Page 58 of Despair

“I won’t ask you again,” he gritted out.

“I’m no one,” he replied. “Just a man escaping the city.”

“Why were they chasing you?”

“I owed money. That’s all.”

“So, my girl killed three innocent men trying to claim their debt back?”

The skipper laughed, and Axel caught missing teeth. But not the kind you lost from old age. The man was maybe forty, no more. He looked in good health. Decent clothes. No bum or hobo.

“They aren’t innocent, believe me.” The skipper gestured to his mouth. “They pulled my teeth out. I borrowed money to fix my boat. Times got tough. I took too long to pay them back.”

“Sure,” Axel said wryly but put the gun away. He wasn’t sold by any means. But he could see the answer wouldn’t be clean.

He was just pissed others were taking advantage of Daisy. Had Flint known this would happen? Still scowling, he sat down next to his girl.

She looked at him strangely.

“What?” he grumbled.

“You said girlfriend.”

“Sorry. Mate, I guess. But no one else will understand that.”

The smile that crossed her lips barreled into his heart. She looked at him with such emotion that he had to smile back.

“You like it when I get all macho?” he murmured to her with a brow waggle.

She blushed and her gaze skated away. “Maybe.”

He grabbed her waist and pulled her onto his lap, then burrowed his lips in her hair right behind her ear and inhaled deeply as they glided over the smooth water.

“I’ll always want the best for you, Daze. I’m not afraid to fight for it.” She squirmed into him, and for a moment, he felt like they were Bonnie and Clyde. The strange thought stuck in his head, and he knew, that if he let it, if he didn’t have Elena in his life to ground him, things could get very messy and dark for him.

He was the kind of man who went all in. And Daisy had the power to get him to do anything. He would kill for her… if it kept her clean. To avoid her crying like she did in the shower. Axel held his face in the crook of Daisy’s neck the entire journey to the mainland. Her sweet feminine scent pushed out the brine in the air and drugged him.

It reminded him of their shower.

It made him dream of more.

A life together. A life with a sister who wasn’t dying. A life where the world wasn’t falling apart. A life where he could take Daisy to a real baseball game and eat hotdogs that spilled mustard over her shirt. And then he would take her home and clean her up. In the shower. More than once.

He sighed and she patted him.

It was still possible. He hoped for that.

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