Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
I burst out laughing and struck a pose, popping my ass out so that he could get a better view.
He growled and took yet another step back.
“I have to go back to work,” he admitted. “I’m in the middle of a rebuild of an engine, and it needs to be done by tomorrow. I can do most tonight, and finish up the rest tomorrow, but that means I need to go back.”
I sighed. “You’ll be late?”
He backed up until he was at the door before he said, “Not if I can help it.”
Sadly, my ‘Haggard High’ as I liked to call it, dissipated the moment that I walked into Madd CrossFit and saw Andrew waiting for me with Taos at his side.
“Ready for that tour?” I asked curiously.
Taos took the paperwork Andrew had been filling out and handed it to me.
I glanced down at the name on the clipboard—Andrew Haylin Smith.
Who wrote all three of their names?
That was odd.
What was even odder was the way he acted—as if he knew me—the entire time that I was giving him the tour.
After he left a little over an hour later, I was more than relieved.
“That man gives me the creeps,” I told Taos the moment the doors closed behind Andrew.
“Same.” Taos said. “My cop instincts are going haywire. Don’t ever stay alone with him, do you understand me?”
I looked over at the man that’d helped raise me and said, “Yes, sir.”
His eye twitched. “And if you don’t tell your dad about Haggard soon, he’ll find out the hard way. And we all know how your father reacts when it comes to hard stuff.”
Sadly, I more than knew what he was talking about.
My dad and ‘hard’ didn’t react well at all.
CHAPTER 19
I have great taste in music. Bad taste in men.
-things you don’t want to hear from your girlfriend
HAGGARD
I wasn’t just late.
I was the next goddamn day.
I turned the Harley off a half a driveway length from the house and coasted it up to the front door.
Movement across the street had me glancing that way, but when I looked hard, I saw nothing but darkness.
Allowing the bike to come to a stop mid-driveway, I pushed it the rest of the way up to the door and leaned it on the kickstand.
Tearing my helmet off, I shoved it under my arm and headed for the back door. There I found neither Boston nor Clem’s car.
Which fuckin’ worked for me, them being with their mother tonight, because I had plans.
Plans that my daughter probably didn’t want to hear me doing with her best friend.
But that was all only if she was up.
Because if she was sleeping, I wasn’t waking her up.
She did that so rarely that…
The door cracked open.
“If you don’t get in here right now and put this fire out that you started before you left the gym, I will literally kill you with my bare hands,” Sophia snapped.
Chuckling, I climbed the porch steps, picked her up on my way through the door. Once inside, I slammed the door closed behind me with my boot.
“Do me a favor,” I pleaded. “Take the phone out of my front pocket and set the alarm.”
I felt the phone slip free of the pocket on the front of my t-shirt, then she hissed. “You never changed the pass code.”
I didn’t.
Because I didn’t care that she knew it.
People that didn’t let their significant others know their passcodes had something to hide.
Not me.
I was an open fucking book.
If Sophia wanted to know it, I’d give her everything.
My hope was that she wouldn’t want to know it, though.
At least, the bad shit.
Because, though I was in love with Sophia, I wasn’t going to stop what I’ve been doing since Cannel was taken.
There were too many girls, too many sisters. Too many children that were suffering. And If I could help, I would.
Until I couldn’t help anymore.
This world didn’t work the way it should.
The bad thrived while the poor or weak suffered.
That’s not how it should work.
And I was going to fix it one single man at a time.
I might not make a dent—because who the hell could when there were that many bad people in the world?—but I’d go down swinging.
I just hoped that Sophia understood that.
Hearing the lock at the back door click, followed by the alarm beeping, indicating that it was set, I made it into my bedroom and slowly dropped Sophia to her feet.
She slid down my body, and the hard-on that I’d been trying to control all day came roaring back to life.
It didn’t take much. Hell, all I had to do was look at Sophia, and my dick was semihard.
But having her pressed against me, having her scent in my nose? Yeah, that did things to it.
She lifted up on her toes and smoothed the pad of her thumb through the wrinkle between my eyes.