Somehow—Chelle hadn’t gotten a straight answer how—Maddie figured out Shade couldn’t read and approached him when Chelle wasn’t home to ask him about it. Then she began to help him with his reading lessons.
The day Chelle walked in to find the two of them sitting in her bed against the headboard with the laptop between them along with other lesson material, she just about broke out into tears at what type of woman Maddie was turning into. She never once made fun of an adult man unable to read, but instead wanted to help him overcome his problem. It made her heart swell.
Any other woman coming home to find her twenty-year-old daughter in bed with her thirty-year-old... whatever he was to her... would probably seep suspicion, jealousy and anger. But Chelle immediately saw it for what it was, especially since neither looked guilty or even tried to hide what they were doing.
After that, Chelle had pulled Maddie aside and told her not to mention his dyslexia and inability to read—or read well at this point, since he was now reading some simple words and sentences—to anyone unless Shade gave the okay. Not even to her sister. Chelle would leave it up to Shade when to tell Josie, if at all.
Josie ended up discovering the truth when she confronted Maddie about her spending time with Shade in their mother’s room with the door shut. They actually had gotten into a bad fight about it when Josie assumed Maddie was trying to steal Shade from behind Chelle’s back.
Unfortunately, Chelle hadn’t been home at the time, so poor Shade waded in, finally forced to admit the truth of what they were really doing. Of course, after that, Josie wanted to help him, too.
So now the poor man had three bossy women as instructors but seemed to be taking it in stride.
Chelle noticed that about him. He seemed to adapt to whatever situation he was in at the time, like a chameleon.
“You can turn the TV back on if you want, I’m going to read another chapter or two before bed.”
“Would rather stare at you.”
She turned her head to stare back at him. “That’s creepy,” she teased, but, truthfully, she could stare at him for hours and not get bored. His hair and dark features... His body, even with the scars... Everything about him turned her on.
She didn’t think she’d ever get tired of having sex with him, either. She’d never been with anyone as good as him and he wasn’t even that old. Even so, his skills were off the charts... like he’d had training on how to please a woman. And he’d paid attention in that class.
Cunnilingus 101.
French Kissing 102.
Advanced Love Making 301.
She wondered if any such classes even existed. If so, a lot of men needed to sign up, that was for damn sure. If Shade had taken one, he should have graduated at the top of his class. Definitely magna cum laude.
She rolled her lips under at that crazy thought.
He raised a dark eyebrow. “What?”
“Nothing,” she chirped innocently and grabbed her book from the nightstand, opening it to the spot where her bookmark was tucked. Before she could begin reading, he yanked it from her hands.
“What the fuck is this?” He scowled at the dust cover for the book she had borrowed from the town’s library.
“Can you read the title?” While his reading had improved and the book had a simple title, the subtitle was long and so was the author’s and co-author’s information. He wasn’t at the point where he could read the rest just yet. At least without taking the time to try to break down and visualize each word. For him, reading would always be a slow process.
“Says No... something. But know what the fuck the piece is on the front.”
The large title was No Angel. And it had a picture of a biker at the top.
“Not piece, picture,” she corrected him.
His jaw shifted tightly, and he raised the book between them. “What-fuckin-ever, Chelle, what the hell is this?”
She took a deep breath. He was getting pissed and she didn’t know why, so she needed to keep her cool as much as she could. “It’s a book about the Hells Angels. You didn’t want me asking questions about your MC, so I decided to do a little research of my own.” Not only with this book and others, but online, too.
“What the fuck? Why?”
“Why not? I find it fascinating and I love learning about new things. This book is a true story about the first federal agent who ever infiltrated the outlaw club. He was a part of the inner circle for twenty-one months. Twenty-one, Shade, without getting himself killed. Or, at least, I don’t think he did, I’m not done reading it yet. Can you imagine?”
He stared at her for the longest time like he didn’t know who she was, then suddenly snapped out of whatever zone he’d been in. “Chelle, the Fury ain’t like the Hells Angels.”