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)
“You thought bringing your Green Street shit to Shelburne Falls was a good idea?” I charge.
He just shrugs. “You did.”
Yeah, very funny.
“Where is Quinn?” I ask.
Again, he just grins. “I kind of want to tell you that.” Mischief hits his eyes. “You’ll either handle it badly. Or you’ll handle it in a way that brings her closer to you. I mean, that’s what you want, right?” he taunts. “Her close to you? Just like you’re one of her brothers?”
I feel Quinn on the bed next to us, moaning and swaying as she makes herself come. I watched her. I didn’t stop her, and if her brothers knew they’d kill me.
“I remember you,” I tell him. He was one of the kids who hung around sometimes. “You were, what, eleven? Twelve? Who’s your father?”
Most of those kids were from broken homes. Who’s his dad, who lets him run with drug dealers and pimps, but can afford to buy him a house with cash?
He lowers his voice, just loud enough for me to hear. “I remember you too. You installed the motion sensor lights and cameras in the warehouse district. It’s how we track movement and create a buffer at Green Street.” His smile spreads. “Genius. Whatever happened to that guy?”
Fuck you.
But despite my irritation, pride creeps in. Those sensors were a good idea. You can see from miles away who’s moving in the dark and where.
I swallow through the lump in my throat. “What do you want here?”
I left so Madoc, Fallon, Quinn…would all be safe. Being so close now—with his connections to Green Street—is he going to ruin that? Even if I leave?
But to my surprise, he simply says, “I need your help.”
My help?
“And you need mine,” he adds. “If you want her trust back.”
Quinn
I chew on my pencil eraser. Crushed blackberries…
Lying on my stomach in the field off one of Fallstown’s tracks, I jot down the ingredient in my notebook and add chocolate sauce.
But then I scratch it out and write chocolate chips instead. Milk chocolate chips. Sauce will only overpower the brown sugar and butter, and I want pockets of sweet.
“Oh, he looks like fun,” Mace coos.
Pockets. Of. Sweet. I write in my notebook. I like how that sounds.
Dylan, Aro, and their friends sit around me with their Bluetooth speaker and coolers, Codi hugging her knees and Mace leaning back on her hands with a couple of other girls whose names I don’t remember.
“Who is he?” Mace asks.
What else, what else… An extra egg yolk, for sure.
“Quinn?”
Cornstarch, sugar, salt, vanilla, baking powder…
“Quinn,” Mace says sternly.
“What?”
“Who is that blond in the black T-shirt?” she asks me. “The one under the hood with your brothers? Like Farrow, but with more muscles.”
The compass sits open on the grass, the needle wavering.
I lift my eyes to the track, seeing Lucas with Jared, Madoc, and Jax, all of them standing around someone’s car, smiling and talking about whatever’s so interesting under the hood.
My body instantly stirs, taking in his jeans and thick arms crossed over his black T-shirt. Broad shoulders, the lean lines of his chest…
My legs crossed at the ankles, I swing my feet back and forth and bury my eyes in one of my many notebooks. “Lucas Morrow.”
I kind of hoped he would’ve been up when I left this morning. I’ve never slept in a house alone with him before, and I was barely able to sleep. All I kept thinking about was getting up to make pizza and wondering if the scent would lure him out of bed. A month ago, I would’ve enjoyed entertaining fantasies about what could happen with a house to ourselves.
Now, I’m too pissed. Still.
“Morrow…” she murmurs. “That name sounds familiar.”
“The party the other night was for him,” Dylan points out, taking a seat next to Aro.
Lucas stayed in the guest room all night, and he let me leave without any interference, interrogation, or commands this morning.
And without his scent hovering over my shoulder.
I glance at him again, seeing his hands in his pockets now and looking at ease as he jokes with Jax. The pulse between my legs knocks, and I heave a sigh, carving the ingredients into my damn notebook over and over again. Flour. How does a baker forget flour?
My phone lights up, and I see a text from my mom roll in.
Do you have a ride home?
I arch an eyebrow. Even from all the way in Bermuda, my parents are tracking me.
I pick up my cell and tap out a reply. Everyone’s here—no worries.
I have all the rides in the world to choose from.
I’m not even sure why I’m here. Not only does my dad hate me hanging out at the track around groups of traveling motorheads who have girls in every city, but I’m not a fan of the scene, either.
I just couldn’t move stuff out of my room with Lucas there tonight, nor did I want to be home alone and pathetic with no social life in front of him, either. I could’ve gone to the gym, I suppose.