Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 97951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
She chewed her upper lip, then nodded. A tear rolled down her cheek. He had a way of bringing her to her knees. Of commanding her to listen. Of not allowing her to run away on the inside.
He reached up and wiped it away.
“Don’t cry, sweetheart.”
“Okay.” Her voice cracked as she sniffed, fighting her emotions.
“You know I’d do anything for you, girl.”
“…I know, baby. I love you so much, Lennox… so, so much.”
“I know you do, Nadia. You want to protect me, just like I want to protect you. Whatever is going on, the truth always comes out though. It don’t have to be tonight, but it’s gotta come.”
“I know… I know…”
He sat up and leaned against her. Their gazes locked, eye to eye. She kept riding him, and he kept pivoting upwards inside of her until she fell into a million orgasmic pieces, him following close behind her. Crisscrossing his arms around her body, squeezing her to him and kissing her hard, he shuddered as he climaxed. His moans came out hoarse, loud and choppy. Gruff and strained from exploding ecstasy.
They soon gathered under the sheets, and he wrapped his body around hers so damn tight. She held onto him, surrendering, then falling asleep pressed against him. She dreamed of them as they had been ten years prior… at The Red Rooster singing songs off key. That had been the day she realized she was falling in love with her friend. The day love came knocking. She didn’t answer the door right away. She answered it years later, perhaps almost too late. Or maybe it wasn’t late at all? Maybe, it was right on time…
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
What in the Sam Hill happened?!
“…You’ve got to be shitting me. How could you let this happen? You stupid idiot.”
Grandpa grabbed the arms of his lawn chair, clutched the top of his cane, and got to his feet. He stood beneath a gray canopy, listening to Elvis Presley’s, ‘Burning Love’ while dark clouds gathered above his head. A storm was brewing and the air was tinged with the scent of a pending downpour. He tossed his cane across his verandah, and it landed far into the immaculately cut green grass. A white dot in the distance. Sitting in a black lawn chair beside a large stone white lion was the most disappointing spawn of his bloodline to date.
Grandpa peered down at his grandson, Samuel, who now sported slumped shoulders, making him feel nothing short of pure, undiluted disgust. “Why in the hell would you approach her without your gun already up and ready to use if you were going to be so stupid as to flash it?! That was a threat!”
“’Cause she was in the shower. I figured she didn’t have one,” he answered sheepishly. “I mean, she walked down the hallway butt naked, ya know? Ready to shower. Who would think she’d have a gun in the damn shower, Grandpa?” He sulked.
Sam’s clothing was in bad shape, all torn up, and his face was a bruised and bloodied mess. A fleshy canvas in colors of marbled purple and streaks of blue. He’d complained that he could barely lift his right arm over his head and it hurt something awful. It would probably need a cast. Some Goliath type brutes had slammed the guy’s limb in his own car door before sendin’ him on his way to drive with only one useable hand after the beat down of the century. Sam’s thin lips were triple their normal size, reminding Grandpa of an innertube. He looks like a damn duck. A goofy duck. Donald Duck. Good God…
“That’s not the question I asked you! You had no business flashin’ a weapon! I told you to watch out for this cunt, didn’t I?” He gritted his teeth and kicked a stone across the ground. It landed in the bird fountain. Plop. “You got her dander up prematurely. I told you to call me before you made a move, but what did you do? Try and be Roy Rogers and save the day! This ain’t no episode of Gunsmoke, gotdamn it! No TV show or movie. You were on her turf! That bitch is no dummy. She’s a shark!”
“I called ya, Grandpa. I called ya and told you that she was in her dressing room. I figured that was enough when you said okay, let ’er come out.”
“And I told you that when Dodie pretended to be a belligerent drunk in there, it would be a good cover for you to sneak in the back where she’d go to get freshened up. She does the same thing each and every time. We had her routine down pat! It was a sure deal! Glen told us they typically have two or three security guards there on any given night. That melee would keep ’em busy tryna throw Dodie out the club. As soon as the commotion broke out, you were to dip in the back. They don’t like cameras in there, so we found out the cameras on the outside of the place are real, but the cameras on the inside, with the exception of one pointed towards the bar, are decoys.