Page 110 of Keepsake

“I can see you,” I whispered.

He hummed, satisfied. And then he came down, kissing me softly. “Can you taste me?”

Tears I couldn’t control spilled from my eyes, but I answered him anyway. “I can.”

“Now, can you feel me?”

My hands reached for his shoulders, down his arms, feeling the hot, smooth skin under my fingertips. My shoulders relaxed, my legs opened even more, and I concentrated on the feeling of having him inside me. Like he could read my mind, Alvaro thrusted. I felt his piercing, his cock stretching me, hitting me right in the right place.

“I can feel you,” I told him, the roughness in my voice undeniable.

His thumb circled my pulse, so tender, so careful. “So be here with me. Don’t be anywhere else. Whatever your demons, I’m slaying them for you. I’ll never let you cry. Never let you fall.”

My hands dug to his skin, looking at him and only him. The lines besides his eyes, his full lips. The tension of his arms when pumped into me. The feeling of his weight over my body.

“You don’t owe anyone perfection,” he said. “You don’t need to be anyone but you.”

All the feeling came rushing back to my body, my heart chasing something good. He thrusted faster, my back arching off the bed.

“You don’t belong to anxiety, Jefa,” he rasped to my ear. “You belong to me.”

I came with his name on my lips. He let my throat go and kissed me when he came with a growl right between my lips.

The next day, I gave him a kiss before he went to work, rolling my eyes when Vienna giggled. I ignored Dash’s eyes on me and just finished giving Lachlan his breakfast.

Because he got me.

He said it.

But that was all before I went downstairs and found a letter without postage waiting for me.

It read an address, a time, and that was it.

I knew who sent it, the fear running down my spine with the thought of him in my building again.

My eyes focused on the address and when Michael, the doorman, asked, “Everything ok, Ms. Hart?”

I lied.

“Yes.”

“It’sgood.Youseethat?”

Paddy’s grin was sickening, his eyes scanning the crowd. By the time I arrived, I couldn’t even find a place to park my car. I should have known. I usually gave him twenty minutes heads up, and he found people to gamble. With a twenty-four-hour warning?

The motherfucker packed the house.

The kid I fought last year was waiting for me and all I wanted was to end this fast.

“I want my money as soon as this ends, Paddy,” I said from my place, my elbows over my knees. I preferred to look at the sticky floor than him.

“These things take time, Toro…”

I flashed him a dangerous look. “Don’t make me end you, Paddy. This is the last time.”

He shifted uncomfortably on his feet. “Yeah, ok. Let’s go out with a bang, huh?”

My chest constricted, but I wrapped my hands anyway. I’d lie to her again. She’d take in my knuckles, probably my face and body, and I’d have to explain myself. I knew the excuses. I rehearsed them, but I hated having to lie to her.

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