Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
After a couple of minutes, I calm down enough to think about retrieving my clothes, but Peter catches my shoulders before I can get on all fours. The worried frown on his face propels me into renewed hysterics. “You… you’re going to have to disinfect it,” I gasp out between bouts of uncontrolled laughter. “Since you c-cook here and all…”
I’m laughing too hard to talk now, but he must catch my gist, because reluctant amusement glimmers in his eyes and curves his lips. And then he’s laughing too, because there are still dirty dishes everywhere, and we just fucked where anyone could see us, and his semen is dripping down my thighs onto the clean tile floor.
Eventually, we calm down and retrieve my pants and underwear from under the dishwasher. My throat is sore and my abdomen aches from laughing so hard, but I feel cleansed somehow, emptied of all the bitterness and resentment. Peter’s expression, however, is darkening again, and as he leads me upstairs to shower, I ask, “What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t reply at first, just busies himself with turning on the shower and undressing both of us when we reach the bathroom. I wait patiently, and when we step under the water spray and he starts washing my back, he finally murmurs, “Did I hurt you?”
I blink and turn around to look at him. Is that what worries him? That he was rough? My left shoulder is still sore from being dislocated in the car crash, but I’m pretty sure our vigorous sex didn’t hurt it. “No, of course not. I told you, I’m perfectly fine.”
He looks at me, unconvinced, then sighs and gathers me against him in a hug. I close my eyes to keep out the streaming water and wrap my arms around his hard-muscled torso. We stand like that, holding each other without words, and it feels so right, in all its wrongness.
It feels like we belong like this, like we were meant to be.
5
Peter
The next morning, I wake up before Sara, and as has been my habit lately, I watch her sleep for a few minutes before forcing myself to get out of bed.
I don’t know if it’s just wishful thinking, but it felt different yesterday. It felt like the tentative truce we established at the clinic was still there. Usually, after sex, I could sense Sara scrambling to rebuild her walls amidst bitter self-recriminations, but not yesterday. Yesterday, I couldn’t feel her inner conflict, and after I assured myself that I didn’t hurt her, I stopped kicking myself for losing control—and for leaving off the condom yet again despite my earlier resolution not to do so.
At this point, filling Sara with my seed is instinctual, and those instincts refuse to heed the reasons for waiting until the Esguerra situation is resolved.
In any case, I doubt we were in any danger yesterday. Sara must be toward the end of her cycle, given when her period was last. Which was when exactly? Three weeks ago or four? I frown into the bathroom mirror as I wipe off the last of the shaving foam and put down the razor. No, that doesn’t seem right. We were away for almost three weeks, and before that, she didn’t bleed for at least—
A knock on the bathroom door interrupts my calculations. “Peter?” Sara’s sleep-roughened voice is strangely tense. “Yan wants to talk to you.”
Fuck. I rub a towel over my face to get rid of whatever foam might still be clinging to my skin and stride out of the bathroom. Sara is standing by the bed, swaddled in a thick robe that she must’ve pulled on to open the door for Yan.
“He said to come down as soon as you can,” she says, a worried frown bisecting her forehead. “It’s urgent.”
I nod, already pulling on a pair of jeans. I figured as much, because my men are not in the habit of knocking on our bedroom door. Something must’ve happened, but for the life of me, I can’t think what. There’s no way the authorities, or any of our enemies, could’ve tracked us here, and that’s the only emergency I can think of that would merit such urgency.
“Get dressed,” I tell Sara as I head for the door. “In case we need to leave quickly.”
Her eyes widen with understanding, and she rushes to put on her clothes as I hurry downstairs.
All three of my teammates are already there, clustered around Yan, who’s peering at his laptop screen. Anton is typing something on his phone.
“What’s wrong?” I ask sharply, and the twins turn to look at me, their faces grim.
“Sara is still upstairs, right?” Yan asks, casting an unreadable look at the stairs, and I nod, closing the distance between us in a few long strides.
“What’s going on?”
“Take a look,” he says and turns the screen toward me.