Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74670 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 373(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Fuck, my chest was getting tight again.
Mal let out a heavy sigh and rubbed his face in frustration. “Lace, honey, trust me, there is a man out there for you. One who will love you. Luther isn’t that man.”
“You don’t—”
“I’m in love with her,” I said, the words cutting off whatever she had wanted to say in my defense. They were words I’d been ignoring, denying, refusing to believe.
Mal stared at me.
Silence.
Lace spun around, her eyes wide, and the hope in those ocean pools made me want to go put it on a damn billboard for her.
“What the fuck did you just say?” Mal asked, saying each word slowly and precisely.
I ignored him and cupped the side of Lace’s face. “Not words I’ve ever used, sugar. Never imagined I would. But that was before you.”
A sob escaped her, and she covered her mouth as a smile spread across her face. “Really? You…you love me?”
Hearing her ask it as if that was so impossible to believe sent a pang through me. I hated that she didn’t know how easy she was to love.
“Yeah, Ocean Eyes, I do.”
“You,” Mal said, and I lifted my eyes from Lace to look at him, “aren’t capable of loving her. Not properly.”
Lace’s eyes heated, and she started to turn around, but I stopped her, grinning at her immediate need to defend me.
“Easy, Wildcat,” I teased her.
“I never believed in miracles, Mal, but it seems we got ourselves one,” I replied as I looked back at him. “I love her, I’ll kill any fucker who hurts her, and I’ll have to hurt you if you try and take her with you.”
He shook his head, disbelief replacing anger as he looked from me to her. “You’re serious.”
“Yep.”
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered.
“You love me?”
My gaze went back to Lace. “Yeah, sugar.”
Unshed tears glistened in her eyes. “I love you.”
I smirked. “I know.”
She laughed and then sniffled as I wiped a tear from her cheek.
“I need a fucking drink,” Mal said.
“Help yourself to the good stuff,” I told him, taking Lace’s hand and backing her into the bedroom we’d both come out of.
Mal muttered several curses as he stalked away.
“I’m sorry he hit you,” she said, her sweet mouth turned down at the corners.
“Eh, I owed him one shot,” I told her.
“Why?”
I closed the door and laid my shit down on the table beside us, then backed her up, caging her in with my arms. “Because, sugar, I fucked his daughter,” I replied, then pressed a kiss to one corner of her lips. “I took her virginity on his kitchen table,” I added, kissing the other corner. “I ate her sweet pussy.”
She giggled, and I pressed a kiss to the tip of her nose.
“And I’m gonna continue to defile her delectable body until they put me in the ground. So, he deserved one hit. Maybe more, but I’m just giving him the one.”
She let out a shaky breath, and her eyelashes fluttered. “Will you defile me now?” she asked.
Grinning, I reached for the belt of her robe and pulled it until it fell open. “Since you ask so sweetly,” I told her, then shoved my hand between her legs and found her already slick and ready for me.
Epilogue
Luther
I held Lace’s small hand tightly in mine as we walked down the hallway in the nursing facility an hour out of Madison, that provided excellent long-term care. Although I’d been here already, this was her first visit. I’d waited to bring her until she asked me.
The past three months, a lot had happened, and I didn’t want to push her to do anything. She’d been controlled her entire life, and I’d be damned if I or anyone else controlled my girl again.
She was an adult. A smart, witty, kind, thoughtful adult, and she had her own mind.
We reached the door that belonged to Dalia Halsten and stopped. Lace stared at it but didn’t move to open it.
“We don’t have to do this today, sugar. She’s fine. I keep a check on her,” I said, leaning down to whisper in her ear.
She shook her head. “No. I need to go in there. See her.”
All right then, that was what we would do.
“Take your time,” I said.
Her shoulders rose and fell as she took a deep breath. This was the first time I’d seen her struggle.
When Alpheus’s arrest was all over the news for fraud and money laundering, along with the coverage of his lie about Lace’s death and Dalia’s condition, she had only winced at the old photograph that they had shown of her.
The news that Alpheus had been found dead, drowned in his own bathtub with lethal amounts of fentanyl in his system, two nights after he was released on bail, hadn’t affected her either. She seemed relieved. Her only concern was for Dalia’s well-being.