Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 156796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 156796 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 784(@200wpm)___ 627(@250wpm)___ 523(@300wpm)
I blinked. Slowly. His voice was hard. Flat. But it was also raspy. Rough. Chiseled from smoking too many cigarettes throughout the years. That shouldn’t have pleased me. Cigarettes killed almost half a million Americans every year, and the deaths weren’t pretty.
The thought of Gage succumbing to a death like that had me tasting bile.
So no, I didn’t like that he smoked.
But I liked the way it had deepened his manly rasp. The way it clung to his pores and mingled perfectly with his natural scent to create a cologne Armani would likely kill for.
But still.
“You shouldn’t smoke,” I said, surprising myself. Because I should’ve asked him what he was doing on my doorstep at eight in the morning. Or started the very well-rehearsed and efficient speech I’d drafted in case I encountered him again and he was still under the impression that we were something.
But I didn’t do those things.
I said what I said because no matter what I loved about his smoky scent and voice, I did not love any single thing about something that increased his risk of dying early.
And from what I knew about the Sons of Templar MC, that risk was already pretty freaking high.
Gage’s expression cleared completely, eyes wide in total surprise for a split second. Then he recovered. Of course he recovered.
“How the fuck do you know I smoke?” he demanded.
“I’m me, not freaking hard,” I shot back, not resisting my urge to smile.
Something in his jaw ticked, the corner of his granite mouth turning up. “Fuck,” he said, the curse somehow like ambrosia in the air coming from him.
I blinked again. “What?”
He stepped forward, slightly in my door but not in my space. That didn’t mean my body didn’t respond to his complete nearness.
It did.
Dramatically.
“The word you’re lookin’ for, baby, when you’re cute as fuck and tryin’ to mimic me but fallin’ short when you can’t even mutter the word ‘fuck’ from your sweet-as-shit lips,” he said, eyes on the lips he’d just called ‘sweet as shit.’
I struggled to keep my wits about me. He was making it hard as crap. “I don’t need to curse to make my point,” I said, hating that my voice betrayed exactly what he was doing to me. I sucked in a deep breath. “You shouldn’t smoke. It’s bad for you.”
He leaned back, face hardening once more. “Do a lot of things that are bad for me,” he replied. “Smokin’ is just one thing on the list. Very near the fuckin’ bottom. What’s on the top is me standing right where I am now.”
I screwed up my nose. “You standing on my doorstep is worse than you sucking on a death stick that boasts tar and carbon monoxide in its ingredient deck?” I clarified.
There was the mouth twitch again. “Yeah, baby. In my world, there’s something much fuckin’ worse than suckin’ on poison.” His eyes were on my lips. “And that’s tastin’ something sweet.”
His words struck me. Bodily. Struck me mute. But even his threats, his comments about violence and murder, hadn’t made me mute. It was the way he talked about me being sweet. Like it was a bad thing, but a good thing too. Because his words, the low rasp of his voice, his gaze—they all told me that he was interested in me.
Me.
Luckily I didn’t have to scramble a response, as he folded his arms across his chest. He was wearing a long henley because there was still a crisp chill to the air considering it was early October; even in California, the weather was turning slightly.
And he’d likely ridden on his bike.
“You gonna keep starin’ at me, or you gonna get your shit together?” he asked, his voice hard but somehow amused at the same time.
My eyes jerked upward from where they’d been inspecting his pecs, wondering if they were as hard as they looked. And then wondering what they looked like without the shirt, if his entire body was coated in tattoos like his visible skin seemed to portray.
“My shit together?” I repeated, thinking that pretty much my whole life since that day almost a decade before was centered, almost violently focused on having ‘my shit together.’ I had excelled at that for nine years.
Apart from the past week.
Well, the past four days, to be exact.
Since this man came into my life.
My life since then did not have its shit together.
Or more accurately, I did not have my shit together.
How did he expect me to get it together with him standing right there? I wouldn’t be able to get back to my carefully ordered life unless he was far, far away. And even then, the ghost of his presence was forceful enough to blow me off-kilter for the past two days.
“Yeah, babe.” He looked pointedly at my toes. “Unless you’re plannin’ on going to work barefoot. And I’m guessin’ you don’t plan on that.” His eyes went to my exposed arms. “And you’re gonna need to cover up. It’s chilly. Colder on the bike.”