Page 76 of Beyond Question

“Travis!” she cries, then she remembers the pillow and drags it over her head, each sound muffled now as I push her closer and closer to the edge.

“That’s it, baby,” I murmur though Paige probably can’t hear me over the heavy breathing, the moans, and the way her body thrashes against the sheets.

Her thighs begin to shake, then her muscles flex, tightening her milky white thighs around my face as I pull her clit into my mouth and suck hard. She bucks, then squeezes… so so close to release.

I sit up and press my hand against her lower belly until I can feel the curling strokes of my fingers inside her, and she makes a new sound I haven’t heard yet, a cry of pleasure I want to hear again and again for as long as I live.

When she tries to get away, I grip her hip in one hand and fuck her with the fingers of the other until she detonates. Her body damn near levitates off the bed when she comes, her back arching and her pussy clenching down onto my hand greedily. Her shin brushes against my cock and it’s so fucking hard… I’m so fucking turned on… my hips jerk forward.

“Shit, fuck,” I curse, bending to lick her sweet pussy as she begins to settle. As she comes down from her orgasm, I fucking rocket into mine. I moan against her cunt as I come, unloading into my pants like a goddamn teenager.

And I don’t even care; she’s too sexy when she comes. I couldn’t help myself.

When she’s still again, nothing but the heavy rise and fall of her chest to confirm that I didn’t send her off to heaven, I slowly pull my fingers free and bring them to my mouth to suck them clean. She tosses the pillow aside, eyes widening as she realizes that I’m sucking my fingers clean.

“Travis,” she whispers, my name filled with awe and… relief, I think.

I lean forward to give her a quick kiss, then nudge her nose with mine, smiling when her eyes drift closed.

I climb off the bed and strip out of my pants and boxers. There’s an en suite bathroom, so I sneak into it and wash myself off in the sink, then soak a washcloth with warm water and tiptoe back out to the dark bedroom. Pausing, at my suitcase, I shuffle through the contents and find a fresh pair of boxers, then step into them—she probably isn’t ready to wake up next to me naked just yet.

When I climb back into bed with Paige, she’s already snoring, so I use the wet washcloth to clean between her legs as gently as I can, careful not to wake her.

I can’t fight my smile as I curl up behind her, pulling her into my body protectively.

I don’t know what awaits us tomorrow, but tonight, I want to hold her while she sleeps, comfort her and keep her safe.

I press a kiss to her temple, then settle my head on the pillow.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Paige

The heat is what wakes me up initially, though I don’t open my eyes just yet. Opening my eyes means greeting the day, and that means confronting my past. But my mind begins to race the second I’m conscious.

Today, I will be forced to reveal all the truths I’ve kept hidden. I will be forced to come clean with my daughter, to tell Bronte the countless secrets I’ve kept from her for the entirety of her life.

All my careful, meticulous planning. All the fail safes I put into place. The way I protected her. From the fake name I picked when I arrived in New York to theunknownscribbled on the father’s line of her birth certificate, I made sure no one could find her.

Even then, even miles away, with an ocean between us, and a new, untraceable name, I was afraid. I’d escaped countless horrors when I fled London, but leaving them behind did not eliminate my fear.

In fact, it only magnified it. My imagination created a larger-than-life monster, who could reach across time and distance to find us. I’d stay awake as long as I could each night during those first few years, convinced that even with the things I’d done to shed my old life, Archer would take her from me.

So I kept Bronte home with me for as long as I could. Homeschooling her myself all day long; spending my nights studying for my degree so that one day I could support us both. Bronte learned all she could from mountains of books and what I could find through homeschooling co-ops, then, astechnology improved, she spent hours upon hours at the local library, thirsty for knowledge. When the money eventually ran out—which it did; twenty-five thousand dollars didn't go far in New York, even in the late nineties—I worked nights while she slept. She was older then, seven or eight years old, and I teamed up with another single mom, watching one another’s children whenever possible.

It worked for a time, and then that mother moved away.

It was in that next year of struggling that I finally got my degree.

Good grief, it’s hot in here. I sigh. It must be at least eighty degrees in this penthouse. I don’t know how Rylan handles it. When I was pregnant, I remember running so hot—

An arm tightens around me, and I freeze.

“Good morning,” Travis murmurs as he nuzzles his face into my hair.

My eyes fly open.

I swallow hard.

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