Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91990 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91990 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Her eyes cut to me as she lowers her empty glass, and she gives me a tight smile. “What about you, Kara Caine?”
I blink a few times.
“I’ve never even considered sleeping with Snake. I swear,” I assure her. “Though, I did visit the sex club with Rush.”
Her lips twist in wry amusement.
Leaning over, she pours herself another glass of whiskey. I think. It’s something cheap looking, poorly labeled, and written in Spanish, so I can’t be sure what it is.
“When I was just some ‘hometown girl who didn’t feel loved by her family and was stripping just to make a meager living in an uncaring world,’ I met Snake and the rest of the Death Dealers.”
I struggle to picture her as a stripper, considering I imagine her cutting off hands that get too frisky. Seems bad for business.
“Rush was with them a lot at the club, and sometimes he’d watch the girls. Sometimes he’d even pay for a lap dance. But he’d never fuck any of them,” she goes on, causing me to clear my throat and weirdly bristle in my seat.
It’s not like I have any right to be jealous, but I still lean forward abruptly and grab the unidentified liquor.
“Most of those guys came in hoping for a quick hookup. Rush wouldn’t even let the girls touch him with their hands during the lap dances. And the girls said he was usually a thousand miles away while they were doing their best work,” she goes on as I quickly throw back the really harsh, still unidentifiable liquor.
I feel her smile before I glance over to see it spreading.
“It became a game, of sorts, to them. Every woman wants the guy who doesn’t seem to want just any woman,” she states idly, pouring herself another glass, and then reaching over to refill my now empty one.
“Rush, however, only got annoyed and eventually cut out the lap dances, settling for simply watching the girls on stage. He even used the tip bench instead of touching them to put ones in their G-strings. Drove them out of their minds,” she drones on.
I hate the sour taste in my mouth, and hope it’s just the alcohol.
“I never got his story. He never really talked much to anyone. At all. Other than Sledge, and Sledge isn’t much of a talker either,” she says, leaning back and kicking her feet up on the coffee table.
“But I get it without being told his story now,” she murmurs almost absently. “This world is hell for most of us. The heart grows cold unless there’s a reason for it to warm up. When that reason is gone, it gets really cold again. It’s almost like being in suspended animation.”
She says those last two lines so quietly that I almost think she’s speaking on autopilot and sharing her inner musings.
I sip the drink in my hand, leaning back.
“I asked Snake once why Rush snubbed my fellow strippers, assuming it was just a judgment thing where he thought he might get dick rot or something,” she states as she returns her full attention to me. “He told me it wasn’t nothing personal. Rush was the kind of guy who didn’t make time for girls when he had a perfectly good hand to take the edge off. Sledge told me Rush had been with one girl, and that he didn’t have any use for anyone else.”
I swallow the next sip a lot harder and cough on it, shaking my head.
“You’re not seriously suggesting he’s stayed celibate and that I’m his one and only lay, are you? Because that’s a load of shit. He’s way better in bed than he once was,” I tell her very quickly, and then take another long gulp.
She visibly resists the urge to smile at me.
“I doubt he’s using his hand to his own imagination. Porn has been teaching guys things for decades,” she drawls as she wiggles her eyebrows at me. “Besides, he hears the guys talk, and hears the women bitch. Rush is the kind of guy who takes notes. He’s taken plenty of notes from me on the more lethal side of things.”
A nervous laugh bubbles out of me, and I quickly gulp more of my drink.
“I’m not the only girl he’s had sex with,” I argue, turning in my seat to face her better.
Her entertained smile slips into a thinner line.
“You left, assuming him to be a part of your past, Kara,” she says quietly. “You never really moved on, but you damn sure tried to because you only have one life to live. You were doing your best to look forward instead of back.”
I sink in my seat, hating her a little for being so on the nose.
“When you can’t move on, it’s because you can’t really let go. He never even tried to move on, because he knew it’d be a lost cause. Hence the suspended animation metaphor,” she tells me as she drinks a little more. “Or maybe I’m just shitface wasted and have no idea what I’m talking about,” she adds as she stands and puts the glass on the table. “The guys talked about nailing women all the time. None of them asked questions about why Rush wasn’t chasing tail like all of them.”