Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 86158 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86158 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 431(@200wpm)___ 345(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Read Online Books/Novels: | Craving Charlotte (The Aces' Sons #8) |
|---|---|
Author/Writer of Book/Novel: | Nicole Jacquelyn |
| Language: | English |
| Book Information: | |
Charlotte Butler is focused. Driven. She has plans. With college graduation on the horizon and a new business finally in reach, she doesn’t have time for anything else. Especially not a relationship with Gus Bishop. Too bad he’s the most beautiful man she’s ever seen, he looks at her like he’s starving, and he’s quickly becoming one of her best friends. Oh, and he’s also her new roommate. Keeping her hands to herself shouldn’t be a problem. Right? What could possibly go wrong? | |
| Books in Series: | The Aces' Sons Series by Nicole Jacquelyn |
| Books by Author: | Nicole Jacquelyn |
Prologue
Charlie
Nothing had been moved. Draco’s running shoes were still in a pile next to Kara’s carefully placed ones by the door. A towel from someone, probably Draco, was still hung over the banister of the stairway. The entryway still smelled like cinnamon from the little scented plugs I’d bought from a store at the mall and a little like the sprinkling of rain we’d had the night before. Everything was the same, it was the exact tableau that I’d left that morning, but something was wrong. The minute I walked into the house, I could feel it.
My scalp tingled and the back of my neck itched. Closing the door quietly behind me, I reached for the baseball bat we stored just inside, the handle resting against the corner just left of the doorframe. I let my bag slip gently down my arm and set it on the doormat as I slowly moved forward, raising the bat to my shoulder.
My dad teased me about the bat. Hell, nearly everyone at the clubhouse teased me about it. A baseball bat wasn’t the best form of home defense because much like a knife, you had to be pretty damn close to someone in order to use it. So, yeah, they gave me shit.
They gave me shit, but they also didn’t give me grief. There was a difference. They thought it was funny, and they made it known, but the members of the Aces MC knew better than to try and convince me that a bat would do no good. None of them would make that mistake. They’d watched me swing it, practicing hour after hour, from the time I was five years old. I’d played softball for fifteen years. The force of my swing was enough to put someone in the hospital, no matter where I hit them. I liked to call it the great equalizer since pretty much everyone I met was bigger than I was.
Stepping forward, I moved around the creaky floorboard and looked into the living room. Nothing there, but the tingle hadn’t stopped.
I made my way through the kitchen and the downstairs bathroom, but everything was in its place. The back door in the laundry-slash-mudroom was still locked. Kara and Draco’s room was empty.
As I made my way up the stairs I loosened my shoulders and readjusted my grip on the bat, rubbing my thumb along the grip tape the way I’d done a thousand times before. There were three bedrooms upstairs, but we only used two. I glanced inside the first one, but there was nothing. The entire room was empty, there weren’t even curtains on the windows. The next room was neat and I couldn’t see anything out of place. The bathroom upstairs was tiny with Jack-and-Jill doors that were both currently closed.
I took a deep breath as I stepped into my bedroom. It had originally been two bedrooms when the house was built, but some time over the last fifty years had been converted into one large room. I had twice the windows and twice the space as the other two bedrooms upstairs and I made good use of it. My bed sat in the center, made just the way I’d left it that morning. The pile of folded clothes I’d set on the small couch off to the right side under the windows were still where I’d put them. My yoga mat was still lying on the floor to the left side of the bed, my free weights still lined up by size against the wall. I braced my feet and threw open my closet door. Empty.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
I let out a little laugh as I walked over and dropped onto the foot of the bed, laying the bat across my knees. Kara was going to find it hilarious when I told her how bad I’d freaked myself out. Since we’d moved in, I’d had a hard time getting used to all the noises the old house made as it settled. After living in the same house my entire life and then in a tiny apartment with Kara, the new place was a little creepy. It had been updated, but it was still old. People had lived and died there long before my cousin Tommy bought it and I was pretty sure there were ghosts. Okay, maybe pretty sure was pushing it. Let’s just say I hadn’t ruled the possibility out yet.
I snickered and glanced toward the TV.
In an instant, my laughter cut off with a choking sound.
The bat fell from my hands and rolled onto the floor as I stared.
I could have missed it. I could have walked into my room and seen nothing wrong. It was plausible for anyone else. The way I’d hung the mural of framed photos above my TV hadn’t looked like there was any pattern. I liked it that way. I thought it looked cooler if they looked like they’d been hung haphazardly over time. But they hadn’t—I’d painstakingly found each photo by pouring through my mom’s old boxes and albums and phones and thumb drives. I knew where each photo came from, when it was taken, and precisely where it hung on my wall.