Total pages in book: 158
Estimated words: 154037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 154037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
“Beauty hurts, Otto,” she tossed out with a grin as she slipped her key into the lock. That stunning face flitting toward me for a beat. Vision of it squeezed my chest in a fist.
Yeah, it sure fuckin’ did.
She tossed the door open and stepped inside without care.
Then she screamed.
Screamed this blood-curdling scream.
Protectiveness ripped through me with the force of a hurricane.
In a flash, I was in front of her, pushing her back toward the door, ready to tackle any danger waiting inside. Terror ricocheted through me like fiery bullets. I wouldn’t make it if something had happened to River and his family. It wasn’t like we hadn’t made a slew of enemies, and with the lives we led, it would forever be a risk. The threat always lingering at the back of my mind.
Only I came to a grinding halt when I found the reason for Raven’s screaming.
Ah, shit.
It was a whole ton less dangerous than I’d thought but apparently just as traumatic for her.
Because River had Charleigh bent over the side of the couch, both of them in varying states of undress, though they’d frozen, their eyes fucking wide as saucers, shocked at being caught with their pants down.
I whipped back around, rising high to make sure I was completely shielding Raven from the sight. Not that she could see a whole lot of anything, considering she had both hands pressed so tight over her face I figured there was a chance she was suffocating.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God,” she mumbled against her palms, and I grabbed her by the outside of the arms and guided her back out the door. I slammed it shut behind us to give River and Charleigh the chance to right themselves.
The second the wood rattled, Raven spun away and went storming back toward my truck.
“Where are you going?” I shouted at her.
“Well, I’m not staying here, that’s for sure,” she shot back as she yanked open the door. “Like I’m ever going to be able to look at my brother again.”
TWELVE
OTTO
You never knew when a day was going to alter your fabric. The framework of your life. I’d carefully built mine around the person that I’d become. Made boundaries that I’d driven like rebar into concrete to shore up the treasonous greed that I’d felt for my best friend’s sister for too many years.
Maybe I knew in that moment that I was getting ready to cross a line because I hesitated for a beat where I stood on River’s porch before I tugged my phone out of my pocket and shot him a text.
Me
Think your sister is a bit on the embarrassed side. She needs a minute. Your ugly ass might have traumatized her.
Dude should expect I was going to drag him through the mud on this one. I mean, seriously, didn’t he realize Raven would likely be home soon? And where the hell was Nolan?
I tucked my phone back into my pocket, jogged to my truck, and hopped in. I had it started and was taking the circular drive back out to the main road before I finally glanced in Raven’s direction.
As pretty as could fuckin’ be and as fuckin’ red as a beet. She was still scrubbing at her eyes as she looked toward the ceiling of my truck.
“You okay?”
She spun on me with those eyes wide. “Am I okay? No, I am not okay. I just walked in on my brother and Charleigh going at it. It’s bad enough I have to hear them from the end of the hall. But to see it? Do you have any idea how disturbing that is?” She flapped her hands like she might manage to shake off the memory. “Gah…I’m scarred for life.”
A rough chuckle skated out of me. It was a good thing that for the most part River had kept her from the club back when we’d ridden with Iron Owls MC. That kind of shit went down in broad daylight all the damned time. “Think he wasn’t expecting you.”
She groaned. “Obviously. I mean, I was supposed to text him to come pick me up. He probably thought I was still busy, so he decided to get busy.”
She said the last like she was testing out her first curse word.
My brow arched as I took the left onto Vista View, glancing both ways before I pulled out. “Busy?”
“Um, yeah. Busy. Knocking boots. Doing the dirty deed.” She said it all kinds of exasperated.
“What, are you eighty?”
“What do you want me to call it?”
For someone who was full of sass and snark and tossing out claims that she was on the prowl for someone dirty all over the place, she sure dipped into shyness an awful lot. Never fuckin’ knew what to make of her, even though I felt like I knew her better than anyone else.