Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 673(@200wpm)___ 538(@250wpm)___ 448(@300wpm)
I was the predator here.
“Nah,” I replied to Hansen’s question, looking my president in the eye before the redhead got any ideas. “Sure we don’t have any weapons runs?”
He shook his head.
“Enemies who need to be eliminated?” I tried with false hope.
Another headshake, this time with a wry grin, the fucker. “All is quiet on the Western Front, brother,” he replied, clapping me on the shoulder.
I sighed, downing my drink.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go and make the most of my wife being shitfaced and our kids being with a babysitter,” he said with a grin.
I watched him work his way through the crowd, not even glancing at the practically naked women he passed. It was pathetic, really, how fucking in love with his woman he was. It somehow wasn’t a weakness, though. He’d rallied once the club had almost been wiped off the map, rebuilt it from the ground up and sought revenge on those responsible. Sure, he loved his wife and kids, but he was a ruthless motherfucker just like the rest of us.
Though I understood I was a little more fucked-up than the average outlaw. I got off on causing women pain. Of course, they got off on it too. I would never hurt a woman without her permission. That distinction was very important to me.
I also got off on causing people pain who deserved it. Who betrayed us. Loved watching them bleed. Writhe in agony. Fucking reveled in the light leaving their eyes.
So torture and killing was my number one hobby. Well, maybe tied with fucking.
And it had been a while since I made someone bleed. Since I ended someone. Almost a month ago, after the nightmare. Some fucker who was trying to snitch on us. I’d killed him too quickly, the high had long worn off. I was feeling itchy.
Almost desperate enough to go back to the redhead I knew would try to attach herself to me like a barnacle.
Almost.
Then my eye caught on something else.
Someone else.
The second I saw her, I fucking startled.
Like I was pissing on an electric fence.
The effect was that fucking violent. And I was not a fucker known to get dramatic about that shit. I was also a fucker who could be considered immune to women’s beauty.
I’d seen everything and anything the fairer sex had to offer. Sampled it all. Fuck, did I appreciate beauty in all shapes and sizes, but it wasn’t something that drove me. I would not be led around by my dick.
But her...
I knew she didn’t belong in here the second I laid eyes on her. There was an unease. A fear about her that turned me rock solid.
A voice somewhere deep inside told me that she was it.
She was mine.
KATE
I had no idea how I ended up in a biker compound.
Okay, I kind of did.
I had taken my Gone Girl thing a smidge too far.
It had gotten off to a bit of a rocky start. Freedom, as it happened, was complicated. Very freaking complicated. I had not made a decision for myself in years. Almost two decades.
Preston chose my clothes, my hairstyle. His mother was the one who helped me when it was time to redecorate. Preston approved weekly menus at the house. He chose where we vacationed. He made detailed lists for the grocery store down to the brand of milk he liked.
I didn’t make any choices for myself.
So that first day, when I started to get tired and it came time for me to stop at a motel, I had a panic attack. Which one did I choose? What exit did I get off at? Did I go for a mainstream chain or a bed and breakfast situation?
I’d pulled up to a Hilton on instinct.
Whenever we traveled, it was the best hotels. The luxury of it all had impressed and delighted me at first, but I was immune to it. Disgusted by it, almost. If we were traveling, Preston would turn his nose up at a Hilton, but given the options in the middle of nowhere, it would be his only acceptable choice.
It hit me that I was deferring to him even now. I was making a decision based on what he would want.
That realization, and the realization that I couldn’t do something as simple as chose a hotel for the night, had me crying for five minutes in the parking lot.
Then I got my shit together.
A bed and breakfast, I decided, would be nice. But people who owned bed and breakfasts liked to talk. To get to know their guests. Ask what they were doing, where they were going.
No, I did not need any of those kinds of questions.
I needed somewhere that would take cash, that was clean and reasonably safe. I found it in a mid-range, roadside motel off the interstate. The clerk was a bored teenager scrolling through her phone. She’d barely glanced at me.