Total pages in book: 136
Estimated words: 137131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137131 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
“Go? No. I’m taking you somewhere safe, Sugarbee. No arguments. Somewhere you won’t be harassed by that sorry shitlicker.” He raises his fist, brandishing it like the fearsome weapon it is. “He’s lucky I let him limp home.”
“Archer… what? I don’t understand.”
He sighs, low and torn. “Winnie, I said I’m taking you home. My house.”
Oh.
Oh, crap.
12
MURDER HORNET (ARCHER)
Well, shit.
This is what happens when you let instinct jump in the driver’s seat and take the wheel.
I’m not sure logic has had a single say in my decisions ever since I got to Winnie’s house. Seeing her ex barge in like that, belittling and threatening her, turned my vision red.
Before, I wasn’t sure what to think about him. Sure, she didn’t want to marry him, but that didn’t mean he was an absolute subhuman worm.
That just means they weren’t meant to be together.
She didn’t want him for good reason.
It’s not like she ever went into great detail, and I didn’t pry.
Damn good thing she didn’t.
Because I might have been tempted to blow into Springfield to make sure he understood the concept of distance. And yes, maybe to fuck him up a bit for good measure.
If I knew he was an abuser who talks like he owns her, I never would have let him set one foot on my property.
Logically, it’s irrational as hell.
That’s bully fists-first caveman shit speaking, not a man who stakes his entire life on rules, laws, order.
Winnie Emberly is not my fiancée.
She’s not my anything.
She’s just a girl who’s showering down the hall and singing hideously off-key. Meanwhile, I’m in my room, fighting a hard-on, because even though I’m pissed as all hell at her abusive ex, I can’t make myself unsee her showering in my head.
Water curling down round breasts and peaked nipples.
Her soft stomach, hips, and long, long legs.
Soap suds foaming across that softness, running down toward her—
Fuck.
I’m so hard I think my heart has migrated south, throbbing like mad.
How can a woman this strange and annoying rile me up so much? I barely even mesh with her as a person.
I kissed her, yeah, but that just means I find her sexy.
That was base biology speaking, and nothing more, even if she flips my switch in a way it hasn’t been flipped in years.
I shake my head and snort, dropping my face into my hands.
Who the hell am I kidding?
There’s something about Winnie that demands I like her.
Almost like this hurt calling to me every time she speaks. I’d sooner cut off my ears than be deaf to it.
She was so quiet earlier, so wounded, even when she apologized like it’s her fault, having her fuckboy ex coming at her like that.
I had to step in.
I had to act.
I just didn’t need this.
My house? Shit, I could’ve paid for her stay at any hotel in town.
Yet my angry, horny, dick-dragging buffalo brain decided to bring her here, into my home.
I haven’t figured out what I’m going to tell Colt.
The water stops.
I do my best not to imagine her stepping out of the shower, glistening with droplets, tiny rivulets tracing her curves before she dries off with a towel.
Yeah, this is not going well, and it’s barely the first hour.
No matter how much I try to focus on moldy sausages and the last time my little nephew Arlo stuffed himself with too many brownies and barfed on Mom’s Turkish rug, when Winnie barges into the room, all the gross shit in the world can’t undo the awful truth.
I’m still hard enough to cut diamond.
And when I look up, seeing her standing there in nothing more than a towel, I know it’s a lost battle.
It’s modest enough, yes, covering everything important, but it stops mid-thigh like a towel should. I want nothing more than to skate my hands all the way up her leg until she’s gasping and wet—in an entirely different way from the shower.
I focus on her face and try not to look down. She gives me a small smile.
“Hey, Archer.”
“Hey.”
Her eyes flick down and almost immediately snap back to my face. Hopefully she hasn’t noticed the tent in my pants.
“I’m sorry about this whole thing, you know. I just wanted to tell you again.”
“I heard you the first fifty times, Winnie. It’s fine.”
In fact, we’re living the opposite of fine.
“You can call me Win like everybody else. If you want to, I mean…”
I blink at her.
Bad, bad idea.
Take down too many of the flimsy barriers left between us and I don’t think I’ll be able to stop myself from touching her. It’s already all I can think about, a steady roar between my ears and in my cock.
Hell, I’ve already started calling her Sugarbee, releasing that name I only kept in my head. Another mistake.
“Okay,” I say after a second. “But you need to stop apologizing.”
She swallows hard and drops her gaze to the floor.