Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
“You don’t know what you’re getting into, Maxwell,” Kenneth calls out. “Stop walking. Turn around and talk to me without her. You need to hear what I have to say.”
I ignore him. I keep walking. “Gabe,” Abbie whispers. “He’s going to come after you. Stop walking. I need to go talk to him.”
“He told me about KM,” Kenneth calls out.
I stop walking, anger ripping through me with the taunt that is about my past, the taunt that confirms my father’s involvement. The taunt that ties to a past I left behind long ago and says he’s prepared for me. He expected me today. “Go inside, Abbie,” I order tightly, my anger a low burn in my veins. “I’ll be right there.”
“No,” she replies stubbornly. “No, I won’t go in without you. Who or what is KM?”
“I know all about her,” Kenneth adds, saying more than I want Abbie to hear.
My jaw sets hard and I give Abbie my back, hoping she stays there as I close the small space between me and her bastard of an ex. I don’t address KM. “You do know my father, right?” I ask.
“You know I do,” Kenneth says, his gray eyes glinting with satisfaction.
“Of course you do, because he told you how to get my attention, but I know him. He didn’t tell you everything and that’s in your best interest and his.”
“Your father and I are closer than you might think,” he bluffs, and it is a bluff. My father wouldn’t give anyone else anything to hurt me. He’d do it himself.
“Close, are you?”
“Very.”
“Then you know what a brutal fucking asshole he is,” I say. “I learned well from him. I know how to play dirty. I know how to play rough. More so than he ever did on any level. And I’m younger and hungrier than him, and what I want I get, especially Abbie.”
“Abbie?” He snorts an arrogant laugh. “You don’t even know her name.”
“I know her name. I know how she tastes. I know how she feels. I know what she needs and that includes this property. Whatever your agenda, I’ll find out and I’ll make sure it burns in hell right along with you. And I won’t stop there.”
He smirks. “Is that supposed to intimidate me?”
“Ask my father what it means to become my enemy, or just wait and find out. It won’t take long. Leave her the fuck alone.” I turn and all but run into Abbie, but I don’t miss a beat.
I drag her to me and this time when I set us in motion I don’t stop walking. She’s stiff in my arms, anger crackling off of her. A gate opens and several people walk out of it. Abbie catches the gate and we enter, turning right down a narrow concrete pathway and that’s when she stops walking and whirls on me. “You know how I taste? You know how I feel? What was that?”
I pull her to me, molding her close. “A cock fight that I won.”
“I don’t want to be used like that. Do you understand?”
“He needed to know that you have my protection.”
“I didn’t ask to be protected.”
“You need my protection.”
“You didn’t think so before.”
“I never said that.”
Her eyes narrow on me. “Because he threatened you and me. Right?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t hear a threat.”
“I did,” I say.
“I need to understand what you heard that I didn’t. Who is KM, Gabe?”
KM.
Kendall Murphy.
The woman that might just make Abbie hate me and I’m not ready for her to hate me.
Chapter nineteen
Gabe
Who is KM?
That’s not a question I intend to answer now, or probably ever, and I don’t even allow it to hang in the air between me and Abbie. “Let’s go help your mother.”
“In other words, KM is not a conversation you’re willing to have with me, despite the fact that it was used as a weapon in a conversation about me.”
“It was used as a weapon to get me to back off. It didn’t work.”
“How bad is it for you, Gabe?”
“I’m not going anywhere, Abbie,” I say, tangling her fingers with mine, “except inside.” I soften my voice. “Leave it at that.”
“For now,” she concedes, her other hand pressing to my cheek, “but I am going to be naked in your bed again tonight. Expect me to ask again when you’re feeling a little more giving.”
“If you have this on your mind when you’re naked in my bed, I’m not doing a good enough job with my tongue.”
Her cheeks flush red and someone shouts out, “Abigail!”
“That would be my mother,” she explains, twisting around as I do the same only to find a pretty redhead that could be Abbie’s sister running toward us in faded jeans and a shirt with a Golden Retriever on the front.
“Abigail,” her mother says, stopping in front of us. “Thank God you’re here. We can’t find a place to move the animals. I don’t know what to do.” Her gaze catches on me. “Hi.”