Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74270 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
“Who are you calling old?” snaps a blonde woman who, once I look away from all of Sandra’s accessories, looks an awful lot like her.
Sandra’s grin widens. “That’s Natalie, my older sister.”
“Listen here, you little shit!”
Their laughs are almost identical, making it even more obvious they’re related.
“So wait…” I’m finally putting the Harem part of the Harem Brunch Club in context. “Everyone here has… um, has the same thing going on that Emily does? Like…” It feels too crude to ask out loud, so I count off three on my fingers. Alessa looks briefly around, then her eyes twinkle as she holds up a hand with four fingers up.
Right, Harper is together with four too.
But everyone else nods. “Yep. Harem Brunch Club,” Emily says. “It was me and Alessa to start, but when we realized there were getting to be a few of us, and we were surrounded by all this overprotective testosterone, we decided we needed a space where we could be ourselves. It’s not a life most people outside the club can relate to, so here we are, meeting regularly. I thought it would be good for you to see what you might be getting yourself into.”
I blink. “Thank you, but… I mean, I’ve only been here a few days, and while I really, really like Mad Dog, Rebel and Riptide, I barely know them, and once all this is over, I’m sure I’ll be going back home and—”
I’m cut off by the whole room cracking up in laughter. I’m not sure what the joke is though.
One of the women—Shelby?—leans forward toward me. “That’s how it started for everyone here. We’ve developed a bit of a sixth sense about who might stick around. Bikers have a reputation for moving fast. They’ll happily screw their way across the city and back, but when they find what they want, they lock it in. Good luck resisting. Their arguments are quite persuasive.”
Summer and Sandra nod.
If they weren’t so friendly and nice to me, I’d worry I’d stumbled into some kind of cult. Then again, isn’t that one of the things that cults do? But also then again, if the cult is getting romanced by three to four sexy bikers long term… maybe that’s a cult worth considering?
Natalie pats an open spot next to her on a love seat. “Now come here, grab yourself something to drink and help yourself to the cookies I baked this morning. We want to hear everything. The good and the bad.” Her smile gets a little softer. “I know we’re a lot, but we’ve been through a lot together. This is the one place we can have cookies, play with babies, and talk about what it’s like to recover from being kidnapped, sold or both.”
I laugh like she’s joking, but I’m pretty sure she’s being serious.
We move on to other topics, and if you ignore the circumstances, it’s incredibly… normal? We talk about plans and kids and the weather and eat absolutely delicious cookies and drink tea. On second thought, maybe it isn’t very normal, because I think something like this is actually pretty special. I know I don’t have anything like it, and Mom didn’t either.
Okay, so one of the things we bond about is the joys of biker polyamory, but still.
It’s nice.
Maybe that’s what strikes me more than anything here. Whether it’s between the men, the women, or all of them together, they feel like family. We can’t choose who we’re blood with, but we can choose who we bleed with. I think I read that somewhere, and it was really cheesy, but at the same time, here it feels so true.
The cry of a baby cuts through the comfortable chatter. Faith sits up. “Oh no. If one goes off, the rest will too. It’s like throwing a grenade into the armory.”
I’m not going to question how she knows that, but she’s right. A moment later two more voices join in, sounding like they’re feeding off each other’s energy.
“Guess it couldn’t last.” Shelby gets up, followed by Faith and Natalie. Apparently they were all sleeping in the next room, since each woman returns with a whimpering bundle in her arms.
Sandra takes Natalie’s spot next to me and gestures. “Meet the newest members of the Screaming Eagles family, including the president’s new grandson, Hudson. Then Shelby’s Reid, and the best little nephew anyone’s ever had, Natalie’s Shawn. We had a bit of a baby boom a few months ago.”
The ladies sit back down where they find space, and then three hungry boys are getting fed. From the sound of it, they were starving, though I’m imagining that babies are a little bit like cats: always on the brink of starvation—if you ask their opinion anyway.
Kaylee laughs. “I swear, no matter how old men are, they’re fixated on boobs.”