Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 50840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
I slip my hand lower, teasing her perfect little asshole.
She whimpers, pushing back against my hand.
"I love you," I whisper.
She topples over the edge, crying out my name.
I follow with a groan, driving into her again and again as her body milks my cock, stealing every last fucking drop.
"I love you too," she whispers.
"Fuck." I nip her throat. "I'm going to need you to say that at least nine thousand times a day from now on, Peyton."
"Mm, no."
I bite her, making her body shake with laughter.
And then she sobers, turning to face me. One hand rises, drifting down my face. "How did it go?"
I capture her wrist, kissing her palm. "It went…surprisingly well," I say, dragging my teeth down her wrist. "Better than I expected." I meet her gaze, arching a brow. "Maybe you should be a shrink. You're perceptive as hell."
"She's ready to talk, isn't she?"
"She…yeah," I mutter, shaking my head. "She's been ready for a while; she just didn't know how to tell me. Said she didn't want everything I did to be for nothing."
"She loves you," Peyton says softly.
"Yeah, I know." I blow out a breath. Lauren and I talked for a long fucking time. Hell, we cried. And we ultimately decided that Charles Montaque doesn't get to tell her story. She does. She's been talking to her therapist about it a lot over the last few months.
She said having Lachlan made her realize that she's been hiding from her diagnosis for a long time and using me a shield. She doesn't want to do that anymore. She doesn't care what people say anymore because it won't change anything.
She isn't her illness. She isn't my poor little schizophrenic sister. She's Lauren. She's Lachlan's mom. She's a woman who has overcome everything life has thrown at her and still found her way. She's found peace in her life. The press can't shake that. And she knows nothing they say can rip Lachlan from her arms. She has the support system she needs. She's on her meds. She sees her therapists and doctors.
And she isn't afraid to be alone with Lachlan because she doesn't trust herself. She's afraid because the new meds still make her groggy and sluggish at night. She's scared he'll need her, and she won't hear him.
I guess that happened right after she got home. By the time she finally woke up, he was soaked through and screaming, and she felt like a horrible mother.
Roland felt like an asshole when she said that. Hell, I did, too. Had she told us, we would have handled it months ago, but she didn't want it to be one more thing we worried about. She should know by now that Roland fucking loves her. He's always going to worry. And so will I.
Roland is hiring a night nurse to help alleviate her mind when he's out of town for work, and she and Lachlan can always come and stay here if she really needs the help. But she doesn't need me. She never really did.
She's just trying to be a good mom the best way she knows how, but hell. She's always been that. From the moment she found out she was pregnant, she's done everything in her power to put Lachlan first.
She kept apologizing to me, but she doesn't have anything to apologize for. All she ever did was ask me to keep her out of the press. I'm the one who decided to act like an asshole to accomplish it. That's on me, not her. My guilt isn't her doing. That's something I need to work through myself.
If she and Peyton can handle their shit…well, I damn well better handle mine. I owe it to both of them. I owe it to myself. I won't be the thing holding either of them back. Fuck that noise.
"I'm going to call Alice in the morning and ask her to set something up," I murmur to Peyton. "We'll release a statement or something." I'm sure Alice will have a blast with that. She can't fucking stand Montaque. Any chance she can take to screw him over and make him look like an asshole, she's going to take.
I don't feel sorry for him. When you make a career out of dropping bombs into people's lives, you should really prepare for a few to be aimed your way.
"I think we should say something about my father too," Peyton says, snuggling up against me.
"Yeah? What do you want to say, angel?"
"That I'm not him and that if people want to know about him, they should ask him because a man who abandons a woman he got pregnant and then leaves his child in foster care after that woman is murdered is no father of mine," she says. "What do you think?"
I press my lips to her head, smiling. "I think that's exactly what you should say if that's how you feel."