Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95046 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Hideous outfits from the Eighties, mostly.
She's always sitting on the top step, looking down at the foyer, when I come through the door. Then she'll stand, descend slowly—her performance mocking and filled with silent sarcasm—while reciting poetry.
Not terza rima, that's serious stuff. Words I like.
No. When she's wearing neon spandex with leg warmers the words are simple and stupid. Limericks, mostly.
There once was a mobster quite feared,
Who arrived home much later than cleared.
His girl waited up top,
In neon that made his heart stop,
And recited a verse that he sneered.
This fucking woman. I swear.
How did I get so lucky?
I set her down on the velvet bench that acts as the boundary between our territories.
She's tired now. Quiet. Watching me as I towel off.
Not hungry. She needs rest and we both know it.
But satisfied.
I pull on sweats and turn to search for underwear and a t-shirt for her. Something soft. Something that won't irritate her skin after Lorcan's fuck-athon.
"Giovanni?"
I glance back. "Hmm?"
She's still wrapped in the towel, head tilted slightly, pale green sea-glass eyes tracking my movements with lazy focus.
"Are you ever going to tell Jino that I don't sleep in the dungeon?"
I pause, underwear and shirt in hand.
She continues, voice soft. "That I've never—not once—slept in the new dungeon?"
I cross back to her, holding up the clothes.
She stands without prompting, letting the towel drop.
I kneel and begin drying her off properly—careful strokes down her legs, across her hips, gentle around the marks Lorcan left on her skin.
When I rise to meet her gaze, those pale green eyes stare down at me.
I answer her question with a shrug.
Emmaleen tilts her head, but neither of us says any more.
I dress her slowly—underwear first, then the soft t-shirt that hangs past her thighs. She lifts her arms obediently, lets me pull the fabric over her head.
When she's dressed, I take her hand and lead her into our bedroom.
The space started out minimalistic and masculine—black sheets, military corners, one nightstand with nothing on it except a lamp and a gun safe.
Now the room breathes with her presence. The minimalism I designed has been colonized by her chaos.
And I haven't said a word about it.
We get in bed, and I pull Emmaleen to my chest.
We sigh.
She turns in my arms. Looks at me. Smiles.
His chapel echoes with my muffled moans,
But in each breath, your name remains unspoken—
The secret prayer my conscience never owns.
Though I am bent and beautifully open,
My mind returns to you, a constant tide—
Your presence is the vow I've never broken.
"Thank you," she whispers. "For gifting me Lorcan while you were away on business."
I nod, gently moving hair away from her eyes.
The sea glass shifts.
Settles.
I suddenly understand the feeling I've been having all morning.
"I'm going to marry you."
Emmaleen goes pink.
Then sighs.
Then kisses me gently on the lips, whispering her love into my mouth.
She snuggles into my chest and sleeps.
I'm not tired, it's only five o'clock in the afternoon. But Emmaleen needs her rest today and I want her to do that in my arms.
Jino's voice cuts through my head—a memory from months ago when he first realized Lorcan's theatrical chapel bullshit was something Emmaleen responded to.
He's got game, G. We don't have that kind of game.
Don't I?
I mentally challenge the memory, feeling the weight of Emmaleen's sleeping form against me, her breath soft and steady against my chest.
Don't I, Jino?
The question lingers in the silence of the afternoon bedroom, unanswered but somehow already proven.
Because what Lorcan has—his theatrical chapel performances, his elaborate rituals of penance and redemption—those are seductions dressed up as salvation.
And my little word collector comes home from every visit with a poem. Words meant only for me. Words that calm my racing heart. The fear inside my chest that she will some day choose him.
She gives me these words, unasked for, not part of our never-ending poem. Words composed while she's with him, still thinking of me.
What Jino has—his clinical precision, his ability to frame submission as art—that's philosophy made flesh. Devotion as methodology.
And my little fashion disaster spends most of her time with him shopping for hideous vintage outfits to punish me for missing dinner. To tell me, without words, that she doesn't want to sleep alone and worries about what I do when we're apart.
I have something totally different than they do. Something much better than control.
I look down at the woman sleeping in my arms, her dark hair spilling across my chest, one hand curled loosely against my ribs where the sea glass sits quiet and settled.
What I have is everything she chooses to give without me having to orchestrate a single fucking thing.
I have worn paperbacks stacked on my nightstand—dog-eared romance novels and poetry collections she insists I'll appreciate someday, their spines cracked from repeated readings.
I have oversized cardigans draped across the backs of my leather chairs, soft wool in muted colors that smell like her lavender soap and the faint vanilla of old pages.