Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68538 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Here I was fifteen minutes in, and I’d yet to be discharged.
I had a feeling my staying in place had more to do with the fact I could still hear my dad raising hell in the hallways and not because it was necessary for me to stay.
“Auden won’t let him in,” Ellodie whispered.
I looked at her.
Her eyes were filled with worry. However, I could also see a promise there, like she’d been in my boat once, and knew firsthand that Auden would fix everything.
Maybe not necessarily with Auden, but with her own man, Quaid.
“My daughter is here?”
I stiffened fully and reached for the clothes that the nurse had brought in earlier.
My pants and shirt were stained with blood, some mine, from my head wound, and some from my stepmom.
Turning my back to the room, uncaring that Ellodie was there to see my near nakedness, I dropped the gown they’d dressed me in and pulled the pants on over my underwear.
I’d just started on my shirt, trying to be careful of the cut on my forehead, when I felt a presence behind me.
I didn’t stop Auden from helping me, in fact, I gave him complete control.
He carefully threaded the head of the shirt over my head.
“Arms,” he instructed.
I put my arms into the holes, very aware of my swaying breasts and the way one of his hands brushed against the tops of my ribs. So close, yet so far away at the same time.
He pulled the scrub top into place, then pulled me into his arms, very carefully hugging me and letting me know he was there, and whatever happened next, he was going to be there every step of the way.
“We couldn’t find any shoes, but I’ll give you a piggyback ride to Quaid’s truck. He’s gonna give us a ride home,” he said.
I swallowed hard.
“Hey, before you leave,” Athena said. “Give me the address. I want to ask you a few questions, so I’ll follow. Maybe distract as you slip out.”
Auden gave her the address without thought, then said, “Ready?”
I nodded.
He presented his back to me and said, “Hop up.”
He crouched down slightly, and I jumped up, threading my arms around his neck loosely.
He hitched me higher with two hands on my ass—two very large hands that splayed the entirety of each ass cheek—and said, “Ready, ladies?”
Ellodie went first, Athena fell into step at my back, and together we walked out of the small side room that was allotted to me when I’d arrived in the ambulance.
My eyes were everywhere as we left, but I was warm and safe on Auden’s back—Auden’s very muscular back.
I was terrified. But with that terror was giddiness. I was on Auden Carter’s back.
I was going home with him.
He was going to make sure that my dad didn’t come anywhere near me.
He didn’t care about his job, or what my dad could do to him.
He wasn’t like any of the other men I’d been with.
It was… liberating.
To find someone who would stand up to my dad, the chief of the police, and his boss? It was so exciting.
I squeezed his neck a little tighter and laid the uninjured side of my face against his shoulder, burying my face against his skin.
He squeezed my thighs, and we walked.
“Let me talk to her,” I heard ordered.
It was down the hall, quite a bit away from us, but I knew that wouldn’t stop my father.
“A whole army couldn’t stop him when he wants to be somewhere,” I grumbled to Auden.
He patted my thigh and said, “He’s not coming anywhere near you.”
And he was right.
The Carters—all of them but the one holding me—stood like a wall, barring my father from getting to me.
“This way,” the doctor said, appearing out of nowhere to lead us toward a non-descript door. “It’s the doctors’ entrance. It’ll lead you to the parking lot.”
“You will let me talk to her!” my dad bellowed.
Auden didn’t hurry his steps. Didn’t break. Didn’t weaken.
He just strolled out of the hallway where we could hear my dad losing his shit with his brothers and dad and let the door close behind him.
Hell, he’d even stopped to hold the door for Athena, as if he could care less about his career, his reputation, or anything else.
Once the door shut on my dad’s bellowing, Ellodie said, “He’s fantastic.”
I pulled my face off of Auden’s shoulder, placed a kiss on his neck to tell him thank you, then said, “You have no idea. That was pretty tame in comparison to when he found out that I had a social media account.”
“That’s so weird,” Ellodie said. “I had all of that when I was like ten.”
“Same,” Athena concurred. “But then you have to admit that social media is a bad thing for young children who don’t know right from wrong. The way Maven explains it, she was almost an adult and he still didn’t want her to have it. I think he’s reported Pie Hard’s Facebook and Instagram account a hundred times.”