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

it to her, then checked the hall. Jax and Harper’s door was shut and the lights were off downstairs. I took Desty’s hand, led her to the bathroom, and turned on the shower.

“I’m sorry,” she said again.

I shook my head.

It’s not your fault. I kissed her and rested my forehead against hers so she would know I meant it. Her skin felt so good.

Desty smiled, then got in the shower. I threw away the condom before I climbed in, too. After she washed up, she said she felt better. We started making out again. Then she realized I was trying to make the hickey on her neck bigger and she got to laughing.

“Hey!” Jax banged on the bathroom door. “You’re not finally getting laid, are you, Tough?”

Desty put her hand over her mouth to try to stop giggling.

“You’ll have to cut him some slack, Desty,” Jax yelled. “He was literally born in a barn. He doesn’t know civilized chicks prefer beds.”

I threw the shampoo bottle at the door.

“Payback,” Jax yelled.

A few seconds later the board at the top of the steps creaked. He was headed downstairs.

I rubbed my face against Desty’s shoulder and kissed the hickey on her neck. How could you not love someone who made you feel better no matter how bad crap got?

“Quit messing with that,” she said, elbowing me in the stomach.

I laughed and tried to make Desty think she’d got me in the broken rib so she would feel bad, but she wasn’t having it. She pushed me until my back was against the tile, then she got down on her knees and things turned serious pretty fast.

I don’t think Desty had ever given anyone a blowjob before. She kept stopping like she was afraid of hurting me. I tried to show her she wouldn’t. Shit, she was so cute and sweet and so fucking good—innocent-good. I wanted it to last forever, but then she looked me in the eyes like she was asking me if she was doing it right and I lost it.

Afterward, we got out and dried off, then headed back to the bedroom. I wanted to do something for Desty, but she stopped me.

“Tomorrow, okay?” she said. “I think you need to sleep.”

She must’ve been right because I just barely remember knocking the carrots off the bed so we could lay down.

Desty

 

“All I’m saying is I changed my mind… Don’t even try to pretend like you don’t owe me. If not for me—” Jax stopped talking on his cell phone when he saw me coming down the stairs. He nodded at me, then told whoever he was on the phone with, “Just call me back when you get a chance.”

Jax threw the phone on the table and grinned. “Hey. You give him one for me?”

“Um…”

Then he laughed, a little too hard.

“I just now realized how that sounded,” he said. “But it’s what I would’ve asked Tough if I was talking to him instead. So, why’re you up?”

Because I was too turned on to sleep and I didn’t feel like masturbating. Because I was scared Mikal was going to use Colt to kill Tough. Because Kathan was using Tempie like bait to get me to become joint-familiar—which, according to Jax’s typed-up translation, would make us Kathan’s Destroyers and possibly bring about the end of the world. And then there was the whole mess with Mom. Pretty much any reason would do.

I sat on the couch and pulled my feet up under me. “Was that somebody from the Witches’ Council?”

Jax looked down at the cell phone on the table.

“I left Bailey a message,” he said. “She’ll get back to me in the morning, probably.”

“Kathan could’ve been lying,” I said. “But fallen angels—”

“Use the truth to lie. Yeah, I know.” Jax took a deep breath and let it out in a rush. “Tough’s going to be okay. That guy’s like a cockroach. You can’t kill him.”

I looked down at the wood grain on the coffee table’s top, thinking about how dead on his feet Tough had been when we got back to the bedroom. He could barely keep his eyes open, but he wanted to make sure I was satisfied. And the way he kept touching me and kissing me, it was like he was trying to tell me he loved me.

Now there was an intelligent, not-stupid-girl-at-all thought—he must love me if he was all affectionate after I blew him. No wonder Tempie thought I was a naïve moron. Three days with the guy and I was already imagining we were, like, soul mates.

“I just want him to be okay,” I said.

“He will be,” Jax said.

“You think there’s any way to use my Destroyer-y powers to do something? Or do they only work when Tempie and I are ‘as one?’”

“I guess that depends on whether you’ve ever ‘wrought upon the Earth ultimate destruction without discrimination’ before,” Jax said. “Without your sister’s help.”

I sighed. “I probably would’ve noticed something like that.”

“It’ll be okay,” Jax said. “We’ll find out what’s up with this chosen-soldier-kills-his-brother prophecy thing. I’m sure Bailey’ll holler back at me tomorrow.”

I nodded. We would read the original and Bailey would explain what she knew about the subtleties of the translation. Jax could probably even cross-reference it with stuff he’d already memorized. We would figure out a way to keep Tough safe. That’s what friends and hopelessly enamored, stupid-in-love girls are for, right?

“Want to play?” Jax asked, holding out his video game controller.

“I’m not very hand-eye-coordinated,” I said.

“Come on,” he said. He got up and messed with the cords on the back of the television. “I’ve got a really old Nintendo. It doesn’t matter if you’re bad at that.”

“Fine.” It would be something to do, and there wasn’t any way