Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46450 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 232(@200wpm)___ 186(@250wpm)___ 155(@300wpm)
“As long as Mom approves,” Freya mutters.
“You don’t think she will?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Dad was fifteen years older than Mom, so it would be sort of hypocritical if she made the age thing an issue. I just think she’ll be protective. She’ll want us to be….”
“What, Freya?” I ask when she pauses both her words and the tattoo gun.
“More than a fling, I guess. Something…I don’t know, serious?”
She makes it a question at the end, and I answer it, even if it brings me to the unspoken hunger within.
“We are serious,” I say.
She flinches, but then she goes on with her work, leaving my declaration to hang there. We sit in peaceful quiet, the buzz of the tattoo gun and her occasional ball-tingling short breaths the only noises, as I realize something.
I have to tell her.
During our first time, I don’t want anything between us but our flesh and bodies. I want my seed to pump into her, to give us a future.
What if she doesn’t want that?
It’s not fair to go ahead without telling her.
Soon, the tattoo is done.
I look down at the half-a-heart on my shoulder. It stings a little, but not much, nothing compared to the sensation in my heart telling me everything’s going to work out.
This means something.
We mean something.
Screw it.
Sitting up, I look at her seriously.
“Freya, there’s something you need to….”
Suddenly, there’s a loud knock at the door.
Of course, it had to be now.
“Sorry,” Kenny calls. “But it’s urgent.”
“Go on,” I reply, even if I wish he’d interrupted just ten minutes later.
“It’s Mike – Mr. Red. We found him. We need to go now. We won’t get a better chance than this.”
I stand, staring down at my woman, hating the fact I need to leave so much unsaid.
“I’ll be back soon,” I say.
She places the tattoo gun aside and rises to her feet, wrapping her arms around my naked torso and carefully pulling herself close, as if she doesn’t want to hurt my flesh wound or the tattoo.
“Please don’t get hurt,” she whispers.
“Whatever happens,” I say fiercely, “I’ll return to you. Nothing could stop me.”
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Freya
“Aren’t you just the cutest?” I say, bobbing Felicia up and down on my knee.
She beams at me, making my heart feel like it’s cracking down the middle. It makes me think of my own children, the future ones I’m going to have with Felix.
If he survives. If he feels the same.
I didn’t know what he would say before Kenny interrupted, but my mind latched on to tempting possibilities.
It’s only been ten minutes since he left, but it feels like hours.
Yasmin sits on the other side of the living room. Mom’s taking a nap, and Julie is in her bedroom, watching a movie on the laptop one of Kenny’s men provided.
Yasmin’s deep black hair is down around her shoulders, and she’s smiling as she looks at me.
“Felix told me, by the way,” she says a moment later. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“He…,” I pause, wondering if I heard her correctly. “Told you?”
“Told you what?” Julie says, walking into the living room from behind me.
Felicia crawls onto the couch cushion beside me and grabs her picture book, sprawling out as she opens it enthusiastically. Another pang touches me when I see her curled up like that, completely focused on the book in that childhood way, where nothing else can interfere.
My core gives a shudder, drawing my thoughts to Felix, to his hands on mine…and then I think about his tattoo, the half heart, and what it means.
Our first time.
Is he going to want to wear protection?
I should want that, but….
“Freya?” Julie says, looking at me from across the coffee table.
I shake my head, trying to laugh it off. “Sorry. Mind’s all over the place lately.”
“That’s understandable,” Julie says. “If you weren’t freaking out a little, then I’d be worried.”
My gaze flits to the window when one of Kenny’s men passes us by, making his patrol of the grounds.
“I’m sorry,” Julie says. “For all of this.”
“Me too,” Yasmin adds.
“It’s not your fault, either of you,” I say fiercely. “It’s his.”
I glance at Felicia, fully absorbed in the picture book, staring with wide-eyed joy as she attempts to mouth some of the words.
I honestly think my heart may just melt, especially when I see hints of Felix in her eyes and the shape of her smile.
I wonder if our children will look like him or me.
“I get it,” Yasmin says, not needing me to say the name Mike or Mr. Red. “But if it wasn’t for all that debt, Felix would never have started working with him. He never would’ve been hired to….”
“And if it wasn’t for me,” Julie murmurs. “None of this would be happening.”
“I don’t care about any of that. All I care about is Felix.”
Sudden boldness grips me, the sort I’ve rarely felt.