Total pages in book: 170
Estimated words: 160166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160166 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 801(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 534(@300wpm)
With a single kiss to her temple, I tell her to sleep. I stare at the ceiling and reassure myself again as my thumb rubs soothing circles on her skin. My brothers will take care of work and I will take care of her.
It’s a first. They’ve never had to cover for me since I’ve stepped up to my current role. In over a decade, it hasn’t happened. Not since I was a fucking child. Every goddamn day there’s a fire to put out and I question if they’re capable of handling things like they used to be before they all settled down or if something will inevitably fall through the cracks.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” The softly spoken whisper brings my attention to the woman in my arms. My shoulders rise and fall as I take in a heavy breath.
“Is my fuck toy questioning me?” I smirk down at her and her concerned expression eases. “Does your ass not remember what happens when you push me?” As she blushes and writhes slightly in my grasp from the memory, I kiss her temple again and then nudge her nose with the tip of mine to kiss her lips.
She pulls back ever so slightly before saying, “I don’t want to get you sick.”
“There you go, taking on burdens again,” I murmur and then kiss her lips, taking them with possessiveness. Her lips linger and I deepen it slightly, rewarded with a moan of pleasure from her.
Her hand rests on my chest and with the movement she winces.
A bruised ass, wounds on her wrists and ankles … and now she’s sick. My poor girl. If I could go back, I’d have lessened the bruising. Perhaps skipped it altogether.
A huff leaves me at the thought. If I could go back, I wouldn’t have pushed her to the point of slapping me. Running a hand through my hair, I remind myself, all of the what-ifs and should haves don’t mean shit. They’re nothing but irrelevant fuckups.
I simply can’t do right by her. It’s one thing after the other and nothing is right.
“Could you tell me a story?” she questions, once again bringing my focus back to the present.
“You think I know bedtime stories or fairy tales?”
“No, no,” she murmurs, “just any story.”
“I’m not exactly known for my storytelling skills.”
“I can’t … stop thinking,” she says quietly into her pillow and doesn’t look me in the eyes. “I keep thinking about the … Scarlet and the bath.” Mixed emotions swirl inside of me. The very mention of Scarlet, a known traitor, has me wondering why she’s bringing it up. There’s no question she was a rat. We had her on camera, recordings from phone calls, her texts and photos of her meetups.
Clearing my throat, I try to think up a story. “You want me to distract you?”
“Yes … please.”
“One time, a long time ago … there was a kid. He was dirty all the time because he hated showers and his brothers were always gone.” I almost add “and his father was always drunk” but I realize it would be far sadder than I want by adding that detail in. We only had one bathroom in our home and the memory of my mother falling in it when she was weak and frail and I couldn’t help her haunted me, even after she was gone. I don’t tell her that either, though.
Her breathing is steady, her breasts pressed against my chest as she listens to me. “And one day, this little girl who was sweet and so cute, told him he smelled.”
She lets out a small laugh and a genuine one, albeit gruff and short, leaves me too. With a small smile she looks up and tells me that’s not what she said.
“Might as well have.”
“I was polite,” she argues in the most adorable tone.
“What was it you said?” I ask her, trying to remember that moment.
“I asked if you needed somewhere to go for a bath.”
“Mmm, I don’t remember it like that.”
“I wanted you to come home with me and I would have helped you. That was before, though,” she comments.
“Before what?” I ask without thinking.
“Just before things changed.”
I offer her a sad smile. Things changed all the time when I was younger. Every month worse than the last. Lonelier. Harder. I’m not naïve enough to think it wasn’t worse for my brothers. I don’t remember it all, and my father wasn’t as hard on me. He beat the shit out of them, though, and all I did was hide in the corner. Regret makes it hard to swallow as memories I don’t care to recall come back.
I remember my mother dying. I was so young I only remember a few things before that. And Braelynn with her perfect braids and frilly dresses telling me I needed a bath was one of them.