Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 53361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 53361 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 267(@200wpm)___ 213(@250wpm)___ 178(@300wpm)
I carried her from the common room, her weight slight in my arms. The compound was relatively silent given the absence of people in the common room. With everyone on lockdown, the women and children were in the centermost warehouses in our complex. They were well-protected until Knuckles got this SNAFU sorted out. The brothers who were present minded their own business. It was our way. All of them would have our backs when push came to shove.
Cora’s fingers curled into the fabric of my shirt as I carried her through the main warehouse and out the back into the courtyard. The distance was farther than I’d normally want to walk, but the time would give Cora time to settle herself.
I carried her to my apartment, only setting her down to open the door. I kept my arm around her protectively, not ready to let her out of my reach, especially when she was obviously feeling fragile. Her tears had soaked through my shirt. Each one felt like a painful blow. I’d keep her safe. Whatever it took.
Chapter Ten
Rancor
I shouldered open the door to my apartment, carrying Cora across the threshold like something precious and breakable. The space felt different with her in it, smaller and somehow warmer. My living quarters were sparse by most standards. A leather couch sat against one wall, with a large screen TV on the opposite side of the room where the kitchen opened up. A workbench covered in motorcycle parts along the far wall represented the only clutter and I even had that area organized for what I worked on at the time. Everything in its place. I rarely brought anyone here, and never women. This was my sanctuary, the one place I didn’t have to wear my mask. Now she saw all of it, all of me, and I found I didn’t mind.
Her gaze moved around the room, taking in details I’d stopped noticing long ago. I set her down carefully and she walked gingerly across the room to stand in front of the window that looked out over Sarah’s garden, now partially obscured by rain.
“This is you,” she whispered, her voice still rough from crying. “I can see you in this room.” She nodded to the garden outside. “I can see you there.”
I nodded. She seemed so small, vulnerable in a way that stirred something protective in me. Her face was flushed, eyes swollen from tears, hair mussed where my fingers had threaded through it. She’d never looked more beautiful to me.
“Hot chocolate.” I knew I sounded abrupt and gruff, but I struggled to hold my anger inside. Fucking Reeves. “You need something warm.”
I moved to the kitchen, heating some milk and tossing in some powdered chocolate mix. I didn’t even think about what I did. I only had the stupid mix because of Hannah and Pippa. For some reason, they piled a big basket full of the stuff outside my room a couple weeks ago. I had been going to throw it out because, what the fuck would I do with hot chocolate, but I’d put it away. Now I was glad I had.
When I returned, she’d drawn her knees up to her chest, making herself smaller on the couch. Her shoes were off, placed neatly side-by-side on the floor. The gesture, this small effort to respect my space, didn’t escape my notice.
I set the mug down on the coffee table and sat beside her. Our thighs touched, the contact sending warmth through me that had nothing to do with the hot chocolate. She didn’t pull away.
“Thank you,” she said, reaching for the mug with unsteady hands. I watched her take a small sip, her throat working as she swallowed. A drop of chocolate clung to her lower lip before her tongue darted out to catch it. My stomach tightened at the sight. Now was not the time to wonder what her tongue would feel like lapping a drop of precum from the tip of my cock.
“I knew,” I said after a moment of silence. “At the café. Before you told me. I knew something was wrong.”
She looked up at me, confusion clouding her eyes. “How?”
“Your hands.” I gestured to where her fingers curled around the mug. “They shake when you’re afraid. And you couldn’t look at me for more than a few seconds at a time.” I paused, choosing my next words carefully. “Spent six years learning to read people. Learning when they’re about to break.”
“Is that why you approached me so carefully?” Her voice was steadier now, the hot chocolate doing its work. “Why you didn’t just confront me about the bug?”
I nodded. “Needed you to tell me yourself. I needed to know if it was coercion or…” I let the sentence hang, unable to voice the alternative.
“Or if I’d betrayed you willingly.” She finished the thought, her expression pained. “You thought I might have been working with Reeves all along?”