Page 184 of Sinful Desires
“All I need you to do is have a car ready in twenty minutes. Think you can handle that for me?”
I dragged my tongue along the edge of his ear, then bit down hard enough to make him grunt.
I was so hot that my thighs were already pressed together, throbbing. I cupped his face, leaned in, and licked across his lips. Up. Down. Again.
His tongue peeked out, and I licked that too before sucking it into my mouth.
He was panting now, jaw locked tight.
“Anything for you, Miss Harper.”
I grinned, tasted him once more, and murmured against his mouth.
“Good boy.”
I dropped a kiss on his lips, then got up, turned on my heel, and disappeared up the stairs, dripping satisfaction, my thighs still shaking from wanting him.
Chapter
Forty-Five
“She wore the moonlight like lingerie.”
? Atticus Poetry, Love Her Wild
Théo
The last few days had been a fucking mess.
Ghosts I’d never invited. Feelings I thought I’d buried deep enough to forget. All of it crawling back now, thick in my throat, burning like smoke I couldn’t cough out.
And because of that, I hadn’t done my fucking job.
I should’ve found the bastard who had stepped into Scarlett’s place. Should’ve handled it. Buried it. Burned it out of existence.
But my head was somewhere else.
Back in a room that stank of bleach and regret. Back in a chair beside a man who couldn’t speak my name anymore.
My father was still breathing. Still here. But whatever made him a man was gone. Floating somewhere I couldn’t follow. And that hurt more than if he’d been dead.
After we left the hospital, I’d brought her home.
The house I’d grown up in.
The one I had avoided for years like it was cursed. Every fucking wall echoing with things I didn’t want to remember.
My mother had met us at the front door. Eyes still red, but smiling. She’d hugged me hard enough to knock the air out of my chest, then yanked Scarlett inside like they’d known each other for decades.
“Come,” she said, dragging her straight to the kitchen.
Scarlett didn’t even have time to breathe before the albums were cracked open.
“This one,” my mother said, tapping a glossy photo, “he used to cry if his socks didn’t match. Said it threw off his balance. Dramatic, no?”
Scarlett grinned. Shot me a look that made me want to bite back a smile.
Then came the photo of me at four, standing on the kitchen table in nothing but a diaper and a crooked red bowtie, holding a spatula like I was ready to go to war.
