Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 67000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
No, I guess I couldn’t.
She watched me get fully dressed, putting on a pair of well-worn jeans that I kept in my truck, sans underwear.
The socks were next, and still she watched.
“I was gonna tell you not to answer the door unless you know who it is, but seems you already know that,” I said as I walked toward her.
She opened her mouth, then closed it.
“Uh, well.” She winced, cheeks pinkening. “I might’ve forgotten what I was doing.”
I fucking loved that.
I loved that I made her forget what she was doing and ignore the pounding that was still coming from the door behind her.
Walking out to the front door, I was unsurprised to find my brothers on the other side of it.
Every last one of them.
And my dad.
I tilted my head and stared. “What are y’all doing here so early?”
I didn’t bother to ask them how they knew where to go. We all followed each other’s locations. There was no doubt in my mind they’d looked me up and followed me here.
“You shack up with a woman, and don’t expect us to come over to see?” Quinn asked as he pushed into the room.
I stepped aside to let them in, and the more that piled in, the more that Ellodie backed up.
Her eyes were wide, mouth slightly agape, as she watched us watch her.
“Wow,” she breathed. “You are all very tall, and very muscular, and very hot.”
I snorted, pushing through them to get to her. Once there, I faced my brothers, and started the introductions.
I’m so single if I win a trip for two, I’m going twice.
—Text from Ellodie to her mom
ELLODIE
“And that’s Auden.” Quaid’s voice literally made my ovaries sing.
How was I supposed to remember names when he’d just rocked my world?
Literally, there wasn’t a single part of me that wasn’t still tingling from the things he’d just done to me.
I was so lost in thought that I didn’t hear what led to the man to my left saying what he said. But I did look up when he spoke.
“Whoa, brother. You forget to take your contacts out again?” Gable asked, looking at Quaid kind of funny.
I looked over to see that his eyes were, indeed, red.
He shrugged. “I didn’t have my contact case to take them out, and I just put these in, so I’m not gonna just waste them.”
“You can use mine,” Quincy said as he pulled out his contact lens case from his pocket. “I was trying to decide if I wanted to go with the glasses or the contacts today since these allergies are kicking my ass. I have them in, but I’m not sure for how long.”
Quaid took the case gratefully, pulling them out of his eyes as I stood there and stared at him with wide eyes.
“You wear contacts?” I asked.
“We all do,” the stranger who was definitely related to Quaid answered.
“You do?” I wondered.
“Mom and Dad both have shit eyes.” He held out his hand. “I’m Auden.”
I shook his hand, and then was given an introduction to every single brother, again, as if they knew I hadn’t retained their names from the first time we were introduced.
“You got your glasses with you?” Quincy asked.
“In the cruiser,” he answered. “Want to run out and get them for me?”
Quincy was gone moments later, leaving me with six of the seven brothers staring at me.
“Your vision is bad enough you have to have your glasses on?” I wondered. “I had laser surgery when I was fifteen, and it was the best decision I’ve ever made.”
“We’ve all thought about it,” one of the brothers said, “but only Atlas ever went through with the procedure.”
“This is a nice place that you have, Ellodie.” Germaine, the dad of this tribe of tall, hot men, looked around. “I thought coming up to the building that it would be a bit run down on the inside like it is on the outside. But they updated it recently. I was in here a couple of years ago for a domestic dispute before I took the assistant chief position, and it was falling down around our ears.”
“I think it was updated about three years ago,” I said. “I just moved in last year, though.”
“It is a great location with you working at the hospital,” he said.
“It’s a great location, but pretty hard to find. It took me a while to find it this morning,” the youngest Carter brother, Garrett, grumbled. “Because this bitch doesn’t use his blinker.”
He pointed at Quinn, the youngest of Quaid’s triplet set.
“It’s no one’s business where I’m going,” Quinn argued.
“It is when we’re all literally following you,” Garrett contradicted him. “You were the only one with the address since y’all didn’t text in the group, but individually.”
“I don’t like texting in the group. You all send too many text messages,” Quinn defended himself.