Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 55769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 55769 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 279(@200wpm)___ 223(@250wpm)___ 186(@300wpm)
“I’m with you whatever you decide,” he told her.
“What would you do?” she asked.
He shook his head on the pillow. “I know what I’d do. But I’m not you and this has to be all you.”
“You wouldn’t see him,” she correctly guessed.
“I wouldn’t waste another fuckin’ second on the guy. But again, I’m not you.”
Something occurred to her. It lit in her gorgeous eyes before it came out her pretty mouth, “How, exactly, did this conversation between you and Dad go? You know, aside from the threat?”
There was more than a hint of suspicion in that.
So yeah.
Down to his soul.
“We’ll just say we didn’t hug.”
She tensed. “Oh my God, you gave him shit.”
Maybe she was crazier than he thought.
“Fuck yeah, baby. He left you. He hurt you. So I didn’t shake his hand and clap him on the shoulder and congratulate him on his healthy tan. I gave him shit.”
Curiosity sparked. “Did he have a tan?”
“Ava babe,” he began carefully. “He looked healthy. Happy. He was far from thrilled that I stood in the way of him getting to you. He was even less thrilled when I told him I’d offered to find him for you, and you declined.”
Her eyes widened. “You told him that?”
“Yeah. I did,” Luke affirmed. “He was happy we were together. He said he wants a chance to explain. He makes good money, lives in a nice home in an upper middleclass neighborhood with a pretty woman who loves him so much, she doesn’t ask questions about why he won’t marry her, seein’ as he fell off her grid. Not the grid, but your mom’s grid, so she couldn’t find him, and he’s still married to her. He has not suffered. He went on to better things. And regardless of what those two fuckin’ sisters of yours are like, how much nagging he had to endure from your mom, he made a family and thought he had the right to just bow out. You’re unhappy, you walk away. You set up a new life. You find ways to establish boundaries with your ex-partner so she won’t fuck with your head. But you don’t leave your children behind. Ever.”
“I think I’ve decided,” she announced.
Luke took his hand from her neck so he could wrap both arms around her tight.
“What’d you decide?” he asked.
“I’ve decided I’m not going to decide right now. I think it might take twenty years. Or it might take two. Or it might take until after we eat our napoleons. However long it takes, that’s how long it’s going to take. I’m not going to stress. I’ll know when I know. Then he’ll know when I know if I decide to see him. But now, I’m just going to…carry on.”
Luke grinned. “That’s my girl.”
“You want your napoleon?”
Yup.
That was his girl.
Drama…and onward.
He flipped her to her back. “Gotta work for it.”
Her gaze heated and her words were breathy when she declared, “I get top.”
“You’re gonna get somethin’, but it isn’t top.”
“I thought men liked women riding them.”
“I want you in the saddle, baby, I’ll put you there. I’m in the saddle tonight.”
She gave a side eye to nothing, muttering, “Whatever.”
“Babe?”
She looked to him.
“Kiss me.”
Hungry joined the heat in her gaze.
And then she kissed him.
Luke woke when the nagging pain he felt in his gut meant it was time to turn, and Ava didn’t turn them.
Which meant he woke to an empty bed.
He didn’t have to search for her. He knew where she was.
So he threw back the covers, padded through the loft and went to her.
He settled on the floor behind her and surrounded her with his bent legs, pulling her—curled thighs to tits, his tee stretched over her knees—into his chest.
“I should have landed a fist in his face,” he growled into her ear.
She turned her head to face him. “Why?”
“You can’t sleep.”
“I can’t sleep because I’m happy.”
Luke’s head jerked.
Ava kept talking.
“You were the first boy I loved. You’re the only man I’ve loved. I have no idea what Dad showing would have done to me a couple of months ago, when you weren’t in my life. And okay, I didn’t handle it with smooth decorum when you told me. But…whatever. In the end, I know the blow was softer because you delivered it, and you were there to hold me while I dealt. I also know you’ll support whatever I decide whenever I make the decision.” She twisted in his arms and used her hands to cup his jaw. “I’m not sleeping, Luke, because I kinda don’t care about Dad coming back. I’ve got everything I need because I’ve got you. And after feeling his abandonment for half my life like a hole that’s never filled, and now it’s just gone, that’s a lot for a girl to deal with, and it isn’t conducive to sleep.”