Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 132031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132031 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
His fierce sweet bear of a protector.
A gentle breeze blew across his heated skin, sending a shiver of anticipation racing up and down his spine. He wasn’t sure he could ever truly tame the devil inside, but he bet Cash could handle anything thrown his way.
The world around him snapped back into place like a slingshot. What the fuck was he doing daydreaming like that?
He’d missed Keyes and Alec getting into the car as his depraved images replaced reality. The brake lights were on, but the car remained in the parking spot.
Keyes’s big back tattoo came to mind. An ode to Alec.
Dev wanted Keyes’s happiness and knew this most recent event jeopardized everything for his friend. After a few long moments, the car backed up. Alec and Keyes left the parking lot, breaking Dev of the trance that held him spellbound.
Dev took a cleansing, centering breath. First things first. He needed to get back to the ink parlor ASAP. He’d be hearing from Keyes soon based on the note he’d left on Keyes’s bike on the way to the jailhouse. He needed to be a reassuring friend. Try to calm and be available for Keyes as best he could. He’d have to remember to guard his words since the entire fucking government listened to every word he said.
Fuckers.
Dev placed the binoculars in his saddlebag and took time to send his father a quick text message. “Keyes went to Cummings’s house to protect an abused kid. Dude at the jail was a CPS worker. Keyes was never interviewed by him.”
Sounded convincing, especially since it was at least a partial truth. He pressed send.
He gathered the rest of his shit then mounted his Harley. He was off, twisting down the ramp, following the exit out of the garage.
Surely, Cash had to have figured out by now that Dev wasn’t at the ink parlor. He’d assigned himself to be Dev’s tail today.
Bet the agent was having a fucking cow over his whereabouts right now. That’d be painful to birth.
It didn’t matter. Dev had needed time to reconcile all this foreign emotion and uncertainty inside him. He was focused now, ready to get this operation behind him so he could move on to a better life.
Chapter 37
Unbridled fury wasn’t in the top ten words to describe Cash’s anger level when he finally heard Dev’s Harley pipes sounding off in the distance. His dangerous gaze snapped toward Joe who looked relieved, yet worried as hell.
“Tell Shanna he’s here.”
Cash took long, purposeful strides from his apartment toward the back door. Rage, resentment, and pain pumped through his veins. More than even those emotions, he was concerned as hell. Every member of his team had been working in overdrive, trying to find what had happened to Dev. Cash had feared for Dev’s life.
He pushed through the back door, the cool early evening air did nothing to appease his heated frustration.
For the first time, Cash wasn’t taken by the look of the biker on his bike. He seethed on the inside. Tension tightened the cords and muscles throughout his entire body.
Dev had made a grave mistake by confusing Cash’s generosity as a manipulatable cowardice. He was done. His hands went to his hips, his chest pumping up and down with heavy breaths. Dev pulled through the gate and parked his bike within inches of Cash’s feet. He didn’t budge a single muscle.
The dark sunglasses made it hard to know for sure, but he suspected that fuck-you glare that Dev always wore in his eyes was there and aimed at Cash. He’d show the biker fuck you.
At the exact moment when they had exhausted every measure to find Dev, when Cash had decided to push the nuke button on the entire operation, sending the calvary in to locate Dev and blow the case apart, Dev’s text messages to Keyes transmitted in real time over Joe’s computer screen. Once Joe verified the text messages did in fact come from Dev’s phone, texted by Dev himself, overwhelming relief flooded Cash. Dev was safe. That lasted about two minutes flat before rage consumed him.
Cash had crafted an email to his superiors to explain Dev was out of the investigation. He and his children were to be placed in a forced witness protection as far away from Dallas as they could get them.
The email sat waiting for Cash to push send. He hadn’t yet, only because his frustration level was so high that he needed to cool down. Level-headed people didn’t react based on anger. Once Cash went back upstairs, the draft was as good as sent.
As he started to say that very thing to Dev, then tell him to spend the next few minutes packing his belongings, Dev yanked his perfectly fitted sunglasses off his face. Their gazes connected. The fuck you wasn’t there.