instinctively, and I cross a leg to protect my dick.
“Dammit.” The word comes out in an anguished cry, and I feel for her.
“Maven,” I whisper and release her wrists to wrap my arms around her body, locking her arms at her side. “Maven. Stop.” My words are firm but quiet, and I repeat them over and over again. “Just stop.”
She’s a firecracker, though, and still jerks and flails against me, stirring my cock to life. I tell him to back the fuck down and turn Maven in my arms until her back is flush against my chest. I squeeze tighter, hoping the steady beat of my heart helps to calm her down.
“No,” she cries. “I can’t.”
The fear and anger swirl together, and my heart aches for her, but the other part of me, the angry kid in foster care, wants to hunt that Cyrus fucker down and beat him until he’s a lump of blood and flesh.
I lean in so that my lips are right beside her ear. “It’s all right, Maven. Be pissed off and angry and scared. I just want to talk. To help.”
At my whispered words, all the tension flees her body, and she gives me more of her weight even as she shakes her head, rejecting my offer of a listening ear.
“I don’t believe you,” she replies on a whisper.
“I have no reason to lie.”
“I know,” she says. “You don’t need to lie to me. I’m nobody.”
“That’s bullshit. You’re Maven of the famous Maven Cakes.”
She lets out a huff of laughter. “Right. Look, I appreciate that you and your biker buddies come in here and support my business, but I don’t want or need you getting involved in my business or my life. Period.”
I nod to let her know I hear what she’s saying. “I don’t want to get involved either, but if some asshole is beating on business owners in my town, I need to know.”
“You want to know,” she shoots back. “There’s a difference.”
“I get it. You still love that bastard, and you want to make sure he’s safe,” I tell her. This isn’t my first time at the abusive bastard rodeo. “I’m not going to kill him. I promise.”
Chapter Five
Maven
I promise. Wilder’s words come out on a deep whisper that, somehow, soothes all the wild and angry parts of my soul. His body emanates the kind of heat that goes right down to my bones and warms me from the inside out.
I know it’s ridiculous to believe him, to let those two little words sway me at all, but they are working, dammit.
“That man will live to hit you another day,” he says with a hint of anger in his deep voice.
Maybe it’s because I’m desperate to believe there is such a thing as a good man out there in the world, or maybe it’s just because I’m tired and shaken from my encounter with Cyrus.
It’s all so unbelievable that the man carried out in handcuffs this morning is the same man who ordered for me on our first date. It can’t be the same person; it just can’t.
“I can’t make sense of it,” I finally share with Wilder, telling him the cutesy moment of how we met. “I thought he was different.”
“Because that’s what he wanted you to believe,” he growls in my ear, sending another shiver down my spine, comfort mixed in with arousal.
I nod because I know that’s true. “Anyway, Friday would have been our eight-month anniversary. Things were going well with us. Cyrus was kind and sweet, generous with his time and money, and he treated me well. Until he didn’t.”
“So, this was a one-time thing?”
I nod. “Definitely.” I take a hesitant step forward, and Wilder releases me. “Last night, Willow and I were cleaning up the place after closing. Cyrus stopped by to pick me up.”
Wilder frowns. “Didn’t you meet him buying a car?”
I nod. Seems like everyone in town knows how we met, but that’s what happens when you own a restaurant or café. The word gets around about your private life.
“Yeah, but he stayed over and brought me to work yesterday morning, so I was without my car.”
I thought Cyrus was just being his usual kind self, but now I have to wonder if everything he did was calculated to rope me into his web of deceit.
“Anyway,” I said to Wilder, “a few minutes after he showed up, we’re making plans for the evening, everything’s like, you know, normal. But then, in an instant, it all changes. A bunch of bikers storm inside my place, looking angry and on edge. I’m terrified, and that’s when I learn Cyrus is working with the Iron Kings.”