Honkytonk Hell: A Dark and Twisted Urban Fantasy (The Broken Bard Chronicles Book 1) eden Hudson (best book club books txt) 📖

“Oh. Yeah, like that.”

“Come with me to the next level, Goddess.” His voice cracked. “Come with me.”

Sometimes to give them a hard time back when I could talk, I’d bang on the door and yell at Harper to hurry up because Jax’s stamina bar was almost drained or ask her if she could take my Holy Staff next.

I looked over my shoulder at Desty. Her mouth was open like she’d just figured out what they were doing and she couldn’t believe it. When our eyes met, she clapped both hands over her mouth to keep from laughing and I almost choked to death on my own spit.

Everything went still in their room.

“Tough?” Harper cleared her throat and tried again. “Is that you?”

I knocked twice on the wall.

“Try to keep it down, man,” Jax yelled. “I’ve got at least three more levels to go before the goddess lets me ascend.”

Two knocks again. The sound of their laughing followed me and Desty down the hall. I don’t know why, but it made me feel a little better.

I flipped the light on in my room and put Desty’s backpack on the bed. She stood by the door, looking around at the mess while I grabbed a pair of boxers out of the clothesbasket. If I had thought about it, I would’ve had her wait downstairs while I cleaned up and sprayed some body spray around. At least I’d washed the sheets the day before I left for Nashville. They had been on the bed a while, but I’d only slept on them a couple times.

“Nice room,” she said. Then she caught my look and smiled. “For a guy who doesn’t know how to pick up after himself, I mean.”

I snorted. It was good to have the fuck-you Desty back. I threw the boxers over my shoulder and started to head out.

“You’re not, um, sleeping in here?”

I shook my head and pointed downstairs.

“Oh.” She hugged her arms around her stomach. But she wouldn’t leave it alone. “You don’t want to have sex?”

Come on, Desty, let me at least pretend to be the good guy for once. All I could do was look at her and hope she got the message.

“That’s really…” She smiled at me, and it was definitely relief coming through. “You could stay, anyway. I mean, I’m not trying to seduce you or anything. Obviously, if I was, I’d be doing a bad job.”

I laughed my new no-sound laugh. I like irony.

She pushed the hair out of her eyes and shrugged. For a second she looked around the floor, the walls, the beer cans propping the window open—anywhere but at me.

“I’m just… I’ve been on the road forever. It’s nice being around someone again.”

That I could understand.

“Would you stay up here tonight?” she asked.

I nodded, then pointed from her to the bed and me to the floor. That seemed to make her feel better. She unlaced her boots and kicked them off, then sat on the bed and pulled her feet up under her.

Of course she doesn’t have anything to sleep in. That would be way too easy.

I tried to ignore the riot in my dick while I dug a clean t-shirt out of the clothesbasket. I handed Desty the shirt and turned the fan on High on my way out. This time she didn’t ask where I was going, I guess because she knew I was coming back.

I changed into my boxers in the hall and threw my jeans and shirt back toward my bedroom door. Then I went to the bathroom to kill some time test-driving that mental picture of Desty bent over behind Rowdy’s. Nothing like masturbating to take the edge off a sex rage. Plus you got the added benefit of being able to think straight again. It sure as hell wasn’t all the family joy and good times from growing up that made me consider taking my chances on pulling out.

In case Desty needed more time to change and get settled, I went down to the kitchen to find something to eat. All we had left in the fridge was two beers, some of Jax’s Red Hot energy drinks, and half a package of peppered turkey. Somebody needed to make a grocery run.

I ate the rest of the turkey, threw the package away, then got a bag of mulberries out of the freezer thinking that even if they didn’t numb my rib enough to take a whole breath, they’d at least feel good in the heat. Anyway, I was still starving and I didn’t want to make anything. I held the berries against my side with my elbow and took the last two beers back upstairs.

When I got back to my room, Desty had my shirt on and she was under the top sheet. I thought she was asleep, so I put my hat on the nightstand, shut off the light, and stretched out on the floor by the bed. She could make fun of the mess all she wanted—clothes make a decent pillow.

My fan was one of those pedestal fans and I had it aimed at the bed, so it didn’t move the air around the floor much, but the beer and the frozen berries kept me from sweating to death. I turned onto my good side so I could lay the bag across my broken rib and not have to hold it in place with my beer-drinking hand.

“Tough?” In the light from the window, I could see Desty move so that she was looking over the side of the bed at me. “Your family is the one that tried to get the fallen angels out of Halo?”

Tried. Talk about a nice way to say “failed.” It made me kind