Total pages in book: 174
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 172061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 860(@200wpm)___ 688(@250wpm)___ 574(@300wpm)
That confusion was there again. “You mean, you kill the husbands or boyfriends? Their abusers?” She mouthed the kill, glancing around like she thought there might be a wiretap somewhere in the room.
“Only if we have to. As a last resort. But it happens a whole lot more than I’d like to admit. These are monsters who think they get to treat the ones they are supposed to love the most with duplicity, and they don’t often take kindly to us coming in and stealing them away.”
“Is what you do…” She ducked her head before she looked back at me and whispered, “Illegal?”
My nod was slow. “Very.”
She stayed silent for a few moments, chewing at the inside of that cheek. Worry filled her delicate features. “And you think one of them is who was after you last night?”
“Possibly. But I’ve been known to get called in on other jobs. Jobs where someone is in danger, but it might not have a thing to do with Sanctum. If someone needs help, I step up to do the dirty work.”
“You’ve always been willing to give everything.”
Air seeped out of my lungs, and my heart jackhammered in my chest. “No, Daisy, because I thrive on the violence. I need it.”
Daisy shifted to straddle me, and the towel dropped open a bit, her damp, soft flesh pressing to mine.
Fire flamed. A poker stoking the greed.
Reaching out, she brushed her fingertips along my jaw. “No, Cash. I think you just haven’t known what to do with the goodness inside you.”
“Or maybe that goodness had ceased to exist until you walked through my door.”
Tilting her head to the side, she bit down on her bottom lip. “Maybe we both were just trapped. Stuck in a reality neither of us wanted, and we both survived it the best way we could.”
“That why you married Ethan?” Possession wound out with the question. Couldn’t stand it. The thought of her with someone else. Especially knowing he was a piece of shit.
Her nod was wary. “I…I was always so alone, and after I lost you. After Hadley disappeared…” Her face pinched in grief, while my conscience screamed. “At first, he was kind. Super interested in me. Wanted to know all about my history. Who I was. All my experiences. It was easy to fall into that bit of comfort. Then I had my kids, and a dead part of myself came alive.”
Fuck. Even that made me want to go on a rampage. The idea of the prick getting into her beautiful mind.
“And then…” Her head barely shook as she tried to process. “I don’t know. Sometime after I got pregnant with Eva, it was like he grew frustrated with me. It was like there was always this undercurrent. Like he wanted something from me that he never really let me in on. And when he didn’t get it…”
In uncertainty, those blue eyes blinked.
“Maybe that’s when I started waking up. Realizing there was something dark in his life.”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there. That I let that happen.”
She edged closer, her skin plastered to mine, the thunder of her heart reverberating against my chest. “I think it’s time we finish being sorry, Cash. It’s time we focus on the fact that our connection brought us together. Because now, we have a new reality.”
I dragged my fingers down the curved slope of her back. My voice dropped low. “And that reality belongs to you and me.”
“You and me,” she whispered.
I slipped my palm to the side of her neck. Need thumped through my veins. “Think we should spend a little time exploring exactly what that’s going to look like, don’t you?”
“No complaints here.”
“Nah, baby, I’m going to see to it that there are absolutely zero complaints. The only thing coming out of that mouth is going to be my name.”
“That sounds like a challenge, Heartbreaker.” She arched a coy brow as she pushed to stand, wrapped in that towel as she strutted back toward the bedroom.
She peeked back at me from over her shoulder.
Taunting.
Teasing.
Tempting.
“Oh, you are asking for trouble.” It was the rough scrape of a tease.
A grin hooked at the edge of her delicious mouth. “I’m pretty sure I already found it.”
I slowly stood. “You certainly have, wife.”
FORTY-SEVEN
CASH
Wife.
I was never going to get tired of the sound of it.
Was never going to get tired of the sight of her.
That she was here.
That she was mine.
She kept inching toward the bedroom. A torrent of wet cinnamon locks curling over her bare shoulders and draping down her back.
I stalked behind her to the threshold, watching her pad with bare feet across the worn, wooden floors that had been empty for so long, but since she and those kids had come into my life, it had been filled with clatter and chaos and love.
The vacancy—the void—filled with their spirits.