Rowe (Henchmen MC Next Generation 4)

Seeing her was a kick to the gut.

Hell, to the balls, given what she was wearing.

Which wasn’t much.

This woman was inviting a man damn near old enough to be her pop-pop into her apartment when she was walking around in a vivid purple thong and a cut-off white shirt that was just barely covering her tits. Tits that weren’t contained by a bra, I might add.

She must have been chilly, too, because her nipples had pebbled up against the fabric, making me painfully aware that not only did she have her belly button pierced, and her hood pierced in the past, but she also presently had her nipples pierced.

Fuck.

That was information I was better off not knowing.

Yet there was no un-knowing it.

“Hey, babe,” I said, needing to clear my throat to get rid of the husky edge to my voice. “You had a package,” I added since she was still standing there—a deer in the headlights—with wide eyes and parted lips.

“Oh, ah, put it with the rest,” she said, waving toward her coffee table.

It was cleared of the usual crystals and tarot cards. In their place were three other boxes the identical size of the one in my hands.

The other boxes had their tops off, revealing their insides.

Which looked like handwritten notes and sketches of, well, Billie.

Dozens of them.

“The fuck is this?” I asked, waving toward one of the boxes where a naked sketch of Billie sitting cross legged with her hands at prayer position was sitting on top of the others.

“Sketches?” she said, brows knitting.

“From who?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, shrugging, and turning to walk away.

I repeat: turning to walk away.

In a thong.

I like to think of myself as a good man. But I wasn’t good enough to avert my gaze. No, I watched as her bare ass bounced as she walked away from me, going into the kitchen, and grabbing the steaming mug on the counter.

My cock, still not cooperating most of the time when it came to having any discernible sensation, hardened as I stood there, my system too overwhelmed with different sensations to know how to act.

First, there was the desire.

Second, the concern over the boxes.

Third, the confusion about why she was being so cold with me.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Well, they have no address on them,” she said, shrugging as she lifted her mug with the bolt print declaring Evil Feminist Slut to her lips and blowing on the hot liquid.

Even more confused, I looked at the box I’d brought in. And, sure enough, there was no label on it. Meaning it hadn’t gone through any sort of delivery service.

“Someone dropped this at your door,” I declared.

“Yes.”

“Someone dropped naked sketches of you in four separate boxes on your doorstep, and you’re not seeing this as a problem?”

“I have a lot of friends and acquaintances.”

“Do your friends and acquaintances often leave you gifts?” I said, spitting out the word because there was nothing that seemed like a gift in those boxes, “without saying who they are from or why?”

“I can’t say they do. But it’s a nice gesture.”

“A nice gesture. You’re fucking spread eagle in this picture,” I snapped, reaching for it, and waving it in the air.

“Lotus.”

“What?”

“That’s not spread eagle. That’s lotus pose.”

“Not sure that distinction fucking matters in this situation.”

“Why are you so angry?” she asked, brows pinching as she watched me.

And, well, it was a valid question, wasn’t it?

She wasn’t my girl, my mom, or my sister.

Why did it matter to me who sent her what?

Needing more ammunition, I dropped the picture, grabbing the note instead.

“I walk up behind you when you sit in lotus. You don’t know I’m there. I kneel down and slip my fingers into your tight cunt.”

“It’s a little amateur,” Billie decided as my hands tightened on the paper, threatened to shred it to pieces in my anger.

“You cry out, not ready to be penet—what the actual fuck, Billie?” I snapped, rage a crackling sensation through my chest. “This fucker is writing you notes about assaulting you, and you’re criticizing his writing?”

“My mom and aunt are librarians. They instilled in me the importance of good writing. Especially good smut writing.”

“This isn’t smut, Billie. This is some sick fucking stalker shit. At your front door. That you leave fucking unlocked.”

“Why are you raising your voice at me?” she asked, and it was only then that I realized I had done just that.

“You need to take this seriously. This is a threat.”

“Not everyone who fantasizes about assault is a rapist. Do you know that a lot of women actually have fantasies about non-consensual sex? It’s a thing. And it doesn’t mean they want to be raped. So someone else writing about doing it doesn’t mean they actually want to do it, or would ever act on the fantasy. It’s a power thing.”