Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 45515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 228(@200wpm)___ 182(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 45515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 228(@200wpm)___ 182(@250wpm)___ 152(@300wpm)
Needle scratch… Back to reality. She threw me the sass. “Well, you need an old lady. Not sure I’ll keep you, but for now, you’re stuck with me. I meant it when I said your club has some serious issues. It’s now my job to help you fix this.”
“You’re right. But we’ll get back to that. First things first. I ain’t takin’ an old lady I ain’t kissed. So, if you’re serious about this, you’re gonna have to kiss me.”
She rolled her eyes. “Fine. But remember, you asked for this.”
Lemon grabbed my beard and pulled me down to her. Her kiss was uncharacteristically tentative. The normally take-charge, no-holds-barred, brash as hell, vulgar, wonderful woman wasn’t as experienced as she wanted everyone to believe. I didn’t mean sexually so much as worldly wise. Though, I’d bet my left testicle she didn’t have a whole lot of experience sexually either.
Instead of taking over, I let her kiss me at her own pace. Just to see what she’d do. Her little tongue darted out to lap at my bottom lip and I groaned, unable to help myself. How long had I dreamed about having her in my arms like this? Because my arms had closed around her the second her lips met mine. It was only a matter of time before I took over and found out exactly how far I could push her.
Then she sucked in a breath and pulled back. I put a hand to the side of her face, darkening with a reddish-purple bruise where that fucker had hit her. Though my shoulder and ribs screamed, I’d still have taken this as far as I could have before she put a stop to it. If she put a stop to it. I was willing to bet I could take her and make her mine. If she’d been up to it.
We were both breathing hard. I didn’t loosen my hold on her, but leaned in to rest my forehead against hers. “There. Much better. Now you can be my old lady.”
She snorted. “Like you had a choice.”
“Like I had a choice.” There was no way to keep the amusement out of my voice. “Come on. Let’s get dressed and we’ll have that discussion you’re so hell-bent on having.”
For long moments, Lemon looked up into my face. Searching. Finally, she did something I didn’t expect. Lemon -- my beautiful, strong Lemon -- dissolved into tears.
* * *
Lemon
I was such a fucking idiot. When had I let my guard down enough to fall apart in front of Rocket? He needed to get to a doctor and let them see to his shoulder.
“We n-need t-to get y-your sh-shoulder taken c-care of.” I tried my hardest but couldn’t keep the hitch out of my voice.
“Yeah, we do, honey, but I’ll do it later. Right now, I need to take care of you.”
“Me? You’re the one who got shot!” I pulled back and traced the wound with my fingers, shuddering as I did. “What if the bullet’s still in there? What if it gets infected? What if your arm falls off and you get gangrene and die!” Yeah, that escalated quickly, but I couldn’t seem to help it. “And your ribs? What if you popped a lung? What if you’re bleeding internally? You’ll drown in your own blood!” I pushed away from him, stepping out of the shower and snagging a towel. “That’s it. You’re going to the ER. We’ll figure out what to tell them later.”
“Lemon, stop.” His big, rough hand landed on my shoulder, and he turned me back around gently to face him. “I’ll get Bullet to look at me later.”
“Bullet?” The mundane thought that Bullet could not be the name of their club doctor or safety person or whatever was enough to pull me out of my embarrassing meltdown.
“Yep. Safety officer slash doctor.”
“You have a doctor named Bullet.” Iron Tzars’ doc was named Stitches, but that was different. Stitches was good people.
“Sure do.” He grinned down at me, so I scowled back at him.
“I don’t trust a doc named Bullet. He might put one in your other shoulder.”
Rocket barked out a laugh before scooping me up and setting me on the vanity. He then grabbed a towel and dried himself off before helping me finish.
“Come on. I’ll get Bullet to come to us. He can check us both out.”
“Ain’t no doc named Bullet touchin’ me.”
“Maybe not, but you will let him check you over. As my old lady, it’s my responsibility to make sure you’re not seriously harmed and to take care of you. You will let me do my job. Hear me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Fine. I need clothes and a hairbrush. That’ll go a long way toward taking care of me.”
Rocket grinned. “There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He reached over and snagged his phone off the vanity beside me, shooting off a text. I took the time to really appreciate his magnificent body as he did.