Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Melissa: Lol! You’re fine. Everyone’s fine. I just wanted to make sure about the no-Liam invite because tonight seems like a night where he might’ve been invited, but this semester’s been different.
Bailey: I’m good and thank you! See you guys at Naveah. Matt, we’re waiting for you downstairs.
Matt: See you in two snaps.
THIRTY-FIVE
Kash
“You two seem cozy.”
That was Matt’s greeting as he slid into the booth beside me. He’d just gone to the bar for another drink, though it was more to flirt with the new bartender, and now he was studying where Bailey was standing with Torie and Tamara. Her friend Melissa was there, too, and there was an uneasy edge to the whole group. It’d been worse when we first arrived. I’d kept an eye on it and it was getting better. A couple more drinks and they’d be laughing like times before Bailey had lost her mother.
“Bailey and me, or are you talking about someone else?” I nodded in their direction, turning to eye Matt as he continued to eye them.
He took a drag from his drink before putting it on the table. He slumped a little in the booth, but that was his way. He threw people off with that body language, but he was never not watchful and alert. Or he wasn’t unless he had too many drinks or something else in his system, and so far, I was counting only two drinks.
We’d been here two hours by now, so that was a tortoise rate for Matt Francis.
“You and the B Master.” He tipped his head her way. “She’s happier now that you’re back.”
Well, shit. Here we were.
I grinned at him, cocking my head back a little. “We doing this?”
His eyes met mine, and he had his own answering grin. He sat up and leaned forward, resting his arms on the table. “I guess. I mean, why not? We didn’t get to it before.” He shrugged, his head falling down a little. “I am her brother, you know.”
“You want to know my intentions towards your sister?”
Another half grin. “Yeah. I do.” The grin vanished and he leveled a look at me, a hard look. “Don’t leave again, fucker.”
“There’s a part of her that blames me. I needed to give her time and space to process those emotions, and you know it.” I rested my head against the seat, rolling my head to look his way. He had slid down, mirroring me.
He let out a sigh. “Yeah. I get it. Sucks.” A beat later, “But it was fun to spend some time with her.”
I grunted. “If I’d gotten a call that she was arrested because of you, then you and I would be having a different talk.”
He shook his head. “Whatever, jerkface.”
I grinned. “Cyclone?”
He paused a second, then got it and laughed. “Should I say ‘dickface’ instead?”
“Please no.”
His grin was there, but it grew more somber. “Just don’t leave my sister like that again. I’m assuming you didn’t get him yet? Figured there’d be a news bulletin out if you had. Did you get close, at least?”
I shook my head. “I was heading to a meeting when I got the call about you and Bailey. She’s more important than him.”
A grunt from him this time. “I get it. You had to come back. Your woman needed you.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
Then we were done.
The talk was over, and we sat there, watching the woman we both loved as she relaxed around her friends. An hour later she was flushed, and curled up next to me in the booth. The night wasn’t bad, or not as bad as I thought it’d be.
That was, until now, seeing who’d entered Naveah and was heading our way. I knew the good times were done.
“Aw, fuck.” Matt sat up, throwing me a look.
I gave him a quick dip of my head. I saw.
Bailey hadn’t, but she had heard her brother.
She lifted her head from my shoulder and looked up, a little drowsy. Then she jerked upright. “What is she doing here?”
Victoria was walking up the path to our booth. Fleur and Cedar right behind her. Since she was here, I had no doubt that the usual gang was about to follow as well. Chester. Guy. Cottweiler. It wasn’t like Victoria to be in town and not rally support.
She knew I was here.
She was here to say something.
I sat back and waited.
“Hello, Kash.”
Bailey
I was experiencing bad déjà vu.
I hadn’t seen her since …
“He fucked me hard. He flew me to Greece, making me come over and over again on the plane. And it didn’t stop there. He was insatiable.”
I was tasting my own vomit. It jumped up in my throat.
“What’s the problem, Bailey? Not enough for him?”
“What. The. Fuck. Isshedoinghere?”
The end of my question rushed out of me, because I was pissed. I was ready to commit murder, and I was rising up out of Kash’s lap without even knowing I was doing it. His hand clamped down. He held me still, but he was moving for both of us.