Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 42959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 215(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 42959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 215(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 143(@300wpm)
Brick was still outside the clubhouse, scrolling through his phone. Their VP was deeply in love with a civilian, so maybe he’d understand.
“Remember the girl I was seeing last month?”
“The one fucking around with Skull Nation prospects?”
Tank cringed. “She wasn’t. It was a misunderstanding. That prospect was trying to use her to get to me, but she wouldn’t bite.”
Their VP didn’t even look up from his phone. “Good to hear.”
He started to walk away but turned back around instead. “I’m still seeing her.”
This time, Brick stood up straight, tucking his phone into his back pocket. “How long?”
“I stopped things until I was sure she could be trusted. I’d never risk the club, you know that, don’t you?”
“I know that.” Brick rested a hand on his shoulder, but it felt like a kiss of death.
“She’s a good girl. There’s no way she’d ever rat us out.”
Brick shrugged. “You know what you’re doing.” He began to walk away, but the vibe in the air was all wrong.
“I love her,” he shouted, too loud.
The VP exhaled and turned to face him. “Lord will think she’s got you wrapped around her finger.”
“She doesn’t.”
“What if he tells you to break it off?” Brick asked.
Tank couldn’t speak. He couldn’t give her up. Wouldn’t give her up. Would he disobey Lord to be with Bell? He didn’t want to keep their relationship a forbidden affair forever. That was why he was coming out now.
“She’s twenty-three and completely innocent.”
“The girl works for minimum wage at a diner. Lives on her own in a shithole apartment. Money can make even good girls go bad. Look around you. These club whores would sell their souls for a dollar.”
“She’s not a whore.”
“And she likes living under the poverty line?” Brick asked.
“Give her a fucking chance. I’ve given my life to this club, taking bullets to protect it.”
Brick nodded. “Okay. She’ll be your responsibility until she proves herself. We find out she’s a rat, it’s your ass on the line.”
He stood there until Brick was gone, the door closing behind him. Even though a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders coming out with the truth, a new tension pulled at his nerves. A tiny niggle of doubt. Was there any possibility she’d been lying to him, that she’d made any kind of deals past or present with the Skull Nation? If she had, he’d be left without a woman or a club to call his own.
No, he didn’t doubt Bell.
This was all a good thing.
****
“And where are we going exactly?”
Bell hugged him around the waist, the bike rumbling beneath them.
She’d asked him about a hundred times, but he kept her in the dark. Bell wasn’t one for surprises. She preferred routine, security, and to know everything that was going to happen beforehand. Her childhood had been too full of unpleasant revelations.
He didn’t answer, but she didn’t really expect him to suddenly tell her.
They slowed down about ten minutes later. She looked around to see where they were. It wasn’t too far from her apartment.
It was the entrance to the Straight to Hell MC clubhouse. She held her breath, her nerves firing hot. As much as she’d asked for this day to happen, Bell was terrified they’d reject her or point fingers for one reason or another. She’d seen some of the beautiful women who lived here, and there was no way she stacked up to them. Everything about this place intimidated her.
Maybe she shouldn’t have pushed for his day.
He turned off the bike just outside the gates. Once she slipped off the back, her feet steady on the ground, she grabbed his shirt in a fist. “Tank, are you sure about this?”
“I need to make things official. To tell them I plan to make you my old lady.”
She had to remember that old lady was a good thing, even though it made her envision an old hag forced upon a man.
“What if they don’t trust me? What if they hate me? I don’t know anything about this kind of stuff. What if they offer me a drink?”
So many things were whirling around her head. She was close to asking him to drive her back home. It was so much easier when he shut her up with sex.
“Stop worrying.”
He was so big and strong. Her protector. The only man she loved and trusted. Once beside her, he took her hand. She wasn’t even sure if she was breathing as they walked through the gates left slightly ajar.
“Do they know I’m coming?”
“No.”
“No? I think a heads-up would have been a good idea, Tank.”
“I want to show you my room.”
“What?”
“I want to fuck you in my bed,” he said.
“How can you think about sex at a time like this?”
The view of the courtyard made her want to dig in her heels. There were rows of Harleys and bikers with cuts all over the place, a couple with obvious rifles strapped on them. And the beautiful, nearly nude women were there too. This was crazy, a completely different world on one side of a wall to the other. She didn’t belong here. This lifestyle was exactly what she’d hated growing up when her mother would party, drink, and bring home different losers.