Page 13 of Wild Ride

Lifting my gaze from my phone to meet hers, I watch as she stabs her salad again. Ivy is talking to her, telling her a littlebit about Shade without going into too much detail. He wasn’t married, didn’t have any other kids, shit like that.

Texting Piggy back, I have a single question.

What the fuck is Willamette Haven?

PIGGY: A commune.

Like a cult?

PIGGY: Maybe. Didn’t read much into it, but I’m going to guess that’s what it is.

Fuck.

PIGGY: Basically. Mom’s dead, though, so we can’t ask her anything. No clue the connection and how Shade knew about her or any of that shit. We may need to talk to Shocker. He’s the only one left that was around before Shade was president.

On my fucking list for shit to do tonight.

Lifting my head, I smirk as I look at Dakota sitting across from me. Her gaze slowly shifts over to mine, and I watch as her face pales. I don’t know if I scare her or not, but I kind of hope I do. It’ll be a lot easier not to want to fuck her if she’s scared to fucking death of me.

“Wanna tell me about Willamette Haven?” I ask.

I can see the moment my question registers. She closes her eyes slowly, then reopens them. Her face goes from pale and scared to expressionless, and I feel like a fucking dickimmediately. But I don’t apologize because I’m not sure I could form the wordsI’m sorrywith my mouth.

“What about it?” she asks.

I expect her to act embarrassed or angry at my question, but she doesn’t. Instead, she pins me with her gaze, and I swear to all that is fucking holy that my cock instantly hardens.

I need her to be a fucking cunt to me. Otherwise, I’m going to want her. Want to keep her. There is something about her like nothing I’ve ever come across. She’s different in a good way. I just can’t put my finger on it.

So I don’t even try.

Instead, I continue on. “Tell us about it. What the fuck is it?”

“It’s a commune. It’s where my mother took me. It’s where I was raised. A place where we all worked together to make the community thrive.”

“A cult?” I ask.

She laughs, shaking her head as she looks down at her salad, and then she lifts her gaze to meet mine. Her expression grows serious. All humor has completely left her before she speaks. When she does, something akin to rage bubbles in my blood close to the surface.

“It could be. I don’t know. I’m not sure what a cult entails. Everything was equal. Everyone worked together. There was no money involved for the people living there. I’m sure that the leader had money to buy supplies, but I couldn’t tell you where it came from. There was no television, no movies, no internet. Except the office had a telephone and a computer, but I never used either.”

“So what the fuck did people do there?” Ivy asks, sounding shocked as shit. His words come out in a blurt, and I almost laugh. Ivy likes his television. He also is on his phone more than anyone else I’ve ever seen in my entire goddamn life.

“During the day, they worked on whatever their chores or duties would be. Then we would eat dinner. After that, the evenings began. I usually went to bed for those.”

Taking a bite of potato salad, I try to keep myself from asking what exactly happened in the evenings to make her want to go to bed. Unfortunately, Ivy doesn’t have the same restraint. Or maybe it’s fortunately, I’m not sure.

“What happened at night?” Ivy whispers, leaning forward as if this is the most enthralling tale he’s ever encountered in his entire goddamn life. It is enthralling as fuck, but I’m not going to act like I’m interested.

I want this bitch to sign over everything and walk the fuck away. She doesn’t deserve a goddamn thing. I don’t care how the fuck she was raised.

“They smoked, drank, and had sex.”

Well then.

DAKOTA

The look on Justin’s face is priceless when I tell him the truth. I didn’t tell him for the shock factor, although it’s pretty funny to see at the moment. I do know that the outside world doesn’t believe in free love and sex the way the Haven does. Briana told me at least that much.

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