Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 83211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 416(@200wpm)___ 333(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
“What do you do all day, anyway?”
His lips twitch. “If I told you, I’d have to kill you.”
“Tell him,” Jess says, making everyone laugh. “Please.”
I study Foxx across the table. Yup. It’s time you got roped into the family shenanigans.
Mom calls everyone to the kitchen to make their plates of food.
My mind goes to Sara and her smart-mouth, sweet-ass, gorgeous self. The way she fell onto my lap last night. How easy it was to hold her there. How much I liked it.
But does it matter, really, how much I liked having her against me when I know it’s Sara, for crying out loud? She’s a player. A vixen.
"I don’t want a boyfriend. I want the benefits of having one. I want sex, but not the other crap that goes along with it. I just don’t have the stomach for it.”
She’s a woman who won’t be tamed.
Not that I’d want to tame her, but I’m not in the market to spend time with a woman who bothers me as much as she turns me on.
Nah, fuck that.
She can stay Maddox’s problem. God knows I don’t need any more of those in my life.
8
Banks
“Hey, Banks,” Ashley says, smiling at me over the back of the sofa.
The floor lamps cast a warm glow over the living room. It’s a stark contrast to the inky night sky through the windows. But as I make my way into the living room, I pause and take in the scene before me.
This is suspicious.
Ashley sits on one end of the couch with a smile a bit too wide—even for her. Maddox stands behind her, clutching a beer. I’ve seen this look on his face before. He’s borderline pissed. At least I didn’t have anything to do with it for once. But then my gaze swings to the other side of the room, to the chair and ottoman next to the fireplace, and shit.
My stomach drops and then twists so hard my abs flex.
Sara sits with her legs, muscled and tanned, stretched across the ottoman. A fingernail is between her teeth. She’s edgy. It’s as if she’s ready to spring from the cushion and burst into one of her line of questions or mini rants that I can never quite keep up with.
I shouldn’t be here.
“Hey,” I say, staying in place. “I, um, just came over here to see if I can borrow the duct tape in the back of the junk drawer by the sink.”
Ashley’s brows pull together. “How do you know there’s tape there?”
“Did you move it?” I ask.
“I didn’t even know there was tape there, Banks.”
“So it’s still there then,” I say, avoiding Sara’s gaze and heading into the kitchen.
I should’ve gone to Moss’s. My lips threaten to part into a smile. Yeah, but Sara wasn’t there.
The woman has been on my mind all day like a virus, infecting all my thoughts. I went to extreme lengths to stop thinking about her—lengths that included taking apart a transmission, calling my sister, and making a stop at the farm supply store.
Did Sara see the guy she told me she was meeting? Why was she with Becca? What is she going to do about a place to live?
Not that it’s my problem—none of it’s my problem. Still, I’m curious.
I pull open the drawer and locate the tape.
“What do you need that tape for?” Moss asks. “Also, I love how you know exactly where things are in my house.”
“Photographic memory,” I say.
“That’s not really what I was getting at,” Moss says. “It was more the ridiculousness that you know where all the things are in my house, not the impressiveness of it.”
I shut the drawer. “Well, you’re obviously looking at things the wrong way.”
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out.
Jess: ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?
I smirk. This should be fun.
“Guys, I gotta go,” I say.
“Wait,” Ashley says. “We wanted to talk to you.”
I glance up as my phone buzzes again. “Now is a really bad time.”
Jess: WHERE ARE YOU, YOU LITTLE RAT BASTARD?
“Can you wait just a second?” Ashley asks.
Me: I’d keep rats away, given the current circumstances.
Fucker.
My phone buzzes again, but this time, so do Maddox’s and Ashley’s.
Oh shit.
Jess: Anyone seen Banksy?
“Hey,” I say, looking up. “No one reply to Jess with—”
Ding!
Maddox: He’s standing in my kitchen.
I gasp. “You traitor.”
Jess: Keep him there.
“What did you do?” Maddox asks, grinning.
“You know what?” I ask, side-eyeing the door. “I’m going to stay right here. Since you just sold me out, the blood can spill all over your floor and you can clean it up.”
Ashley shakes her head. “I told you he was plotting something, Sara.”
“I wasn’t plotting something,” I say. “I was preparing to execute a—fuck.”
Jess must have jogged from the front door to the kitchen because it takes him all of one second to appear. I hop around the island so it’s between me and the doorway. Shit’s about to get real.