Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 60940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
He leaned forward, close to my mouth. “I’m going to fuck the memory of them out of you. Do you understand me?” His fingers slid back inside me, making my back arch. “Did they make you come?”
“Sometimes,” I reluctantly admitted, hanging on by a thread.
“I’m the only man who knows where and how to touch you. I know how to lick you and how hard to fuck you.” His voice was laced with nothing but possession. “You’re mine, sugar. Just admit it.”
I whimpered into his mouth, but he quickly sat me up on the kitchen island, repositioning his face between my legs. I just about came undone when I felt his tongue on my clit—licking, sucking, tasting. Devouring me.
“Say it,” he demanded between eating and finger fucking me. “Who do you belong to?”
“Not a chance in hell.”
Profoundly, he snarled, for a much different reason that time. “You don’t have to say it, sugar. Not when your squirting pussy will do it for you.”
“Ledger…” I let go, coming all over his face and hand.
After I was done riding the high that was Ledger Beckham, he looked into my eyes as he stood and licked his fingers clean.
I reached for his jeans, and to my complete and utter dismay, he stopped me.
“What are you—”
“That was just for you, Hazel.”
“But I want to return the favor.”
“Don’t worry. Your come in my mouth already did that for you.”
He backed away, leaving me senseless and blown away.
“Does this mean we’re co-parents with benefits now?”
“No, sweetheart.” With a cunning smile on his handsome face, he spoke with conviction.
“We’re soulmates.”
Twenty
Ledger
Stepping out of my truck with flowers in my grasp, I made my way to my mother’s gravesite. I stopped by to see her at least once a week, spending as much time as I could talking to someone who physically wasn’t there, but it felt like she was spiritually.
Once I stood in front of her tombstone, I swept away the leaves from the trees with my hand. I immediately sensed her presence watching over me. I needed someone to talk to, even if she couldn’t talk back. Over the years, she became my only confidant. I was able to speak freely without having to worry about the repercussions of my honesty.
She knew everything that happened between Hazel and me. I never kept it from her. I couldn’t. I had to tell someone, and she was the only person I trusted with the truth of my guilt and regret.
After cleaning up her site, I acknowledged, “It’s been over ten years since you left this world. I miss you. I miss you so much.” I bowed my head and closed my eyes briefly before peering back at the gray granite headstone.
It didn’t get easier, and it quickly became apparent that it never would. This was forever my life without her in it. At times, her funeral felt like it was yesterday.
I took a deep, sturdy breath, breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth.
“I’m trying to put the pieces of my life back together, Mom, but it’s so hard without you. My baby girl will be born in three months, and she’ll never meet you. I think about that all the time. The things she’ll miss out on—like your turkey at Thanksgiving and your birthday cakes that tasted better than anything you could ever buy. She’ll miss the way you used to sing us to sleep and let us read as many bedtime stories as we wanted because you loved being our mother.”
An unexpected shiver ran down my spine from the sudden breeze. Almost like she was making her presence known. She was there for me, comforting me the only way she could now.
“I love you so much,” I whispered into the misty air. “For a long time, I didn’t know who I was anymore. Between losing Hazel and then you, it was so hard for me to accept either of you being gone and out of my life forever. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to go through alone. I know I had my siblings, but they were going through their own despair, and I didn’t want to add mine to their grief. It wasn’t fair, but none of this is fair. Now, is it?”
With a solemn expression, I placed the flowers beside her tombstone before I rubbed my fingers over her engraved name.
“Now that Hazel is back in my life, though, I couldn’t imagine my life without her in it. I know she’ll always be the mother of my child, but I want all of her. Wake up to her in the morning and fall asleep with her at night. I want a life with her. We’re in this confusing place where she’s let me in certain aspects of her life and even in her bed… or should I say my bed? While others, she’s pushed me away entirely. Her guard is so thick I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to break it down.” I paused for a second, trying to gather my thoughts.