Page 17 of At the Edge of Surrender

Tears blurred and that vacancy throbbed, and I had to force myself to tiptoe into the attached bathroom.

I started to change out of my dress, and a flush rushed over my body when I thought of the man peeling me out of my underwear. How it’d felt to trust.

To give myself over to the pleasure rather than the fear.

Shoving it off, I dragged on a baggy sleep shirt and shorts, brushed my teeth, then eased back out to my bed and crawled under the covers.

Both exhausted and restless.

I lie staring at the ghosts that danced over the ceiling for the longest time, unable to fall into the bliss of sleep.

Then my crumpled heart sped when I felt the movement to the side and shifted to find her standing at the side of my bed.

“Can Isweep wifyou, Auntie Emery?” Her tiny voice was groggy, as if she were still half asleep.

“Of course,” I whispered, and I lifted the covers so she could climb in.

She snuggled in beside me, and I curled my arms around her slight body.

She blew out a contented sigh as she draped her little arm around my neck.

“Wuvyou,” she mumbled close to incoherently before she immediately drifted back to sleep.

Her sweet breaths and her steady heart whispered all around me.

While I clung to her with everything I had, my lips pressed to her forehead when I murmured, “I love you forever, Angel Face.”

FIVE

KANE

Daylight pouredin through the drapes of my bedroom window, and my eyes blinked open as I was pulled from sleep.

I was face down, spread eagle, in my underwear with my head buried in a pillow. Cock still raging since there’d been no way to rid myself of the need that’d stalked me through the night.

Mind and body trapped by the memory of her. By the taste she’d left on my tongue and the chaos she’d elicited in my spirit.

Had taken my all not to go after her.

Not to chase her out that door.

Hunt her.

At least fuckin’ make sure she’d made it to wherever she was going safely.

But there was something about her last request that had left my feet rooted to the spot. Needing to give her anything and everything she was asking for.

Didn’t mean it wasn’t painful.

How the fuck could a stranger affect me this way?

Felt like a hurricane had come through, annihilating everything in its wake. Leaving me shattered, and I didn’t have a fucking clue why.

I didn’t know what it was about her that hadme so spun up. Heart slanting a different direction than I ever let it because I didn’t do entanglements.

Refused to invite in those types of complexities.

But there I’d been, wanting to peel her apart. Unravel all her layers. Or maybe what I really wanted to do was get knitted up in the threads that made up her fabric.

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