Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 89934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89934 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
This time, she couldn’t help but laugh. It might have come out a bit hysterical, but at least she wasn’t crying. This conversation had gone off the rails like the rest of the day. “Spa toe things?”
“Whatever, you know what I mean. Bottom line, Brenna…”
She shifted her gaze to the infant. He was much easier to look at.
“Look at me. This is important.”
Damn him. She shifted her gaze back to him with reluctance.
He uncrossed his arms, pushed off the cabinet, and stalked to her. The closer he got, the more she had to tip her head up to keep eye contact. The man wasn’t huge, maybe an inch over six feet, but he was tall compared to her five feet five inches. He cupped her shoulders with a gentle grip. Those hands were warm on her. She fought to suppress a shiver of delight at how his calluses scraped her skin. It wasn’t him, per se. It’d been so long since any attractive man touched her that she’d respond this way.
Right?
“You’re safe here in my home or at our clubhouse,” he said. “You’re safe with any man in my club. Spec promised you that, and I’m reiterating it. You have nothing to fear from any of us. Oliver, on the other hand? Well, he’s fucked.” For the first time since they got to his house, darkness crossed his face, and she saw a man who could do severe damage if he wanted.
Her stomach plummeted to the floor.
What the hell had Oliver gotten her into? And worse yet, why did Lock’s promise of safety and protection make her feel all warm and gooey inside?
CHAPTER FOUR
“SO, WHAT EXACTLY is the plan?” Brenna asked an hour later as they sat on the couch finishing up a large pizza.
Lock had been pleasantly surprised when she’d let him pick the toppings, then smiled at his choice of sausage, mushrooms, and peppers. He liked a woman who ate more than lettuce and carrot sticks.
What he didn’t like was the way his dick reacted to her tongue licking pizza sauce off her lip or the tightening in his gut when she moaned her delight after the first bite. Getting a permanent hard-on for the woman Spec charged him with protecting would be the worst way to prove his worth to the club. Lock wanted back in their good graces more than anything. Brenna was a job, nothing more, and he needed to excel at that job so he could finally start feeling like he belonged with his brothers again.
He mentally kicked himself in the ass, then said, “Spec and my president are supposed to swing by tonight to iron out the details with us.”
She froze with the pizza slice halfway to her pink lips. “Your president?”
He smirked. “Not guilty, remember?”
“Yeah, no, I know. It’s just… never mind.” She took a bite and shifted her gaze to the table.
Lock gave her this one and didn’t press the issue. Sometimes, he forgot most people were wary of his club, if not downright afraid, especially its president. Throw in this overwhelming situation, and no wonder Brenna had serious concerns. If she hadn’t already begun to soften toward the club, she’d find out soon enough that her preconceived assumptions were off base.
“So, uh, am I going to have to contend with a jealous girlfriend or ex-wife or something when Caleb’s mom realizes I’m here?” A nervous chuckle followed her question. She’d probably asked hoping to diffuse some tension. Too bad she stepped into a minefield.
Lock stiffened. The soul-crushing ache he fought to keep from his chest twenty-four hours a day snuck in, stealing his breath. The instinct to snap at her hit strong, but he swallowed it down mainly because Caleb sat on the floor playing with blocks in front of them, and he didn’t want to scar the baby more than he’d already been scarred in his short life.
“No,” he managed to say as his blood began to bubble with the need for something to take the edge off—something to chase away the heart-wrenching pain.
She chuckled again. “Well, that’s good. Are you and Caleb’s mom together?”
The pizza lost its flavor, so he dropped the uneaten slice back into the box. Every ounce of joy left his body as he tumbled into the same deep sorrow that had him seeking drugs that first time. It was a horrible, crushing combination of grief, guilt, and emptiness.
He gazed into her eyes and cleared his dry throat. “I’m not Caleb’s biological father. And his mother’s dead.”
She gasped, her pretty eyes filled with shock first, then despair. His flat voice would have let her know how her simple question gutted him.
“Lock, I’m so sor—”
A knock on the door had him bolting to his feet—saved by his president again. “That’ll be Curly,” he said before she could apologize again. Whether she’d apologize for the death of his sister or her prying, he didn’t give a shit. Repeatedly hearing how sorry people were for his loss drove him insane. He fucking hated their pity and their weak platitudes.