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)
All three of them stare at me, confused. They never saw a diary.
I put my hand on my waist. “You never thought of springing a trap for these guys instead of waiting for them to dole out clues at their leisure?”
I mean, they’ve been researching these brothers for years. They know they’re coming into the tower.
I push them out.
“Quinn…”
“I’ll let you know what happens.”
“Quinn!”
“Goodnight!” I yell, watching Hunter and Kade jog down the steps.
I start to shut the door in Hawke’s face, but I stop, grabbing him by the T-shirt and pulling him back. “When Aro wears red lipstick,” I ask, “what do you think when you look at her mouth?”
“Huh?”
He blinks at me for several moments, his mouth opening and closing and looking flustered.
“Just say it,” I growl.
He tsks, acting just like his father. Like he’s not a completely different guy in a bedroom with his girl.
“I’m thinking,” he grumbles, “how…good those lips would look wrapped around my…”
I pinch my brows together.
“You know…” he gruffs. “My cock. Jesus, Quinn.”
That’s what Lucas was thinking? I fold my lips between my teeth, still tasting the lipstick.
“Weirdo,” Hawke mumbles.
And I don’t have to shove him anymore. He practically runs down the stairs to get away from me.
To my surprise, I laugh as I close the door and lock it. Lucas looked at my mouth four times.
In the living room, I remove the notebook from the waistline of my pants and drop it to the table before pulling out the diary I’d stashed in the bureau. I fan the pages to find the next entry. There are several blank sheets after the initial passage. Not sure if she—or whoever—meant to come back and add things, or if their attention to organization was as haphazard as their writing.
Gone
Alone
Can’t go home
Eight days since I felt you
Gone
Alone
Can’t go home
Did it to me, now I’ll do it to you
Drawings fill the page around the words. The bridge. A car under the water. The warehouses of Weston, his hand, her neck…
I flip the page and stare at the headlights of the ’72 Dodge.
Do it to me, now I’ll do it to you.
Atta girl.
Light from the TV flashes in the corner of my eyes, and I walk over to the couch, picking up the remote the boys left. The TV must’ve come back on when Hawke threw down the remote.
I stare at the screen, a blush rising to my cheeks. What the hell were they watching? The woman is on the bed, one man under her and the other one behind her, and I crane my neck, trying to figure out whose legs are whose.
Lucas
Noah and I hop out of the back of a JT Racing truck, each of us grabbing a few flags already strewn on poles to slide into the lamppost slots along High Street. The Fourth of July parade is in less than three days, so everyone is pitching in to decorate.
“Thanks for paying for the drinks the other night,” Noah says.
I fit the end of a pole into a bracket. “I needed them more than you did,” I reply. “I guess I wasn’t much for company. Sorry.”
We barely talked, some local fans of his gathered around as soon as we got there to fawn over him. I was grateful, though. I didn’t want to drink alone, but I knew I wasn’t going to talk much, either.
“It was fine,” he says. “Kind of like drinking with my brother.”
“You hang out at that bar much?”
“Never.” He moves to the next lamppost, throwing me a smile. “I usually take a bottle out to the river, or sneak into Eagle Point Park. Somewhere I can be alone,” he tells me. “And hear the sounds of home that I’ll never admit to my dad that I kind of miss.”
I get the impression he couldn’t wait to get away from his family and Colorado, but he seems to miss them too. He’s just like everyone else with a story, and has complications and feelings he doesn’t know what to do with.
He’s not the guy I thought he was, and I know from watching Madoc that men with constant smiles are hiding things too.
“You need a girl.” I toss him the last pole and he slips it in the bracket. “Or a guy?”
He chuckles, and we both hop back into the truck bed that one of Jared’s techs drives while we decorate. “Can I have that one?” He points to Quinn’s shop, and I look, recognizing her figure delivering a coffee to a table. Her hair is down, tucked behind one ear, and I like the baker’s coat she wears.
I cock an eyebrow, throwing the little shit a glare. “And compete with Farrow Kelly?” I force a tease.
Noah is definitely a threat, but I don’t know… It’s like surface charm. He hides behind it. Something tells me Quinn will see through it too.