Total pages in book: 39
Estimated words: 36564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 36564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 183(@200wpm)___ 146(@250wpm)___ 122(@300wpm)
“What exactly is point?” Venus crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned casually against a tree.
“The point is Lemon did an icky dance. An actual icky dance. She shook out her hands like she had shit on them and did some fuckin’ little shimmy” -- whereupon Ringo demonstrated -- “and started whining about Ringo germs.”
Piston and Annie cracked up. Ringo looked supremely pleased with himself. Unfortunately for Ringo, Lemon had been approaching and saw the whole “icky dance” thing. She just happened to be on his blind side so Ringo didn’t see her. When she smacked him in the back of the head, Ringo flinched and ducked a little, wincing before whipping his head around to see who’d attacked him.
“The fuck, Lemon?” She held up her index and middle fingers, pointed from her eyes to Ringo, then kept on going without a word. Annie was now rolling in the sand laughing her ass off, and Piston was wiping tears from his eyes. Calista was next to Annie in the sand, laughing just as hard as the other two. “Way to throw a guy under the bus, Calista. You’re supposed to be on my side, not the hellion’s.”
“You’re my man, and I love you, Ringo, but you will never get the best of Lemon. I’m not sure why you try so hard.”
Ringo gave my daughter a disgruntled look. “Your daddy needs to catch up on all the spankings you missed out on as a child.”
Calista grinned up at him. “Tell you what, baby. If you’re good, I’ll let you spank me.”
“Oh, no you don’t,” I snapped. “No having kinky sex with my daughter. Which means no kinky sex for you at all since you can’t have sex with anyone other than my daughter, Ringo.” I thought about that for a second, then decided to add something. “In fact, you can’t have sex with my daughter since my daughter is too young to have sex, so no kinky sex at all. Ever.” I glared at my enforcer, daring him to try and get out of this one. “You’re just shit the fuck outta luck on this one, you bastard.”
“Dad, I’m old enough to have sex.”
Ringo winked at me and I knew this whole thing had likely been staged for Annie’s benefit. Which had most likely been suggested by Calista. The two women were solidly fast friends now. In fact, every single woman in Grim Road had welcomed Annie into the fold. The club girls even stayed away from the catty behavior around her. Which might have been Lemon’s doing, but I’d noticed more than one of them sharing a laugh or smile with Annie. One or two had some serious conversations with her. Not of a mean nature, but I knew most of the women here had fled some pretty bad circumstances. While I didn’t like digging into anyone’s private lives, Crush and Byte fully investigated every single person we’d ever brought into our territory. They’d passed on pertinent information to me about everyone. At least one of the women had come from a cult as well.
“No sex.” I pinned Ringo with my fiercest stare.
“Wouldn’t think of it, boss.” Ringo had a shit-eating grin on his face. Probably because, despite what I was willing to admit, he was about to get laid if the look on Calista’s face was any indication.
Christ! My life!
“Where’s my little chica?”
I turned to see Elena and Tito headed in our direction. Lemon was talking with Tito as she led them to us. When Elena saw Annie, her face lit up and she hurried to my woman. They embraced and began a spirited conversation in Spanish.
“You should be proud of that girl.” Tito greeted me with a smile and a warm handshake. “Elena says she’s close to fluent in Español. She learned quickly.”
“Venus says the same,” Piston offered as he reached for Tito’s hand. “Those ain’t the only two languages she’s learning either.”
I grinned at them. “Nope. Girl’s learning the most common ones. Seems to love languages.”
“She’ll be a good hidden asset.”
“Don’t plan on usin’ her as an asset, Piston.”
“Nope. I never planned on usin’ Venus either.”
“You’re not using Venus.” I was confused as to where he was going with this.
The bastard clapped me hard on the shoulder and chuckled. “Exactly.”
I barked out a laugh. “I’d love to say my woman didn’t have that in her, but I’m seeing glimpses of what she’s like deep inside. She’s a warrior. I just don’t ever intend for her to have to be a someone we use. For any reason. I’ll fuckin’ kill anyone I have to keep her from being an asset.”
“You realize you sometimes don’t have a choice in the matter. Right?” Tito chuckled, shaking his head. “I never wanted to own a diner. Hated the thought of it.”