The Marked Men Series Books 1–6: Rule, Jet, Rome, Nash, Rowdy, Asa. Jay Crownover

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      CHAPTER 1

       Rule

      At first I thought the pounding in my head was my brain trying to fight its way out of my skull after the ten or so shots of Crown Royal I had downed last night, but then I realized the noise was someone storming around in my apartment. She was here, and with dread I remembered that it was Sunday. No matter how many times I told her, or how rude I was to her, or whatever kind of debauched and unsavory condition she found me in, she showed up every Sunday morning to drag me home for brunch.

      A soft moan from the other side of the bed reminded me that I hadn’t come home alone from the bar last night. Not that I remembered the girl’s name or what she looked like, or if it had even been worth her while to stumble into my apartment with me. I ran a hand over my face and swung my legs over the edge of the bed just as the bedroom door swung open. I never should have given the little brat a key. I didn’t bother to cover up; she was used to walking in and finding me hungover and naked—I didn’t see why today should be any different. The girl on the other side of the bed rolled over and narrowed her eyes at the new addition to our awkward little party.

      “I thought you said you were single?” The accusation in her tone lifted the hair on the back of my neck. Any chick who was willing to come home with a stranger for a night of no-strings-attached sex didn’t get the right to pass judgment, especially while she was still naked and rumpled in my bed.

      “Give me twenty,” I said, my eyes shifting to the blonde in the doorway as I ran a hand through my messy hair.

      She lifted an eyebrow. “You have ten.”

      I would have lifted an eyebrow back at her tone and attitude but my head was killing me, and the gesture would have been wasted on her anyway; she was way past immune to my shit.

      “I’ll make coffee. I already invited Nash but he said he has to go to the shop for an appointment. I’ll be in the car.” She spun on her heel, and, just like that, the doorway was empty. I was struggling to my feet, searching the floor for the pair of pants I might have tossed down there last night.

      “What’s going on?”

      I had temporarily forgotten about the girl in my bed. I swore softly under my breath and tugged a black T-shirt that looked reasonably clean over my head. “I have to go.”

      “What?”

      I frowned at her as she lifted herself up in the bed and clutched the sheet to her chest. She was pretty and had a nice body from what I could see. I wondered what kind of game I had thrown at her in order to get her to come home with me. She was one I didn’t mind waking up to this morning.

      “I have somewhere I need to be, so that means you need to get up and get going. Normally my roommate would be around, so you could hang out for a minute, but he had to go to work, so that means you need to get that fine ass in gear and get out.”

      She sputtered a little at me. “Are you kidding me?”

      I looked over my shoulder as I dug my boots out from under a pile of laundry and shoved my feet into them. “No.”

      “What kind of asshole does that? Not even a ‘thanks for last night, you were great, how about lunch?’ Just ‘get the fuck out’?” She threw the sheet aside and I noticed she had a nice tattoo scrawled along her ribs that curled across her shoulder and along her collarbone. That was probably what had attracted me to her in my drunken stupor in the first place. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

      I was a whole lot more than just a piece of work, but this chick, who was just one of oh so many, didn’t need to know that. I silently cursed my roommate, Nash, who was the real shit here. We had been best friends since elementary school, and I could normally rely on him to run interference for me on Sunday mornings when I had to bail, but I had forgotten about the piece he was supposed to be finishing up today. That meant I was on my own when it came to hustling last night’s tail out the door and getting a move on before the brat left without me, which was a bigger headache than I needed in my current state.