Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 100476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100476 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“Adults in the front, kids in the back,” Cal barks out once he and Penny reach the truck.
“Dude,” Penny complains. “I just turned seventeen last month!”
Penny and I may be Irish Twins since we were born less than twelve months apart, but I’ve always loved playing the older sister role, even if it wasn’t by much. I’ll turn eighteen soon and will once again be different digits than her. I’m guessing Cal wants me in the back, far from his sight, no matter how old I am, though.
“Not you,” he says in a low tone, stopping me. “You can sit up front like the adult I wish you were.”
Not so we can legally fuck, but so I can go to jail for what I did.
“Gross,” Penny grumbles. “So help me, Hutton, if I have to listen to you fuck my sister, I will stab you in the throat.”
I ignore his laughter. He clearly finds the idea of sleeping with me so far off it’s hilarious. Joke’s on him, though, because I wouldn’t touch his diseased dick with a ten-foot pole.
We climb into the truck—literally—and I hate the way it smells. Like him. Woodsy and earthy and masculine. It feels too intimate being in his truck. For as long as I’ve known Cal, I’ve never ridden with him anywhere. The block from Hollis’s house to ours feels like an eternity. As soon as he pulls into the yard, past the driveway and up to the porch, Penny starts cackling.
“Aunt Karen is going to kill you if you leave tire marks in her yard.” She leaps out of the truck.
“Your aunt loves me. Ask her. We’re practically besties,” Cal retorts, earning a laugh from Penny as she bounds inside the house.
Before I can get my door open, a strong hand settles on my jean-clad thigh, stopping me. I hate how his touch scorches my skin. As though the devil lives under the guise of a cute, older guy.
“We’re not over,” Cal states. “I have the entire summer to deal with you.”
I smack his hand off my thigh. “Don’t touch me.”
“I’ll touch you if I want to,” he growls but pulls his hand back. “I’ll touch you because you tried to kill Terrence.”
Pain lances through me, shredding my heart. “I didn’t try to kill him.”
“If he dies…” he trails off, scrubbing a palm over his tired features. “He can’t die.”
His torment is suffocating. I ache to reach over and take his hand so I can squeeze it. Assure him that Terrence will pull through. That I’m sorry for what I did. If I could ease his pain, I would.
I can’t.
What’s done is done and he hates me for it.
“I’m sorry,” I choke out, flinging open the door.
In my haste to get out, I slip off the running board, landing hard on my knee. I manage to bite my tongue in the process. Metallic tasting blood floods over my tongue and I spit it out.
“Oh no,” Cal says in a cold, flat tone. “You got hurt.”
His feet come into view as he grabs my shoulders, hauling me to my feet. Instead of letting me go, his eyes bore into mine. Then, he reaches up with his thumb, smearing some blood left on my bottom lip.
“Remember what I said.” His voice is softer now, almost a gentle caress. “I will make your life fucking hell until my boy wakes up.”
How can his words be delivered so sweetly but be so cruel?
“What if he never wakes up?” I ask, tearing up. The thought of him in a coma until he dies is too much to bear.
“Then it looks like you’re stuck with me forever.”
With those words practically spat at me, he abandons me to climb back in his big-ass truck. I manage to get the door shut before he hauls ass out of here, kicking up hunks of grass in our yard.
Aunt Karen is going to kill him.
Maybe then I’ll have a reprieve.
I don’t deserve one.
I deserve every second of his wrath.
Cal
A warm hand on my shoulder wakes me from my stupor. Last night, after leaving Charlotte and Penny’s, I went home and drank my way into oblivion. Seeing Charlotte fucked with my head. The small, feminine hand shaking me tells me I must have found a chick along the way home to bury myself in as well.
I try like hell to remember.
Was it Tayla or whatever the fuck her name was?
All I see in my head is long, blond hair.
I cringe, forcing my eyes open, to face the woman in my bed. Hopefully she’s hot because my dick hardens at lingering thoughts of Charlotte’s hair as I imagine it twisted in my fist.
Fuck.
I need to screw those thoughts right out of my head.
“Yuck, Cal,” the voice gripes. “Put that weapon away. I’m not one of your peasants. I am a queen.”