Total pages in book: 36
Estimated words: 33520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 168(@200wpm)___ 134(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 33520 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 168(@200wpm)___ 134(@250wpm)___ 112(@300wpm)
“Hold still, Pinhead, or it won’t come out clean.” Lemon’s voice sounded like she was trying to reason with him. Like a parent telling a child this was for his own good. I knew better. She wanted him to fight. To fear. The woman was vicious in a way a man could only dream of. Admittedly, there weren’t many men willing to take on a woman this brutal, but I wasn’t most men. And the sight only turned me on. My woman might take a beating, but she was anything but a victim. She’d bide her time. When the opportunity presented itself, she struck.
“No! NO!” The guy’s voice broke, and he sobbed as Lemon pulled at the stud. She took her time, stretching the skin taut.
“You ready?”
“NO! Stop! NOOOO!”
“I have to wonder.” Lemon tilted her head. I could see one side of her face and her lips were pursed. “Would you have stopped hurting me if I’d begged you?”
Everything inside me stilled. When I’d first brought Lemon back to the compound with me as my woman, she’d been taken by a couple of guys who had kidnapped a young girl off the beach. Lemon had gone after the girl, Effie, who was now with us at Grim Road. Lemon had taken several blows before I’d gotten there, during the ensuing fight. I’d lost my shit then, but I had a feeling this was going to be worse.
The guy half laughed, half cried, trying to play it off. “I was only jokin’, lady. I wouldn’t really’ve done all that shit.”
“Really. Because it felt like you meant it.”
Then, with a vicious jerk of her hand, Lemon pulled the stud from his lip. She held it up to the light coming through the grimy window as if to get a better look at it. The guy she’d called Pinhead screamed and thrashed about. Obviously not one of his better days. Seeing Lemon acting in character with her typical self eased my rage and fear somewhat, lessening the band around my chest. She was here. She was safe. I had no idea what injuries she had, if any, but she wasn’t so hurt she wasn’t up for a few shenanigans.
This Pinhead screamed over and over, sucking in one breath after another only to let out more screams. Judging by his face, she’d done this several times. Which made sense. He’d reached the point where he’d given up trying to be stoic about the whole mess, but she hadn’t gone so far he didn’t have the strength to fight.
“Oh, look, Venus,” Lemon said as she held out the bloody bit of steel. “Another souvenir. I think I want to melt them all down and make a cock piercing for his dick.” She straightened then, as if a thought had just occurred to her. Knowing Lemon, this was the exact moment she’d been leading up to. “Wait. He’s got a metric crapton of piercings in his face. I bet he has them other places too.”
Pinhead screamed in what I could only describe as abject terror. Because he obviously knew what I did. Lemon absolutely would rip out every piece of body jewelry the man had.
“No doubt, Lemon.” Venus gave a supremely satisfied smirk. My guess was she’d been waiting for Lemon to come to this conclusion, and now realized there had been a method to the madness for Lemon. This was where she’d been going all along and had played it to perfection. “You and I need to hang out more.”
“You sure Thorn would approve of that?” I couldn’t keep to the shadows any longer. I mean, I hadn’t been exactly subtle in my approach, but the men hadn’t noticed and it was time to make my presence known. I frowned at them. Venus didn’t turn her head to acknowledge me. Lemon did…
And all that rage inside me I’d just tamped down rose to the surface in a white-hot explosion.
“What the Goddamned fuck?” I shouted as I took the two steps necessary to get to my woman. “Who the fuck hit you? He’s a fuckin’ dead man!”
“Relax, sugar,” she said, standing to wrap her arms around my neck. She was splattered with blood and one whole side of her face was swollen. Dried blood trickled down one corner of her mouth, but she was acting like she felt none of it. This was becoming a theme I didn’t like. “I’m fine. Just a couple bumps and bruises.” She hiked a thumb over her shoulder. “You should see the other guy. Besides, once Venus got here, it was all good.”
“Don’t care. I’m done with you getting beat up, Lemon. This has to fuckin’ stop.” I pulled her solidly against me, wrapping my arms around her tightly. She clung to me as well and, though I knew she’d never admit it, she was trembling. Every instinct in me screamed at me to remove her from the situation. Whether she wanted me to or not.