Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 40057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40057 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
I reacted before I even saw her face because she’d been taking in everything around her. She didn’t look overwhelmed, which told me she either had nerves made of steel or she knew how to keep them hidden.
Then she turned slightly as Ink spoke, and I saw her face in full.
The heat hit low and hard. An immediate pull that made my spine go tight and my lungs forget their job for half a second. It wasn’t subtle or gradual. The attraction slammed into me with no warning, leaving me standing there as if I had just been claimed by something I didn’t understand.
She was young—nineteen or twenty, if I remembered right. Her hair was dark brown and thick, pulled back with a few strands loose near her face like she’d shoved it into place without caring if it looked perfect.
She was slim, but not fragile. Soft in the right places, making my hands itch to stroke her curves. Her mouth was full, the lower lip slightly parted, as if she were about to speak and had forgotten how. I caught myself staring at it, imagining what it would look like bruised pink from my teeth, envisioning the sound she’d make if I kissed her hard enough to steal her breath.
Her eyes were gray-blue, cool and clear, and the second they flicked up and landed on me, I felt the impact all the way down to my groin.
She froze for the smallest beat, like she’d felt it too.
Good.
She wasn’t gawking at the ink or the cut. She looked at me like her body had made a decision her mind hadn’t signed off on yet. Her breath caught slightly, and her shoulders stiffened as though she was trying to force herself back into control. But her gaze dropped anyway, sliding over my chest and my arms like she couldn’t stop it.
When her eyes lingered on my hands, something inside me went viciously still. She stared at my knuckles like she was imagining what they’d feel like. She didn’t smile or blush. Her quiet and intense expression lit me up inside.
I’d been around women my whole life. Was raised by a strong, loving mother who’d taught me to respect them. I'd worked with them. Protected them. Watched my brothers fall for women and get knocked on their asses by it—which I found fucking hilarious at the time. Though they didn’t tend to appreciate my sense of humor. Boring motherfuckers.
Never been the guy who lost his head over a girl. For sure, I never looked once and felt something primitive snap into place like a lock.
But fuck if that wasn’t what happened.
Mine.
The thought had come uninvited, sitting in my chest while every breath fought to be set free.
While Ink kept talking, I realized she belonged here in my space. But I wasn’t sure how I felt about that yet.
She wasn’t mine. Except my body didn’t believe that shit for a second.
But I didn’t let any of what I was feeling show when I murmured, “C’mon.”
My pace was steady as I led her across the room, but my body was very aware of her presence beside me. I could hear the soft scuff of her boots, the faint rustle of her clothes, and the quiet inhale she took when we passed one of the open booths where a machine buzzed against skin. Every time she drew in a breath, my mind supplied a different sound to go with it, something lower and broken that she’d make if I had her pinned to a wall with my mouth at her throat.
I was losing my fucking mind.
She was too young. And much too sweet.
I was patched into the Hounds of Hellfire Motorcycle Club, for fuck’s sake. We weren’t the damn devil, but we certainly weren’t choir boys either. My life was filled with secrets and darkness. It was the nature of the beast.
Motorcycle clubs were built on silence and loyalty—ours more than most. People on the outside didn’t know much, but they got enough to stay the fuck out of our way. We weren’t saints and never claimed to be. We had blood on our hands, dabbled in shit that never made it to paper, and handed out our own kind of justice when the law fell short.
But we had honor. Loyalty. Limits.
And unlike a lot of other clubs, we actually lived by them.
The Hounds didn’t just run bikes and muscle. We had legitimate businesses, more than people realized. And Ace, with his freakish brain for the stock market, made sure our investments stayed fat.
But the real money came from the shadows.
We didn’t kill people for cash. We killed identities. Scrubbed them clean. Rewrote lives from the bones up. It had started with a few favors, but it turned into something bigger. And lucrative. We became the place you went when you needed to vanish for good—no questions, no trace, and no slip-ups.