Kristen Ashley

“So Shy lowered his voice and reminded him, "She's not your little girl anymore, not like that. She may always be your , little girl in some ways, brother, but not like that. You gave me the chance, I would have told you, this is solid. We started out and it was friends. That wasn't what I wanted, it was what she needed, so I gave it to her. We built on that. The foundation is laid and it's the kind that holds fast. This is it, brother. We're livin' together. Soon's we can do it, we're movin' to a better fuckin' place so I can provide her a decent home. I'm puttin' my ring on her finger, I'm givin' her babies, and when she's laid to rest, that ring I give her will still be on her finger. I see you're accepting this now, so you need it all and there it is. I was a part of an us and I was happy. Some motherfucker killed my parents and took that from me, so life forced me to become nothin' but me. Now I'm as us again, and that's what I'll be with my woman and the family we make until the fucking day I die.""Christ, Shy," Tack whispered."I think now you totally fuckin' feel me.”

“ "I'm alive. You're alive. I gotta work to live so I do that and I'll have to do that for a long lime. But when I'm not workin', I'm livin'. So let's ride."”

“I’d like to know why you dialed my number tonight, but if you don’t wanna share that shit, that’s cool too. I’ll just say, babe, I’m glad you did. You need a safe place just to forget shit and escape, I’ll give it to you. Tonight. Tomorrow. Next week. Next month. That safe place is me, Tabby.”

“You love me?” I whispered. He turned slowly to me and the muscle in his jaw kept ticking until his eyes locked on mine. “You lost that guy, respect, you found the strength to carry on. Know this, Tabby, I lost you, it would be sixty years of goin’ through the motions. I know that in my dick. I know it in my gut. I know it in my heart. I know it deep down in my goddamned soul.”

“His eyes moved over my face again before they caught mine and he whispered back, “Gone for you.”

“He yanked his t-shirt out of his jeans, pulled a penknife out of his pocket, cut away the hem and pressed it against my temple. This must have meant he didn’t have tissues in the glove box.”Excerpt From: Ashley, Kristen. “Rock Chick Rescue.” Kristen Ashley. iBooks. This material may be protected by copyright.”

“You’d give up your brothers for a woman?” Brick asked incredulously and Shy’s eyes moved to him.“Abso-fucking-lutely.”“Seriously?” Boz asked.“Not any woman,” Shy nodded my way then invited "now ask again.”

“Just so I’m clear, if you make it Tab or my cut, I pick Tab. You’ll get my cut and you, personally, will not ever, brother, not ever again see me.”

“Don’t ever leave me,' he rasped......'Promise me, Tab. Do not ever leave me.”

“Because he tells me. All the fucking time. I’m precious to him and I know it because he shows me and he tells me. It’s beautiful. It’s real. It’s right.”

“I have never, not once, not in my life, made love to any woman. Not once. Not until what I just did with you.”

“Mara, baby, never believed this shit either but now I know you were made for me. So, seein' as that's true, it goes the other way too.”

“Babe, you think I found the women of my dreams at 45 years old and I'm gonna let anything happen to her, think again. That's a long fuckin' time to wait for what you want. I waited. I found it. I'm pullin' out all the stops to take care of it.”

“Get this into your head Ava, I'm not gonna do anything to fuck it up between us but I'm also not gonna let you do anything to fuck it up either.”

“Everyone's got their hands out waitin' for you to take one. You gotta learn when to take someone's hand before you fall.”

“Tex glared at the next customer, the unfortunate who'd opened his mouth. "She's a badass motherfuckeress. She'd kick your ass soon as look at you. You've clapped your eyes on The Law. Count yourself lucky, sucker. Now what'll it fuckin' be?”

“You eat shit most your life, work, sweat, and bleed for anything you could get the rest of it, and you know sweet when you taste it.”

“No really," I whispered, letting the sweet, peaceful feeling steal over me. "It only matters if there's someone to care if you don't wake up. It's okay if I don't wake up because there's no one to care.”

“The minute I saw you walk into Fortnum's I knew I'd do whatever it took to get you right where you are now. And I'm gonna do whatever it takes to keep you here for as long as both of us get something good out of it.”

“Last night, instead of sleeping,he just lay behind her, listening to her breathe and thinking that sound was sweeter than any song he’d ever heard her sing. And his Stella had a beautiful voice, never heard better.”

“A year ago, I was too busy thinkin' about how lucky I was that someone as beautiful and talented as you let me into her bed to be bossy. Now I know you love me, I can be as bossy as I want.”

“One thing you can say, Stella Gunn," Dixon remarked, now his mouth was twitching " You're pure, fuckin' rock 'n' roll.”

“Do you think we're getting back together?""Getting? No," Mace answered then continued,"Back together? Yes”

“Seriously. Who needed a real lover when you had a handsome, affectionate man who adored you, put a beautiful house over your head, gave you a great job, lavished you with fabulous clothes, shoes, purses and jewelry and would never break your heart?”

“However, at fourteen years old, she didn’t understand that all those terrible troubles the heroines in her books went through in real life hurt.That the words were just words on a page, but in real life, the pain was immense. Trials and tribulations to prove your love were exactly that, trials and tribulations.”

“And the last thing I heard before I floated off was his muttered,"love my wild one.”

“No down-to-her bones-Peggy Sue gets her freak on like you did last night, honey.”

“You're like a flower that grew through a crack in the sidewalk, he told me”

“I get a good shot in maybe I'll know some fuckin' sense into you. Then maybe you'll be thinkin' of Ava when you fuck her, not some other man's piece you can't have.”

“Maybe so, but Luke Stark pushed me against the wall and told me he was gonna fuck me, I'd say, 'When and what you want me to wear?' And I would not care if he did pull a slam-bam-thank-you-ma'am. I'd just take my orgasm and go. You hear what I'm sayin' to you? Shirleen asked.”

“Stop calling me 'babe'. It's demeaning. I'm not a babe, I'm a woman”

“The recipe says 'stir until the dough holds together'. You'll have a better chance of finding the fountain of youth than stirring this batter.”

“She stared into his eyes and announced, “A good-bye kiss.”It was at that Raid stopped dead. “What?”“Raiden, the gig is up,” she declared, and Raid closed his eyes.Jesus, how could the woman be so infuriating and so fucking cute all at once?He opened his eyes and asked, “The gig is up?”She leaned into him and hissed, “Yes.”Fuck, he wanted to kiss her.He also wanted to shake her.“Baby, it’s jig,” he corrected, and her head jerked, which made that mess of hair on her head jerk, which reminded him he wanted his hands in that hair.Then elsewhere.He needed to speed this shit up.“Sorry?” she asked, sounding confused, and he looked from her hair to her eyes and saw she was, in fact, confused.Yeah. Infuriating. And fucking cute.“The jig is up, not the gig,” he told her.Her eyes narrowed. “Seriously? You’re correcting my street lingo?”“Think that street lingo was the street lingo about eight decades ago, Hanna. So now it’s just lingo.”

“I'll be contacting Webster tomorrow. My suggestion will be absofuckingmazing.”

“Coulda knocked me over with a feather, the front bell went and I opened the door to that tall drink of cool water. Woke up and I knew it was a good day. Felt it in my bones. Opened the door to him, glad I was right.”

“I figure I’d find my way to beauty eventually. And I’d find absolution because I’d know, I earned the love of that woman, a woman who’s got so much to her it’ll take years to dig down and find the heart of her, that would be my reward.” Ohmigod. Ohmigod! Ohmigod!”

“Then, still smiling, he kissed me. When he lifted his head he didn’t go far so I heard it when he whispered, “My reward.” My eyes narrowed and I snapped, “You’re not allowed to do that shit.” His head jerked slightly and he asked, “Say again?” “Be sweet and make me all melty and want to jump you when I’m celebrating my heretofore unknown badassness with a bunch of bikers and their bitches. Not to mention, I’m hungry.” Tack grinned as his arm snaked around me and he yanked me close. “You wanna jump me?” he asked.”

“You’re my reward.” Oh God. I liked that he thought that. Like, a lot. So I agreed, “Okay.”

“Raiden is a silly-@ss romance novel hero’s name my Mom came up with to torture me,” he replied. I stifled a giggle and remarked, “And Raid isn’t silly?” He smiled. “Raid’s a bad@ss’s name.”

“Am I gonna traumatize the fat cat if he sees me fuckin' you?""As you know, his name is Spot, and he's immune to trauma. You can't feel it if your life is devoted to dishing it out.”

“I know, child. What do you think's keeping me on this earth? Not easy to let go that kind of love. That kind of love's got the power to hold you tethered to a world you should have left a long time ago.”

“Quiet, babe, i got some issues to work through”

“It was silly, but I couldn’t let go of the hope that one day he’d walk in, look at me, smile and maybe popby my table to have a chat where I would boggle his mind with my brilliance. I’d charm him with mymanner. Then he’d ask me out on a date. At the end of which, maybe, hopefully, I’d finally be able totouch his hair (amongst other things).This never happened.”

“It never works. I don’t know. It just doesn’t. You can love someone a lot and treat them nice and do everything for them and then they just go. It happens.”

“It was then Raiden Ulysses Miller scorched me a second time, but I didn't battle this blaze. There was no pain. But that didn't mean I didn't end up branded.”

“But she was one of those skanky skanks who looked cool. Who worked her skankedness. Who made skankdom something you'd consider aspiring to.”

“You want to see fast, we’l go into the bedroom and I’l show you fast but I’l show it to you slow.”

“Cause all you gotta know is, it's gonna be you and only you until the day I die... You're not just enough for me. You're everything I want.”

“Then how's this? You ignite for me, but more, you make me ignite for you. And no woman, not in my whole goddamned life, has made me ignite the way you do.”

“You do it for me because you were the girl across the street, your hair shining in the sun, laughing, making me fall in love with you, and I didn't even goddamned fucking know you.”