Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74794 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
I throw open the steel door. It’s not a nice-looking door. It’s a functional thing in a functional shithole of a condo that we bought because a bartender who was scarred up, tattooed to the nines, and was okay with working for bikers as bosses way up the chain wouldn’t live in a super classy, family-friendly suburban neighborhood. This condo is middle of the road in an area that you won’t get shanked in, but going out after dark can also sometimes be a little bit intimidating in the petty crime sort of way. It’s an area where condos can be purchased affordably, but as a trade-off, you have to live with the rot and the occasional nighttime neighborhood drama.
I’m so hungover that, at first, I think I’m hallucinating things, including the doorbell ringing. Or that maybe my alcohol-addled brain is still very addled and has morphed my Granny into a beautiful young woman—a badass, sensual, wildly intoxicating, dangerous, and off-limits-because-she-threatens-the-entire-plan young woman.
“Hey.”
My brain will never forget the sound of Ayana Timewell’s voice. I blink, and my vision stops blurring long enough for me to understand that it’s really her out there. In broad daylight. On my doorstep. My Granny hasn’t morphed into her at all. It’s actually her. Duh. I’m just that shocked.
She gathers her long, black mane in her hand and tosses it over her shoulder. It’s so sleek and glossy that it falls back into place quickly, cascading over both shoulders and trailing down to her waist. She tries to gather it up again and toss it back, and it takes me a second to realize she’s doing it because she’s nervous.
“Can I come in?”
I have to glance over her shoulder because this kind of thing could bring the entire club down on my head. While I would like to bring them down—that is indeed why I’m here—I don’t want it to be this way. I don’t need a bunch of burly, surly, sour, six-foot-something guys swarming the house because I’m holding the daughter of the prez captive.
That might have worked for Alden and Azalea—long story short, he kidnapped her because he needed to marry her so we could get a shitpile of money to do good things with, righting the wrongs of society and making justice where there is no justice and all that. They ended up falling in love, but man, was she pissed about the kidnapping thing for a while. She tried escaping several times—times that included kneeing Alden in the balls and drugging him with sleeping pills—before she gave in and accepted the fact that they were made for each other. Now they live up in Canada in some tiny town on a pretty lake. They’re ridiculously happy together, and while that makes me happy, all their sappy lovesick ways are, well, slightly sickening.
“Smoke?”
I grunt and rake a hand through my short hair. It’s nowhere as long as I like to have it, but it has been growing out a lot from when I shaved all my hair off. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”
If there’s one thing I know about Ayana other than her dad is scary as fuck and in charge of a lot of other scary as fuck motherpineapples, it’s that she might be a petite beauty, but she can seriously pack a badass biker punch herself. In bed. Don’t even think about that, moron. Right, so standing here with the door open for everyone to see that I’m starting to sport some un-morning wood isn’t very smart, especially when Ayana could have been followed.
“Why?” Her brow arches up. She’s tough in ways that tough guys like me have no notion about. Tough in ways that go straight to the marrow of a person and have nothing to do with size and everything to do with the strength of their spirit and determination. Ayana might look sweet, but she’s the kind of sweet that is also underscored with one hell of a backbone. “Because you had your fun two weeks ago, and that’s it? You’re ashamed to see me in the daylight?”
I grasp the door and try hard not to hurl. It’s challenging when there is a bunch of saliva pooling at the back of my mouth, and my dick is still trying to punch its way through my sweats. What the fuck is wrong with it? Me? Us?
“Because, as you said two weeks ago, I’m partial to keeping my balls.”
“I didn’t say you were partial to your balls. I said that if you wanted to keep them, you shouldn’t have carried on that conversation or given me your address or let me in when I came here in the middle of the night. Or…uh…any of the other stuff after that.”
The other stuff, meaning the best, wildest, most meaningful, astoundingly emotional sex I’ve ever had in my entire life, but those are deets I like to keep on the DL. I’m certainly not standing here saying that Ayana was a goddess in bed, and I’m not going to remember the details of how I couldn’t get her in here fast enough, how she was wearing a short black dress, and how her nails scored my shoulders as she yanked off my leather jacket and said the most shockingly dirty things for someone with such a dainty body. Also, how she basically climbed me after that, begged me to take her up against the wall, taught me that her set of luscious lips could be used for sinful words and deeds, and that, through it all—we didn’t just stop at the wall—she was totally and completely unashamed of the passion she was giving and taking.