Total pages in book: 21
Estimated words: 19985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 19985 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
I slip my arms around his waist and press my cheek against his warm back. He’s so solid and smells like coffee and smoke and the pine wood he’s been using to repair our cabinets. Closing my eyes, I hold on tight and lose myself in him, just like I have done every morning for the last five years.
“What are you thinking about?” I murmur against him.
He dries his hands, manages to turn in my arms, and looks down at me. Even after so many days together, the focus of his gaze still makes my heart stutter.
“Nothing important,” he says. But I know what he’s thinking. I always know.
No strings. No attachments. Nothing that could potentially land you behind bars.
His mantra. The rule he once lived by before we found each other.
I know it echoes back sometimes but not as temptation. As a reminder of the life he once lived. The man he once was. The man who lived in empty rooms, not this house which is filled with love.
Chris takes my face in his hands, delicately, the way he did the first night we were together. When he kissed me and my life changed.
“I love you, Avery Rose.”
My eyes blur as I start to tear up. Five years and I still get emotional when I hear those words.
“I love you too, Chris.”
He kisses me in the house he built, while our amazing daughter giggles and shouts outside, having the time of her life.
I think back to the first time I noticed him—the man who was doing everything he could not to be noticed.
But I did.
And here we are. Forever.
THE END