Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 107166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
He answers my moans by slamming inside me. His pace and movements are frenzied as though he’s in a rush. Reaching his hand out, he places his finger where our bodies meet and strokes me. I quiver and shake at his touch.
It isn’t long before I feel the impending release, my body tightening around him. I throw my head back, my eyes shutting, and fall over the edge. Into the abyss. Into heaven.
42
Tobias
I try to give her normal.
Soon our lives will be anything but, which is why I lead her away from the kitchen and toward the bathroom.
It’s a calculated risk to shower together. I’ll want to have my way with her again, and I take the chance of never leaving the bathroom again. Once the water is warm, I pull us under the relaxing spray and then wash us both, rubbing the shampoo in her hair, taking care of her.
She keeps looking at me, looking at my bandaged wound. But I’m not weak.
“Stop looking at me like that,” I say.
“Like what?”
“Like you want to take care of me.”
“Maybe I do.” I think about her words, and as much as I want to argue them, I feel the same way. An invisible thread tethers us, a bond no one will ever understand.
We lived.
We both lived through the terror, and for the rest of our lives, we will have the scars and memories to remind us. I pull her close to me and hold her wet body to mine. Her heart beats against my chest.
All those years ago, there was a moment when she stared into my eyes, panicked, and I fell in love with that girl. That fighter. The girl who saved me. I might have been angry, but that feeling never left.
I rinse the soap out of her hair, and once we are done, I wrap us in towels. Leading her into the bedroom, I grab her a pair of my sweats and a T-shirt. Tomorrow, Gideon will be wanting to speak. Tomorrow, everyone will. But we have tonight.
“What do you want to do?” I ask her.
“Go back in time,” she answers honestly.
“To when?”
“To the day we first met.”
“Would you change it?”
She nods. “I would. The only thing I wouldn’t change is meeting you. But instead of what happened, I would cross the room and ask you to play with me.”
“Let’s do that.”
“Do what?”
“Play a game.” I take her hand in mine and lead her out of the room and down the hall.
“Where are we going?”
“Patience, Skye.”
“Says the man who gets everything he wants every time he wants it.”
“That’s not true. I had to wait for you.”
“You could have just told me.”
“Where would the fun in that be?”
She stops walking, her head scrunching. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“You didn’t remember me, Skye.” That should make her understand.
“You were angry.” Her voice is a whisper.
She’s trying to understand what I felt this past month. I shrug it off like it’s no big deal, but to me, it was. To me, it was devastating.
“I told you this already.”
She shakes her head back and forth, a line forming between her brows. “All this time. All this time you wasted, and for what? You really are an idiot.”
“I never said I was smart,” I say with a chuckle. Only this woman can make me laugh at an insult.
I pull her arm and make her walk, and I’m surprised when she drops it. Maybe, like me, she knows the past is approaching. Soon, we won’t be able to hide from it.
“I’ll take the floor. You take the couch,” I say as we walk into the library.
“Um, okay. Why?”
“As I said, I’m giving you that wish.”
She smiles broadly. “Deal.” She sits and then looks up at me as I move about the room. I grab the first game I see from the shelf and place the old board game on the ottoman in front of her, then take a seat on the rug. Skye squints her eyes at what I brought with a confused look on her face.
“What game is this?”
“It was my mother’s. My nanny taught me, but don’t worry, I’ll teach you,” I assure her with a smile.
“This game looks ancient.”
“Well, I did grow up playing it.” I shrug.
“Exactly . . . ancient.”
“I’m not much older than you.” I level her with my stare.
“Old enough that I have no idea how to play this,” she teases.
“Four years older. That’s nothing.”
“How do you know so much about me? I never told you my age.”
“Don’t you know by now, I learned everything about you the moment I saw you in the courtroom.”
“Was that planned?”
“No.”
“How did you know it was me?”
“I could never forget your eyes.”
She looks down at her hands, and I follow her stare. She’s looking at the tattoo; the one she placed on her skin to honor me. My chest tightens. Looking back up, I see that her eyes are filled with tears.