Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 64885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64885 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 260(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Her little breathless gasp was everything.
I pulled back and captured her mouth with mine, the rest of the room fading away as I kissed her like I would if we were alone.
Possessively, desperately.
I kissed her because I could. Because I wanted to more than anything else in the world, and because she was mine.
Slowly, I pulled back. Her eyes were lust-hazy, her lipstick just slightly smeared. She looked good enough to eat, which I fully intended to do later.
She shook her head at me, a playful look in her eyes as she smoothed her thumb over my lips, no doubt cleaning up the mark she’d left on me. She should’ve known I wouldn't have minded keeping it there, wearing the mark for the rest of the fucking game just because I could.
Serenity kept her eyes on me, dutifully ignoring her father, which made me so damn proud of her.
I lightly pinched her ass as she stood up. “Have fun,” I said.
The girls immediately enveloped her into their little group as they headed out of the poker room, my four guards nodding to me before they followed.
When I returned my focus to the game, I notice that Crossland—who was on my left—had rightfully folded the cards I'd had before Serenity came over, an understanding we shared. A new hand had been dealt, but Doyle's eyes were on me, and he was turning a weird shade of purple.
I looked down at my new cards and folded them, knowing it wasn't the hand that was going to get me what I needed. I could only hope that my friends would be more successful this round.
“Do you have something to say?” I asked Doyle when he hadn't bothered to look down at his hand, still staring at me like he wanted to murder me.
“No,” he said. “I think I'll just keep watching you dig your own grave.”
I slowed my breathing, telling myself not to react to the threat. I still needed to try negotiating with him, and backing away from this table and yanking him out of his chair to break his jaw probably wouldn't help me in that regard.
“Look,” I said while Asher and Weston quietly conducted a hand between themselves as everybody else had folded. “We're here now. We could end this. I've asked you repeatedly to name your price, and you've ignored every request. Do yourself a favor and let’s get this shit over with.”
Doyle shook his head. “You have nothing to offer me that is as valuable as what you took without my permission.”
I ground my teeth together, drawing up every ounce of training I'd ever had by my family not to react to the prick’s words. Referring to Serenity as a piece of property was definitely on my fucking trigger list.
“Whether or not you name your price, you have to realize she's never coming home to you,” I said when I was able to speak without threatening to break his neck.
“Oh, she'll come home to me,” Doyle said. “The minute you get tired of playing house, she’ll come running home because she has nothing of her own, no means or skills to support herself. She'll come home because that's what I've trained her to do. I've trained many bitches in my time, and she's by far the most valuable—”
“I've never understood your organization's construct of virginity,” I cut him off. “Or the way you treat your women like property, but I can assure you that no longer applies to her.” I leaned a little closer over the table, ensuring he caught every word from where he sat on the opposite corner. “And if you call my wife a bitch again, I will drop all pretenses of negotiating calmly with you.”
Doyle shook in his seat. Whether from fear or anger, I didn't know. I didn't care. He was seriously overestimating my patience.
He bolted from his seat, standing with his hands fisted at his sides.
I rose at the same time, more than ready for a fight.
All my friends stood up too, shifting to face Doyle as tension crackled through the room.
Doyle looked at the rest of them, almost like he'd forgotten that they were my friends and never his.
His hand shifted toward his waist, reaching for a gun that wasn't there. We were always checked before we entered the poker room, a standard safety precaution that we’d laid into the contract at the conception of our game.
As the realization that he was outnumbered washed over his face, he glared at me and sat back down. “Deal the cards,” he said, giving me absolutely nothing for my request of a price.
I put that to the back of my mind, focusing on the situation at hand. I could see it in his jerky movements, in his soft grumblings—he was on tilt. This was our chance to get him out.