Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 93961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93961 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
“Where are you going?” he asked.
“I have to go.”
“Why are you always running away from me?” he questioned, an amused sparkle in his eyes. “Will I see you again?”
I paused and looked at him over my shoulder. “Do you want to?”
He grinned and I was momentarily taken back by how beautiful his smile was.
How beautiful he was.
“Hell, darlin’, I don’t want you to leave.”
I resumed looking for my skirt. “I have to leave. I have things to do.”
I found my skirt in a tangle with my shirt at the foot of the bed.
“At least let me give you a ride home.” He sat up.
“It’s fine. I can call a cab.” I stood up and slipped my shirt on.
“I’m not letting you take a cab.”
“Really, it’s fine.”
He climbed off the bed, unfazed by his nakedness, and began looking for his boxer shorts. I paused to drink in the fine display of his muscular body and his still-swollen manhood swinging between his powerful thighs. It was obvious he took very good care of his body.
He slipped on his jeans, and by the time I had buttoned my blouse and found my phone and shoes, he was fully dressed and securing his wallet chain to his jeans.
“Ready?” he asked.
There was no point arguing.
As he opened the bedroom door, I mentally braced myself. I wasn’t looking forward to the walk of shame through the clubhouse. But the hallway was quiet and the clubhouse was still. Sometime during the night the music had stopped and the party had wound down.
As soon as I entered the bar, the stench of last night’s partying hit me like a bat to the face, and I had to hold my breath. The bar was littered with snoring bikers and the odd club girl asleep where they had passed out. Bottles lay scattered and spilled everywhere. Stale booze and body odor were ripe in the air, and it was enough that I had to hold my breath to keep from vomiting. Caleb took my hand and led me through the mess, stepping over discarded bottles and sleeping bodies. Musty smoke glittered in the dusty rays of sunlight bursting into the room from a window above the jukebox.
Across the room, an older biker was quietly having sex with a large, partially dressed woman up against the pool table. His jeans were down around his ankles and his eyes were closed as he lazily rocked into her. The slap, slap of her large, wobbly boobs against the pool table broke the stillness of the morning.
Farther away, a naked woman lay slumped at the base of a stripper pole with everything open and on display. She hugged a half-spilled bourbon bottle and snored loudly. As we passed by her, Caleb shook his head and grabbed a discarded shirt from a nearby chair to cover her.
“Is she alright?” I whispered.
“Yeah, that’s Candy. It’s not the first time she’s passed out there, and it won’t be the last.”
I glanced around me. This place. These people. This was Caleb’s world. And it reeked of bad choices. Nausea roiled in the pit of my belly, and I barely made it outside in time before losing the contents of my stomach.
“Jesus, are you okay?” Caleb asked, coming up behind me.
I gestured for him to give me a moment as another wave of nausea washed over me, and I vomited again.
“You drink too much?” he asked when I finally straightened and walked over to him. “I don’t remember you being drunk.”
I shook my head. “I didn’t drink a thing.”
He handed me a helmet. “Are you okay to ride? Or do you need a minute?”
“I’ll be okay.”
He led me over to a row of motorcycles parked alongside the clubhouse. His was a big black beast with lots of chrome gleaming in the early morning light.
Before he climbed on, he touched my hand. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
I smiled brightly but it was fake because I felt weird. Out of place. I didn’t belong there.
“Yes. I’m fine,” I said, very aware that I needed to get out of there. I secured my helmet and climbed onto the back of his bike. “Let’s ride.”
HONEY
The moment we pulled up outside my apartment, I knew something was wrong. I looked up at my bedroom window that overlooked the street and realized the curtains were missing.
Caleb sensed something was wrong, too, and insisted on following me inside.
When the door swung open, my heart sank. The place was completely empty.
Everything was gone.
Even the window furnishings.
“What the fuck?” Caleb stood right behind me. “Who did this?”
My head shot up.
Amy.
She had stolen everything. Apart from a discarded candy wrapper in the middle of the floor, my apartment was completely empty. My comfortable couch. Gone. The table and drawers I’d found at a secondhand store and had lovingly restored. Gone. Even the giant picture of James Dean walking through a rainy New York City … gone.