Page 137 of Broken

The kids leaving home is chapter one of the next phase in our lives, and I can’t wait to write that story together…

CHAPTER 49

Savio

FIVE YEARS LATER

All of Me - John Legend

“I’m telling you, Claude is beating her.”

My brow puckers at her vehemence. “What would you have me do?”

When she awkwardly scratches her shoulder where her inked wings sit, my attention is well and truly pricked.

Sheneverdoes that. “I don’t know,” she mutters, breaking into my thoughts. “I don’t know what I want to do either.”

Ever since she started a book club, I’ve known it would bring trouble to our doors.

I didn’t approve of it, but with her folks dying in that freak RV crash five years ago, and what with her missing Diana, who died last year, and my mother, who passed this spring, she neededsomething. All three of them were always discussing books, and even though I loved mymaman, it was Andrea who plotted and planned new novels with her while Diana edited them.

Whenmon angecame to me with the idea of holding a monthly book club, I knew she missed the meeting of like minds, and I wasn’t going to stop her. She didn’t have to ask, for God’s sake, this place being as much hers as it is mine, but she knows I don’t like strangers on the property.

I protect what’s mine. This is my home and I make damn sure it’s secure.

I just wish the kids lived with us. I don’t care that they have careers of their own and Roman and Lola are married and are starting a family. That they aren’t under my roof—vulnerablesomewherethat isn’t here—nearly kills me. But I won’t taint them with my fears. I want them to lead their own lives.

When the gaggling hens arrive, I always tuck myself away in one of the sheds. The farm operation here has grown bigger ever since we moved, and we’re producing organic lavender at a manufacturing rate.

I’ll admit to being proud of the standard of our flowers and prouder still that they’re being used to make cosmetic-grade essential oils.

Though I’ve reached the venerable age of 65, it’s my job and I love it.

I adore being in the fields with the sky overhead, the dirt under my boots, my face blasted by the wind, and the sun making me sweatwholesomesweat.

It’s my freedom.

And I want Andrea to have whatever she needs too—that’s my second job in this world.

The first being to protect us, the second to give her everything she desires, and for some damn reason, she wants a horde of cackling women to rain down on us every third Thursday to discuss some book or other.

Because she prepares snacks for the get-together, she washes her hands after outright scratching her wings before piping cream cheese into freshly bakedvol-au-ventpastries.

With one complete, I pop it in my mouth and hum at the heat. “Jalapeño?”

Mon angenods and peers at me under her lashes with a look that still hits me in the balls all these years later. “You like it?”

My jaw clenches because the desire to grab her hair, fist it, and draw our mouths together is a fierce one.

Like she knows, her breathing softens, her eyes spark, and her body changes—she moves slightly, subtly. Twisting toward me rather than the kitchen counter.

A soft yelp escapes her when she places her hand down on the counter, though, and like a siren song I can never ignore, I swoop in and snag her wrist. Raising it to my lips, I track the small cut on her finger, press the digit’s tip to my tongue, and begin the process of licking it clean.

Both of us shudder.

Both of us sigh as her blood hits the soft tissues of my mouth.

When I hear squeaking brakes outside, the desire to draw her to her knees and to pull out my cock is heavy, but I don’t.

---