The Anchor Holds – Jupiter Tides Read Online Anne Malcom

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, BDSM, Erotic, Mafia Tags Authors:
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Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157162 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
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Fiona stared at me. She was shrewd, not some romantic asshole who was ignorant to all the horrors of the world. She knew about the horrors of the world. Intimately. She knew about loss, pain and real terror. Fuck, her ex-husband had tried to kill her when she was pregnant with June.

“Falling for someone isn’t a shortcoming,” she told me softly. “And it doesn’t make you any less badass.”

“I know,” I scoffed. “I’m badass no matter what. And I’m not falling for him.”

“Okay,” she nodded, her tone telling me she didn’t believe me. “I figured you’d be a lot of things in the face of something real, Calliope, but a coward wasn’t one of them.”

I gaped at her, shocked by the unadorned insult of her words. Though she didn’t mean it to hurt. She was a no bullshit kind of person. She called it as she saw it.

And she saw a coward, apparently. It hurt a lot more than I’d expected it too. Likely because it was true.

“I’m not a coward because I know it’s smarter to end it before anyone gets hurt,” I argued sharply.

She didn’t recoil at my tone or the bitchy look I was shooting her. “End it before you can feel anything you can’t control,” she countered.

Before I could reply, there was a loud crash, a loaded pause then the harsh wail of a screaming toddler.

Fiona glanced over, without panic, as did I. No broken bones or blood visible, just a destroyed living room and a toddler who was sick of the adults talking and not worshipping her as we should’ve been doing.

“You’re lucky.” She pointed at me, scooping up her daughter and laying a kiss on her head.

“I don’t consider myself lucky when your daughter hurts herself.” June’s cries quieted down as her mother cooed.

I was lying. June wasn’t seriously hurt, and it would all be forgotten in a couple of minutes, giving me the out I needed.

“Mm-hmm,” Fiona smirked, her lips against her daughter’s head. “Fair warning, I’ll be coming over sans child to ensure you’ve got no excuses.”

The promise in her words scared me appropriately. “I don’t do girl talk,” I told her.

“Tough shit,” was her reply as she walked out the door.

“Fuck,” I groaned. This was getting messier and messier, and I didn’t know how to escape it.

To give myself respite from the romantic entanglement, I went back to my original task of trying to remove myself from the crosshairs of a criminal organization without being buried in a shallow grave.

Somehow, that was more comforting than facing the truth of my feelings for Elliot.

Fifteen

Rattlesnake—Jack Van Cleaf

In regard to willpower, I’d always thought I had a lot.

I’d quit cocaine, sugar, processed carbs. Had been employed by some of the baddest assholes in the world. Worked eighteen-hour days. Had pushed myself to the brink working my ass off, getting to the top.

I’d persevered through situations I thought would kill me and came out on the other side. I’d seen things that made me want to scream into the darkness when the nightmares woke me, but I kept my lips closed.

But I lasted only three days in my resolve to stay away from Elliot. He was not like any kind of drug, donut or high I’d ever chased before.

Maybe because he was inherently bad for me. He was the only thing that I’d enjoyed, become addicted to, that wasn’t harmful to me.

It was the other way around. I was harmful to him. But Fiona’s words echoed in my brain, her accusation that I was being a coward. Then there was the memory of Elliot’s smell, touch, and the safety I felt with him.

While driving to the gym, I told myself that I could burn off all that yearning with a hard workout, that I’d push my body to its limits. I could get back to the diet of deprivation both in regard to food and attractive fishermen.

Yet I ended up at his place. It was early in the morning on a weekday, so I assumed he wouldn’t be home. He’d be fishing. That’s what I’d told myself when my car found itself cruising in the direction of his house. I was just going to cast my eyes upon the place that contained a different version of me.

Except I’d memorized the fishing schedule and had made it my business to know the timetable of Shaw and Sons departure dates. He wasn’t set to leave until the weekend.

I wasn’t one to leave my fate up to chance, to leave it to ‘destiny’ to decide whether we would cross paths. I didn’t let anything—let alone some made up concept for atheists and believers alike to rely on—control my life.

I was the only one who controlled my life. Until Elliot gave me the blessed break from that, which I hadn’t known my body had been craving even more than carbs.


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