Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
“So you help women?” she asked.
He turned from the skillet he’d dropped butter into and saw she was at his back window, staring at his yard.
“Women. Men. Kids. Mostly women and kids.”
“And to be the Angels of Death, that entails?”
“You know much about MCs?”
She turned to him and shook her head.
He laid it on her gently.
“Brother business is brother business, sweetheart. There might be men who share with their old ladies, but only if their old ladies are woven into the fabric of the club and dig that they never open their mouths, not ever to anyone, even other brothers, about the club business they know.”
“Mm,” she hummed, took a sip from her beer, and looked back out the window.
He was going to bake some tots to go with his steak, but instead, after he put the meat into the sizzling butter, he pulled out some chips.
That was when he got himself a beer.
He’d just flipped the filet when she asked, “You brought me here, to your place, does that mean you don’t have a girlfriend?”
Well, shit.
A woman asked that question for one reason.
So now they were here.
“Nope,” he answered.
It was then he needed to say that wasn’t what this was. He needed to share that he was definitely into her, but they weren’t going to go there. He was seeing at that juncture that taking her to his house might have been making a statement he didn’t want to make.
Strike that, he did want it.
He just wasn’t going to allow it.
On top of all that, he needed to try to explain why he lost his shit about her putting herself in danger when they weren’t going to go there.
She was attracted to him, he knew.
She was sucking him deep, he knew that too.
He cared about her, a lot. That night, he’d made that clear.
She cared about him too. No woman put up with a man being that deeply in her shit if he didn’t matter to her.
It was time to build the wall to keep her safe.
But Core didn’t say any of that, and he didn’t lay that first brick of the wall she needed him to build.
Because he was a sucker for her.
Because she made him laugh.
Because there was something about her standing in his kitchen, even still ticked at him, that felt so right, he’d never felt that rightness in his life, except the time he’d signed Resurrection’s charter with his own blood.
“I forgot your dinner with your folks. Did you decide what to do about your dad?”
“We’re meeting with him,” she told the window.
Not smart.
He kept that to himself.
But worry hit his gut, because he knew very little about her father, but he also knew that was not going to go well, and he didn’t want that for her.
“My mom prefers her daughters take the high road, even when it’s rocky,” she explained. “She’s worried we’ll regret it if we don’t. Sadly, she’s correct.”
“Right,” he muttered, slapping his steak on a plate, thinking her mom was right, at the same time she was wrong.
He dumped some cheddar Ruffles beside it and took it to the counter.
Nanook dogged his heels.
Hellen didn’t move from the window.
He pulled out a fork and knife, cut off a good strip, and dropped it to Nanook.
His boy caught it with an audible chomp and swallowed it whole.
Core grinned.
He had a hunk in his own mouth and was chewing when she finally looked at him.
“We’re done, aren’t we?”
His throat closed and he almost spit out the steak.
He forced it down, opened his mouth…
But she got there first.
“You aren’t looking after me because of Eleanor anymore. You’ll be dealing with Bree’s thing, just you and your brothers. So there’s no reason we need to be in each other’s lives anymore, is there?”
“Baby,” he said conciliatorily, “I know you’re ticked—”
“It’s not that I’m ticked. It’s that, regardless you give quite a few mixed signals, you’ve made it clear we’re not going to go there. You have your life, I have mine, and it’s actually dumb luck, the dumb part being me, we met at all.”
“You’re not dumb,” he said.
She tipped her head. “I’m not?”
He’d earned that.
“It was a dumb thing to do. But you’re not dumb. And I get you felt the need to stick by your girl. If she was determined to carry that out, much better you and Marcy were there. So mostly, I was pissed as shit at her, but I don’t know her. So I took it out on you. That said,” he made sure to add, “I was also pissed at you.”
“What is this, Core?” she demanded.
“What’s what?” he asked.
She turned fully to him and lifted a hand, flapping it between them. “This. What’s this?”
God fucking dammit.
Now, it was the time.
He just hated that it was.
He was going to go gentle again, he opened his mouth…