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)
They’d hired every single private investigator they could.
They’d just never been able to find me.
“It would be nice to know what happened and how I’d ended up with Brock Austin,” I said, not calling him my dad to them.
He wasn’t that. He’d never be that.
“Mom and Dad would be so stoked,” Nastya mused as she looked at her fingers. “They never gave up. We uprooted our life to move closer to Gatlinburg… just in case. Every single day since you disappeared, they searched for you. Their trip out of the country was because a woman fitting your description had been spotted amongst some school teachers who hailed from America.”
I deflated.
“I’m so sorry.”
Nastya looked at me then. “You shouldn’t be. They never stopped fighting for you. That’s how one day I’ll be with my children. And now you’re here to help raise them, too.”
My heart pounded in my chest. “I want to be a part of that.”
“You are,” Dima said. “The only question is, where the hell are we going to live when we’re visiting?”
I laughed. “There’s a subdivision just right across the street waiting to be developed.”
Dima’s grin, so much like my own it hurt, turned feral. “God help the Carters. They get us whether they want us or not.”
I had a feeling the Carters were more than willing to add my family into the mix.
“They’ll enjoy every second of it.”
“Your family is the best,” I said to Auden later that night.
He trailed his hand up the length of my bare back, fingers tickling along my spine.
He rolled over onto me, his mouth at my throat, making me giggle.
“We’ll have to agree to disagree,” he drawled. “I didn’t think they’d ever leave.”
They hadn’t wanted to go.
Neither had mine.
But I’d had the time of my life.
Each day that I’d spent with all of them over the last week had been the best.
And now, I was lying underneath Auden, and he was pressing against me with his thick erection, and I wanted to think nothing of either family.
I only wanted to focus on him.
“Your focus needs more focus,” I quoted Karate Kid.
His grin turned lecherous as he forced my legs open wider to allow his hips to fall between.
My teeth sank into my bottom lip as he pressed upward, not quite entering me, but close.
So close.
“My focus is legendary,” he teased. “Let me show you.”
Then he sank that glorious cock all the way inside me and showed me.
I bring the razzle dazzle to people’s lives, whether they want to admit it or not.
—Maven to Auden
MAVEN
The next morning, my belly was a ball of nerves as I made my way up the length of the walkway that led into the middle of the police station.
Every single Carter who’d left and wanted to go back to the DPD was reinstated post-haste.
Quincy had decided to move to Sunnyvale, however, to take up a job closer to their home.
Atlas met us at the door, offering me a side hug as he helped us up the steps.
“Are you sure you don’t want to join the SWAT team?” Atlas asked for what felt like the fifteenth time since yesterday.
“I don’t want to,” Auden said. “I don’t want anything to do with five AM wake up calls anymore. The leadership of the SWAT team is all yours, bro.”
Atlas sighed.
Upon Scott’s removal from the position, a void was opened that was necessary to fill as quickly as possible. After asking a few long-standing members of SWAT, the board decided that Atlas would be a perfect fit for the leader of DPD SWAT.
Atlas hadn’t been too happy about it, and had wanted to split the responsibilities with Auden, who’d refused to leave his new job at SPD.
“Fine,” Atlas grumbled. “Did you bring any dessert?”
“Brought about six boxes of stuff,” I admitted. “But we left it in the car.”
Atlas held out his hand, and Auden tossed him his keys.
Auden led me the rest of the way into the police station, taking me right to the interrogation rooms.
He was stopped no less than ten times on our way there.
“Why are we having it here instead of at the FBI offices?” I wondered.
“Because FBI is transferring him out,” he said. “He’s headed to a holding facility in Mansfield, where he will then be transferred to West Livingston to the supermax prison there.”
“What’s a supermax prison?” I asked.
“A prison where he won’t escape,” I heard said.
I looked up to see the FBI agents standing there, hands in pockets, waiting for us.
“Come on,” Special Agent Evador urged. “I’m quite curious if you can get him to talk.”
“Is me getting him to talk going to be something that y’all can use?” I asked.
“Yep,” he said. “He’s very much aware that you’re here, and that you want to talk.”
“Okay,” I said nervously.
Auden caught my hand, turning me to face him.