Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 100493 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100493 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 502(@200wpm)___ 402(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SIX
ASHER
I’m out of fucking ideas and our girl is way too fucking smart. She’s about to figure my shit out, then what? We didn’t prepare for this. I tried every play in the book but none work. If she figures this shit out before I find him, then we’re all fucked.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
IVY
PRESENT
I glare at him as if he grew sixteen heads and a new personality. Because he basically did. Okay, wait, that’s not fair, he didn’t but still… I prefer the sound of it.
“You’ve got that look again…” he teases, head tilting to the side.
He’s tripping if he thinks stating the obvious will change it. Instead, I stare back at him as if he said nothing at all.
“What look?” I ask, my tone a little too sweet for the pain burning at my side.
His eyes narrow. “The look where you wanna kill me or fuck me.”
Accurate.
I push from the edge of the bath, slowly making my way into the bedroom. He wrapped me up too tight to be able to move at any angle, much less ones that are going to make me sleep well tonight, but I shove the sheets back anyway, ignoring him.
“I don’t know what it is you’re talking about.”
Slipping into the cold sheets, I shuffle further under as the lights flick off and his footsteps pad over the carpet. A light breeze puffs beneath the sheet as he slips in, and not a second later, his arm is over me, pulling me deep.
He kisses the back of my head. “I’m sorry.” It’s a whisper, so low that even if Emeric was checked into this house right now, he’d miss it.
Asher’s arms squeeze around me.
“Fuck,” he growls, dragging his lips over my shoulder. “I’m fucking sorry, baby.”
My throat swells around words I want to say but can’t, so I slide further beneath his arm, feeling my heart level out the longer I’m with him.
“I didn’t— “
I shake my head, stopping his words, because no. Because what he wants to say right now won’t change the situation we’re in.
Because we’re still playing fucking house.
With his heart beating against my back, I feel myself slowly relax, tracing circles on his forearm and finding ridges of old scars I’ve never asked about. There’s too many. Too many stories written into his skin that I’ll never know.
“I can hear you thinking,” he murmurs against my hair.
“I’m not,” I lie, because the small ones don’t count.
“You are.” His hand flattens against my belly, pulling me closer. “It’s loud.”
I don’t answer, just listen to the clock on the wall tick forward.
His thumb moves against my ribs in a slow stroke.
“Stop,” I sob with a hiccup.
“Stop what?” he asks roughly.
“Being gentle,” I tell him, the words scraping out.
His hand stills. The silence stretches until I can’t stand it, and I turn in his arms to face him. Wish I hadn’t. Moonlight from the back window catches his eyes, making them brighter than they have any right to be.
“I don’t know what you want from me,” I breathe, my chest tightening.
His lip twitches. “Everything.”
“That’s not an answer.” My fingers dig into his chest.
He shifts a little. “It’s the only one I have.”
I study his face, the defined curve of his jaw, the effortless way his hair is always styled. Beautiful yet brutal. Mine and not mine.
“Ask me again,” he says quietly.
“Ask you what?” Every second it gets harder to breathe.
Silence.
“Anything,” he answers, mouth moving over my lips. “Anything.”
I hesitate. It’s a question I want to ask, but at the same time terrified to ask it.
“Are you hiding anything else from me?”
It’s the only way I’d know if I can move forward with him.
“Because Emeric is going to know now. He’s going to see us right now, in this bed, stuck together. Do you have a plan?”
He holds my eyes for a moment, then leans forward and catches my bottom lip with his teeth. “The plan right now is sleep.”
His mouth brushes my forehead, and nineteen years of weight finally shifts off my shoulders. I want to say something, want to hold onto this moment a little longer, but my body has already decided for me.
I loved Désamour at this hour. It’s all empty streets and silence, with the exception of fruit workers who were just starting their day. Our final weekend was here, come Monday, and we’d be back in the States starting new lives. Or one thousand of the same... hard to tell which anymore.
Shuttered storefronts stay closed as I walk through the township, and for the first time ever, it feels like home. Cobblestone pathways, buildings that have weathered decades through time. I didn’t know anything about Désamour, yet it kept me safe for years.
My feet stop when I see the old chapel that sits on the corner of the main street. Spires jut skyward, and a cross hangs from the front. The structure is so old it might’ve stood here when Christ himself walked.