Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
The bedroom is cool and dark, no windows in the hideout except in the great room, making it impossible to feel like it’s anything but night. It feels like the world is still asleep. Or like we’re the only ones on the planet.
I brush her hair, tucking it behind her ear. “I love you,” I tell her.
Her naked chest presses against mine, and she trembles, her mouth opening and then closing. And for a moment, fear makes me pause.
When I was a kid, I used to carry her around as she clung to my leg. Now, she’s a woman. Am I good for her?
She breaks into a smile. “Finally.”
I chuckle. Yeah, whatever. So I’m a slow mover. In everything, I guess.
I close my eyes and tip my head back as she trails kisses across my neck, over my collarbone, and down my chest.
Her tongue darts out and teases my nipple, tugging it with her teeth.
Nerves fire, and I suck in air, laughing.
I pull her up, but as soon as I open my eyes, I spot black writing on her back. Just over her shoulder.
I tilt my head up. “What’s this?”
She tries to look over but her eyes don’t reach that far.
The writing is jagged and appears to be in marker. “Two-eight-eight-four,” I read.
“Huh?” She sits up and tries to look over her shoulder. “What is that? Where did it come from?”
Her worried eyes jerk to me, and I launch up and examine it again.
Black numbers, the little lines looking like quick swipes as if done in a hurry. The four and last eight are slightly smeared.
There’s nothing else. No other writing.
Her gaze wanders, the wheels in her head turning. “I thought…” She starts breathing harder. “I thought that was you,” she tells me. “I felt fingers on my skin in the middle of the night. Or I thought they were fingers. I thought you were caressing me or something.”
The sounds she was making… I thought she was asleep, but she was being touched. Fuck.
She chokes back a sob, the realization that someone was here—in this room, while we slept—frightening both of us. They got close enough to touch her. They could’ve done anything to us.
Instinctively, my fingers close around her arms, squeezing too hard. I immediately release her.
It could’ve been Dylan or one of the boys.
And I no sooner think it than the bedroom door flies open. Quinn snaps the covers up, and I jerk my head right, putting my arms around her.
Light pours in, Hunter standing right in the doorway.
His eyes widen. “Whoa.”
“Out!” I growl.
But he looks to his side, down the hall, tensing.
Ah, shit.
Kade and Hawke rush up to his side. “What the hell?” Hawke bursts out at him.
But then he sees us.
The three of them stand there, taking in the scene, Quinn and I clearly done with whatever we were doing. Bed, a mess. Hair, a mess.
“Get out!” she cries, reaching for her clothes on the chair.
But Kade only advances on us. “You son of a bitch!”
That was directed at me. He glares, and if I weren’t naked, I’m pretty sure he would’ve charged me. I haven’t been in these guys’s lives hardly at all, but I already know he’s the one who’s a pain in the ass.
“Kade!” Hawke barks.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, pulling on my black pants. “Easy,” I chide.
Quinn and I pull on clothes, shielded by the sheet, while Kade’s the only one too angry to have the consideration to look away.
I rise, sliding my arms into my shirt. “How did you get in here?”
“You forgot to lock the mirror, I guess,” Hawke tells us. He looks to Quinn and back to me. “How long has this been going on?”
“Less than two weeks, obviously,” Quinn grumbles.
I almost pause to ask them if this is the first time they’ve been in this room in the past several hours, remembering the writing on Quinn’s back.
But judging from their reactions, this is the first time any of them are seeing us in bed together.
“Are you okay?” Hawke asks her, throwing me a suspicious glance.
“I was until you all barged in!” she yelled. “Out!”
“Can’t find an adult, huh?” Kade spits out at me. “You have to pick on someone half your age?”
“She’s not half my age.” I pull the T-shirt over my head. “And I remember seeing you flip off a twelve-year-old girl the other day?”
“She was fifteen.” He scowls. “And she’s not a girl. She’s a little shit hellbent on pissing me off every time I turn around! You’ve been gone, or you would’ve known that.”
Either way, I still don’t think Madoc knows his son is treating an underage girl like a prison rival because I don’t think he would like it.
“Quinn, get over here!” Kade barks.
I move, ready to stop him from talking to her like that.