Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98000 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 490(@200wpm)___ 392(@250wpm)___ 327(@300wpm)
Away from me…
What if he’s hurt?
Logically, if he were, he wouldn’t tell me he can talk in five minutes, but this is what my stupid brain does now. All I think about is him.
I watch the phone like a hawk. It’s seven minutes and fourteen seconds before it buzzes with a video call, but it feels more like seven hours. I answer quickly, Tiernan’s face showing on the screen. He’s wearing a white button-up shirt, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He looks weary but otherwise okay.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen?”
He grins. “You’re worried about me.”
“Fuck you.”
“Yes, you have. You’re the only one who has.”
That stops me in my tracks. He never told me that before. “That was a first for you?”
He shrugs. “Never met someone who made me feel like they could handle me before. Now, why are you worried?”
He walks over and sits on the bed there. I won’t call it his despite knowing it’s the room he grew up in. Tiernan’s bed is here with me.
“Because I don’t know why in the hell your asshole dad took you away from me.”
He cocks his head, as if contemplating what I said. “He didn’t take me away from you.”
“You’re not here.”
“I’ll be back, little fighter.” He moves so he’s sitting like me, his back against the headboard. “I spent the day with my uncle and Conan. My father hasn’t said much to me except to tell me how disgraceful my neck looks. You’ll have to suck them darker before the next time I come here.”
I can’t stop the corners of my mouth curling up, a surge of pride building in my chest. “Fuck yes.”
“Good boy.” He winks, and I roll my eyes.
“There’s no one else who could say that to me.”
“I know, because I’d kill them.”
“You know what I mean.” And I’ve let him say it from the start. Sure, I told him to fuck off or pretended to complain, but even back then, I’d known Tiernan was different to me.
“I can’t talk long. I’m actually seeing my father tonight. He wants to talk to me. We have a shipment coming in, and he’s sending me to the harbor to make sure shit goes according to plan.”
“Is that why you’re there? To make sure the drugs arrive with no problems?”
“I don’t think so, but who the fuck knows. I don’t want to talk about him.” He runs a hand through his hair, which falls back onto his forehead in that sexy way that gets my dick hard. How can one person be so fucking beautiful? “My mom wants to meet you.”
My heart stumbles. That means… “You told her about me?”
“The first day I was here. Aww. Are you blushing?”
I shake my head. “Fuck no.” But my cheeks are warm.
My mom used to talk about Fia. They were friends, but then my father thought he and Sloan were friends too. The way she used to talk about Tiernan’s mom, though, made me think she missed her, that she still felt she could trust her, that she wasn’t like her husband.
Tiernan talks about her the same way. He loves his mother, and there’s a part of me that wants to meet her too. Wants to get to know this person loved by Tiernan and my mom, but that’s something else I’ll lose the chance to have when I take my revenge on Sloan.
“Hey, where’d you go?” Tiernan asks.
“Nowhere,” I lie. “Do you think…never mind.”
There’s another pause, another of Tiernan’s deep, penetrating stares, the wheels in his head turning. “She’ll like you.”
“That’s not what I was going to ask.”
“Yes, it was.” He smiles, and I flip him off.
“I hate you.”
“So you’ve told me, more than once. Now, I have to go. I have shit to do.”
“Okay.” I nod like an idiot, words trapped on my tongue. “Tiernan?”
“Yeah?”
“I don’t hate you. You are…the only thing I’ve ever had that’s mine.” Please don’t ever hate me. I’m sorry.
His pupils flare, and I feel the heat from his stare through the phone. “Good night. I’ll be home soon,” is all he says before ending the call, and somehow, it’s all I need to hear.
*
“Did you talk to my brother last night?” Aislin asks as we’re having lunch.
“Yeah. Said something about drugs and the harbor,” I say softly, for only her to hear.
“Why the fuck does my dad want him home? I don’t get it.”
“Me neither.” Rory sits down beside her.
“Same.” Cillian beside me.
“It’s ridiculous. He’s such an asshole.” Aislin rips a bite of her roll and eats it.
“Maybe it’s good I don’t have parents?” Rory says. “Yours is a fucking prick—one we all wouldn’t be here without, but a prick all the same. Cil’s rarely talks to him. What about you, D? You got parents?”
I’m so thrown by him calling me D that I don’t snap at his question. “No…mine are dead too.”