Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 475(@200wpm)___ 380(@250wpm)___ 317(@300wpm)
I didn’t have the heart or the stomach to watch. Couldn’t see what was left of a man who still felt so real to me.
Tommaso released a quiet whistle to let me know they were finished.
When I walked over, they were shoveling the dirt back onto the grave.
“Thanks, guys.” I grabbed a shovel and joined them, putting the dirt back in place and compacting it with the bottom of our shovels, doing our best to make it look like it hadn’t been disturbed. But because my mother visited every single morning, she would know something had changed.
Hopefully, she would assume it was just scheduled maintenance. I wouldn’t lie to my mother, but this was one secret I would take to the grave. Let her believe her son had been killed by an idiot driver rather than broken into pieces and used as a nightstand.
Now that I was about to be a father, I thought about it differently.
I grieved for my mother in a way I hadn’t before.
If that ever happened to me . . . I wouldn’t be able to go on.
When I pulled into the driveway of my home, I stopped when I got past the gate. I didn’t open the garage. Just gripped the wheel and stared at the place that had become home. The place that I had left in search of vengeance, power, and wealth.
I hadn’t realized all that was right in front of me the entire time. I just had to get my wife first and bring her here.
I pulled into the garage, then stepped into the house.
Aurelia and Medusa were there waiting for me in the hallway. Aurelia burst into tears at the sight of me and rushed to me to hug me harder than she ever had. Held on to me like she dangled over a cliff with spikes down below. She breathed hard against my chest before she released an unexpected sob.
“Sweetheart.” I cupped the back of her head as she cried against me, cried like I’d died instead of lived.
Medusa was right at my feet, looking up at me before she raised a paw and issued a whine.
“In a sec, baby girl,” I said quietly, consoling Aurelia first.
She finally pulled away enough to look at me before she reached up and cupped my face. “I’m so glad you’re home.”
I bent my neck to kiss her, to pull her into me. “And I’m never leaving again.”
Her eyes flicked back and forth between mine. “If he’s gone, then we can return to Rome—”
“No.”
“You can have both, Con.”
“I don’t want both. This is what I want.” I moved my hand to her belly. “Just this.” I kneeled down and lifted up her shirt to kiss her stomach. That was when Medusa got impatient, moving her snout under my arm and trying to pull it toward her, demanding attention. She used to be the only woman in my life, but she had two other people to compete with these days.
“Hey, baby girl.” I cupped her face with both hands, then ran them back through her fur, making her eyes soften at my touch. Then I kissed the top of her head and gave her body a rubdown, bringing her in for a hug before I let her go. I stood upright and looked at Aurelia again, looked at the eyes that made me soft the moment I saw her. “It’s good to be home.”
Chapter 26
Aurelia
Constantine didn’t say much about what had happened in Rome, but I knew he was in a good place because he had his usual sexual appetite. He relaxed against the headboard with me on top of him, his big hands cupping my pregnant stomach like it turned him on rather than revolted him.
My body changed slowly, but as the changes became more prominent, I became more self-conscious. I was forced to buy new clothes because my hips were wider, my feet were fatter. I gained weight everywhere, even though the only thing that should have gotten bigger was my stomach. My metabolism must have changed because my eating habits weren’t any different. My body was just determined to hold on to as much fat as possible, like the baby needed it.
Constantine was rock hard, slabs of muscles separated by indentations of his skin, a god who lived and breathed, but he continued to worship me like I was the hot one in the relationship.
Not even close.
He stared at my stomach as I moved on top of him, felt my belly with worshipful hands, had to edge himself over and over like all he wanted to do was come. He’d never struggled before, but the bigger my stomach got, the worse it became.
As if it really did turn him on like crazy.
My tits got bigger too, and he definitely liked that. Groped them all the time the way he used to grope my ass.