Page 50 of Merciful Lies

Everyone plays their part, I just play mine better.

I might not have gone to college, but I know how the world works and I’m not stupid. Growing up running wild in the city streets meant I listened, and I learned.

Some lessons were harder than others. I look at one of the many scars I have, this one on my right forearm, and I exhale slowly.

My son will not learn lessons like that. He will be strong, yes. But he will also be loved. And that’s not something I have a lot of experience with, but I have a feeling it will make all the difference.

My Anna knows love. The affection she feels for our baby is clear on her sweet face whenever I catch her touching her stomach or just daydreaming about him.

I know her life hasn’t been easy. She’s worked hard, and mostly alone, for way more of her life than most people her age. I know she’s going to be thirty-three in December.

That makes her seven years younger than me. I’ll be forty a week before her birthday.

I can’t believe I lived that long. But now that I have her, now that she’s given me a family, I’m determined to double my years.

Besides, only the good die young and I’m not that.

Nah. That’s a fucking lie.

My Anna is good, and I refuse to even think for a second she might leave this world before I do.

It hits me then.

I love her.

Fuck.

I can’t breathe. I know I care. That I am obsessed. But love?

Double fuck.

All the crazy emotions I’ve been feeling for this woman for more than half a year now all add up to one thing. I am completely besotted. Head over fucking heels.

I love her.

And there is something about acknowledging my love for her that makes my heart beat double time and sets my dark soul to soaring.

I have to tell her. There’s no excuse for keeping it a secret. I want to tell her right now, but I think it needs to be face to face.

I sigh and scrub my hand over my face, running my palm over my short beard.

What will her reaction be?

I don’t pretend I deserve her love. I mean, I know I don’t. I basically bullied her into marrying me after I knocked her up and failed to track her down.

Okay, I didn’t know she was pregnant, but still. I knew I wanted her, and I let her get away. I thought I was being merciful, keeping her out of my fucked up life.

But I see now that I was just justifying my own fucking cowardice. I admit it now, in the car, to myself, I was afraid Anna would reject me.

The streets blur as I think about how that might have gone down. If Anna told me no. If she refused me.

What would I have done?

I shake my head. It’s best not to think about it. Because Anna didn’t reject me. She didn’t turn me down.

Fuck.

When I think of how readily my sweet Rosebud submits to me every single time I touch her, my cock starts to harden, and I have to work to get it to back the fuck down.

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