Page 88 of Regards, Mia

I can feel his hesitation, but then pleasure overtakes him, and this time he trusts me. His hot seed fills me as he pumps harder and faster, coming with a muffled roar.

He eases out and leaves the room, coming back a moment later with a wet cloth.

“Mia?” he whispers against my heated skin after we’ve cleaned up.

“Yes?”

He tucks me against his chest, rolling so my back is nestled to his chest. His arms wrap around me, and he holds me with a reverence I’m sure I don’t deserve.

“You have my heart,” he says.

CHAPTER 35

A Story I Don’t Tell

Her fingers trail over my chest, chasing the swirling lines. “Which one was your first?”

I take her hand and guide it to the letters inked below my navel that spell out the word LOYALTY. “This one.”

She strokes the letters. Her manicured nails tracing the top of the capital L, then traveling down the bold, gothic font to my lower abs.

I lace our fingers together, stilling her exploration.

“I didn’t even want a tattoo. It was my sister’s idea.” Her mouth is close enough to kiss, and I indulge myself before continuing. “She convinced me to use our fake I.D.s to get tattoos, and then she went with two tiny butterflies on her ankle. I wanted something bolder.”

She pulls her hand free to trace the wings of the eagle covering my pecs. “Which one hurt the most?”

I sigh and lift my arm, showing her the large spider web that spirals out from the center of my elbow.

The tattoo prisoners get to signify their time waiting to get out of jail.

I shift onto my back to put some much-needed distance between us. Touching Mia makes me lose my train of thought,and I need to be clear-headed to answer her questions. Because Mia won’t stop with one question. She won’t stop until she gets the full story. That’s just her. My magnificent Mia always gets to the bottom.

An unbearable heat builds in my chest, a knot of anger burning inside me until it threatens to consume me.

I roll over onto my side then sit up, my entire body aching with frustration and regret.

Then I feel Mia’s hand on my arm. Her touch is a soothing balm, a cool breeze on a hot day, a drop of water to my parched soul.

Her fingers trace the lines of the tattoo that made her ashamed of me. The pain from each of my tattoos is a distant memory, but this one still makes me wince sometimes. That’s the whole point of it. To make me remember.

“Tell me what happened.”

Her voice is soft in my ear, and it makes every wall I’ve built come down.

“It's a long story.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” she says.

A shudder runs through me at the thought of laying myself bare. This is a story I don't tell. No one knows everything. Not even my lawyer. “I don't know where to start.”

Mia's voice is calm and steady, the voice of reason. “Start at the beginning.”

A harsh laugh slips from my throat. She doesn't need to know how our dad abandoned us and we ended up living in a trailer park. A single-wide at first with only one bedroom the three of us shared. We had one bed, but it was enough.

“My mom raised me and my sister on her own,” I say. “We didn't have much.”

That was the understatement of the year. We didn't have a pot to piss in. We didn't have Christmas. We didn't have back-to-school shopping or regular haircuts. But we had each other.

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