Page 65 of The Air You Breathe

Take it like the good girl you are.Take all of me.

Darcy looked at me and her eyes grew big, as her face turned a beautiful shade of pink. She quickly went to her phone to shut it off.

I couldn’t help but smirk at her, wondering what the hell she was listening to? She fumbled with it for a moment before it stopped playing and looked at her phone like it had betrayed her.

“What was that, Darcy?” I said, sitting down and enjoying her discomfort because she looked so damn beautiful like this.

“Can you pretend that you never heard that?” She was still looking down at the phone averting my gaze.

“Hell no. I will forever remember ‘take it like the good girl you are’,” I teased her. “What were you listening to?”

She stayed silent. I got up to walk to her, grabbing her chin to look up to me. Her face was still adorably red.

“Are you listening to porn?” I smiled at her.

She rolled her eyes at me. “No, it was a romance book.”

“Romance book? That sounded like erotica,” I said, stepping just a little closer to her.

“You obviously haven't heard erotica before because that was pretty tame,” she explained to me. Her eyes widened when she realized her mistake.

“Is that what you like? To be called a good girl?” I leaned down ever so slightly.

“I would rather be spanked,” she exhaled.

I raised a brow, picturing spanking Darcy.

“I’m a pretty good dominatrix too,” she joked.

I laughed.

“Ok, get out of the kitchen while I finish my biscuits and gravy with a chicken fried steak.” She pushed me away and I let her because I wanted food marginally more than I wanted sex. I sat back down admiring her in the kitchen.

“If you need to eat now, I have some pastries from the coffee shop, you can snack on,” she said, laying the steak on the pan to fry it.

“Where did you get the pastries?”

“I went to work this morning,” she said like it was no big deal.

“Darcy, you should have told me that you were going to leave,” I said knowing I was getting upset for no reason. She came back and that was what mattered.

“Both of you were knocked out, there was no way I was going to get you guys to wake up,” she said, continuing to cook the steaks.

“Someone could have taken you or worse, hurt you,” I said, looking out of the windows wondering if she was followed.

“I couldn’t leave Mary. I don’t have the luxury of just calling in and not going to work.” she snapped, and I could hear the anger in her voice. “I was careful, Dev told me he had a gun in his car, so I made sure it was near me all day just in case something happened.”

I wanted to argue with her, get mad at her some more because she didn’t know how much danger she was in. But I had kept her in the dark from all of this, in hopes that she could live a normal life and not one where she would have to be constantly looking over her shoulder.

I tried to give her a life she would be happy with, but all I gave her was heartache.

“I’m sorry, Darcy,” I said, rubbing my hand over my face. It was a loaded apology because I had so much to apologize for.

She didn’t say anything as she cooked. I was about to apologize again when she turned around with tears on her face.

“Darcy,” I whispered, her tears were like a punch to the throat.

“I told you that I would weather the storm with you. I would be there for you on your good days and your bad ones. I would have stuck with you every second of the last three years, but you made that decision for me.” She took a shaky breath. “I fucking loved you Evan, with every breath I took, with every thought I had, and with every moment I was with you and without you.”

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