Page 12 of The Price of a Promise

A sad laugh floated out of me.I could relate to that statement in about a hundred different ways.“It doesn’t get easier.You just get used to it.”

Axel squeezed his arm tighter around my shoulders.“I didn’t want to start our night with all my bitching.Will you forgive me?”

I grinned up at him.“Hmmm.I suppose there is a way you could make it up to me.”

That heartbreaker smile returned to his face—the type of look that held me hostage whenever he directed this brilliance my way.The type of smile I’d see even when I was dead.“Can I start making it up to you now?”

I couldn’t respond before he scooped me up into his arms with a whoop.I clung to him, giggling and delirious with joy.I was no stranger to the random public displays of affection that Axel loved to put on, yet they never failed to delight.My rolling luggage was forgotten as he tossed me over his shoulder, patting my ass like this might help me stay in place.

“There we go,” he said.Loudly.“Right where I like ya.”

Laughter cascaded out of me.“Oh my god, Axel.Put me down.”People streamed by us, barely registering the ripple in the space-time continuum of the walkway.

“I’m making it up to you.You get to stare at my ass for the next hundred yards.There’s no greater gift, babe.”

I couldn’t even talk for how hard I was laughing.His arrogance was only preceded by his humor.This type of bawdy display would earn us plenty of stern looks and even a vicious dressing-down from my mother if this were happening anywhere near them.But that was one of the things I loved about my boyfriend.

He didn’t give a fuck about the rules of my world.

And I loved flying free in his.

An hour later, we stumbled up the steps of his walk-up, barely able to focus on walking between all the kisses and laughter.I’d laughed more in the past hour with him than I had in the previous two months without him.Further proof that my sanity and well-beingrequiredAxel in my life.

He fumbled with the lock on the door, trying and failing to insert the key.

“Come on, babe.”I snagged his lips in another kiss, tugging at the buckle of his belt.

He drew in a sharp breath, sending me a warning look.Heat pooled in his slate blue gaze, a promise of the passions lurking inside him, waiting to explode the second we got behind the closed door of his bedroom.“Cora…”

“What?”

He stilled, his throat bobbing.Emotion crowded out the heat in his gaze, the entire world around us disappearing until only this moment remained.“I love you, you know that?”

“Of course I know that.I love you too.”

He smashed his lips against mine, a kiss both desperate and hungry.When we broke apart, my lips tingling and entire body electrified, he finally managed to insert the key.

“There we go,” he said as it swung open.

“I was about to call the cops,” someone deadpanned from inside.Damian.He leaned his head back from his position on the couch, laptop in front of him as always.

“For what?Breaking and not entering?”Axel teased, his grip tight around my hand as we came inside.I smiled brightly at Damian, waving with the tips of my fingers.

“Long time no see, Damian.”

“Glad you made it back to our neck of the woods,” Damian said with an imaginary hat tip.

“Couldn’t keep me away.”

Axel shot me a mysterious look.Trace emerged from the hallway a moment later, a reassuring smile at the ready.

“There’s Cora,” he said as he came my way to wrap me in a side-hug.“The only woman who Axel looks at, thinks about, or talks about.”

“That’s enough chitchat, guys,” Axel said.His grip around my hand tightened, and he beelined for the bedroom door.“Got some things to do.See you tomorrow.”

Axel tugged me behind him, and I offered a helpless smile to his brothers.As we stepped into his room, I heard Trace laugh and say, “Right.Things to do.”

The door clicked shut.The muffled undertones of Trace and Damian’s conversation outside faded away as Axel gripped my arms, pinning me with a look that promised he’d devour me.

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