Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64362 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
I swallowed hard as he pinched my pebbled nipple before removing his hand from beneath my towel. I did as he’d asked and tilted my head back to look up at him once we were facing each other.
His eyes trailed over my face. “You only got better with age,” he told me, then cupped my cheek with one hand and began to rub the pad of his thumb over the beauty mark.
“You did call me old,” I said, reminding him of his first words to me after eighteen years—when I’d come face-to-face with him as I walked out of the restroom at Paradise Brew.
A sexy grin spread over his face. “You gonna ever let that go?”
I shook my head.
“Ah, come on now, Angel Face. I was in shock,” he said, and then his amusement faded. “And I’d noticed the rings on your finger.” He paused. “I’d always figured you’d gotten married. A woman who looks like you doesn’t end up single forever. But seeing it, knowing you were someone else’s”—his jaw tensed, and he shook his head—“I hadn’t been ready for that.”
Had I ever truly been Eamon’s? I wanted to think I had. He’d loved me. He was the one who had saved me. Picked me up and put me back together again. He had deserved to be loved in this life the way he loved. But he knew. I’d tried to hide it from him, but all those years, he had known that he wasn’t the only one in my heart, and he’d loved me anyway.
Rome lowered his head, and his lips met mine. All other thoughts drifted away, and again, he was the only light I saw.
2
Rome
Eighteen Years Ago
If horror could numb you, then that was what I was experiencing. As if the pain went beyond something the physical body understood.
Glancing down, I realized Mindy still had my cock in her mouth, but I felt nothing. Seeing her down there disgusted me. With her hair in my fist, I pulled her off me, and I shoved her away, then went to jerk my jeans up. Every breath I took was excruciating.
Salem’s eyes, her face…
“FUCK!” I roared as the scene replayed in my head.
“What did I do?” Mindy, the secretary at the shop, asked, scrambling backward, her bare tits on display.
What had I done? That was the motherfucking question.
I heard the gravel under the wheels as a car spun out, and I broke into a sprint. She was upset and driving. If something happened to her because of this, I’d…I’d…I wouldn’t be able to live through that. I wasn’t sure I was going to live through this.
I heard Mindy call my name as I ran toward the front of the shop. By the time I made it to the parking lot, there were no cars, except for Mindy’s black Nissan.
“Goddammit!” I shouted, shoving my hands into my hair as my eyes burned almost as brutally as my chest.
I couldn’t breathe. I was shaking. Everywhere. I pulled at my hair, staring at nothing and only seeing Salem’s anguished expression on her beautiful face. My actions had done that. I’d put that look there. I’d hurt her.
But wasn’t that what I had wanted to do? Make her leave me because I couldn’t leave her? Ending things with Salem would be like taking a blade to my chest and carving out my heart.
The idea of it had caused me to fucking drink at work. All day.
Until Brick left and Mindy started throwing herself at me more than she had already done.
When she followed me out back, where I was taking out the trash, I decided to close my eyes and pretend it was Salem, knowing when I was sober, the guilt would gnaw at me so much that maybe I could send her away. Maybe this would be what I needed to force my hand.
Never had I meant for Salem to see it.
Jesus Christ, what had I done?
“Rome! What’s wrong?” Mindy cried out behind me.
Her footsteps sounded as if she was running too. I didn’t notice her.
I released my hair, and my hands fell to my side.
Since my mom had been lowered into that grave, I’d only felt anything when I was with Salem. Except my mom’s words had ruined even that for me. I didn’t hold Salem the way I wanted to. I did everything I could to keep from touching her. I knew if I let myself cling to the only joy that I felt in this life by being with her, kissing her, burying myself in her that I’d never let her go.
She’d been unsure and worried, and I couldn’t look at her because all I wanted to do was grab her and reassure her that she was the only thing in this life that mattered to me. What she’d just witnessed was something I’d never wanted her to see. That wasn’t the way I wanted to lose her. I’d been trying to make her want a life without me. Not cause her pain. I was the only one who was supposed to be hurt by this.