Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 110721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110721 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 554(@200wpm)___ 443(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Only, she might not realize it was too late. Her life was now entwined with his. She was living in his house. Helping with his kid. She’ll be running a big chunk of her business from The Castle.
Whether she liked it or not, she was under his protection and that also meant the club’s. And the Kings only protected what belonged to them.
But fuck if he was telling her that. That was a discussion for another day. If they had to have it at all.
It took way too fucking long for her to finally answer, even though it should’ve been a simple yes. “I don’t want the kids seeing us sleeping in the same bed.”
For fuck’s sake.
That didn’t go as planned.
Sunny wouldn’t give a shit they were in the same bed. She was already having a tantrum about Taryn living with them, where he “slept” wasn’t going to change that. At ten going on ten-acious, she thought she could be left home alone.
Fuck that.
Stone was not only worried about what trouble Sunny would get into being by herself, but with him being a part of the Kings, other dangers existed. Maybe not direct threats like a rival MC—they hadn’t dealt with anything like that in a while, for good reason—but it only took one pissed off Porsche owner to find out it was the Kings who pinched his overpriced sports car, or someone they roughed up while doing a collection, to come looking for revenge.
Danger always lurked around the next corner.
Snagging one of the Kings’ kids—or even an ol’ lady—would be a quick way to bring the club to its knees. At least temporarily. Because once they could rise again, those motherfuckers would regret it.
Because nobody fucked with the Kings.
Taryn’s worry didn’t center around threats. She was probably worried that if Sunny found out her father was sleeping with a woman she wasn’t happy with, then his girl’s attitude would only get worse.
She most likely also thought it would be a bad example for Wren.
Truth was, Stone simply living his life—who he was, what he did and how he did it—was more of a bad example than the two of them sharing a damn bed.
He would need to put in more work on assuring her that if the only roadblock to him joining her every night was the kids, that could be easily overcome.
“Gonna give you that now. But promise it’s gonna change. If we gotta have a conversation with the kids, we have a conversation with the kids. Sunny ain’t gonna give a shit so that leaves dealin’ with Baby Bird.”
Taryn sighed and rubbed a hand over her eyes. “It’s late, Stone. Now is not the time to make a decision like this.”
“Like I said, gonna give you that for now. But tellin’ you, I ain’t sleepin’ too much longer on that fuckin’ couch.”
“I offered to take the bunk beds with Wren. We can still do that and then you can have your bed back.”
It wasn’t only about where he was sleeping. “Would rather share my bed with you than Sunny. Don’t gotta tell you why.”
With that, he rolled off the bed and onto his feet. After snagging his boxers from the floor, he didn’t bother to pull them on since he still needed to clean up. He’d do that downstairs and then try to get in a few ZZZ’s before the kids got up.
Tomorrow, he’d come up with a way to tell them.
Chapter Twenty
Taryn hurried down the stairs, following her nose. Before heading down, she had peeked into Sunny’s room and saw both kids still knocked out.
While she felt bad for kicking Stone out of his own bed last night, she didn’t want to make any rash decisions when it came to him. Or their situation, really.
She also didn’t want Wren thinking that this was a permanent move. It wasn’t. Staying with Stone was only temporary.
They weren’t a “thing.” They weren’t even dating.
How did she explain that to Wren? And if she did, at six, would he even understand?
Convenience did not take precedence over common sense.
Yes, she was a woman with needs and yes, Stone knew how to take care of that particular need, but she was also a mother first and foremost.
Wren was the most important person in her life. Almost everything she did, she did for him, including hustling to make a living. Like with the new YouTube channel and the meal prep, now that her channel had enough subscribers to be monetized.
She hoped to keep building her audience for her online demos and free classes to the point she could use a subscription-based site to start charging. She could even do different mini-courses. Like one for one-dish meals. Another for—
Her thoughts disintegrated when she turned the corner to head into the kitchen.
That was the enticing scent filling her nostrils.