Total pages in book: 206
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
She was here to pack her room up as she was moving into Tessa’s to help out and would be working between here, Luc’s, and Tessa’s. I offered to help her pack up her room. I had nothing else to do, really. We had a nice afternoon together.
Tommy texted me that afternoon and told me we’d have to wait until the following day to go to the farm. He said he’d be home late and told me not to wait up.
The next day we left to spend two nights up in the hayloft and filled our time, making love, fishing, hiking, making love some more. He’d been sweet and attentive and we avoided talking about touchy subjects. We just took those few days to de-stress and it was mostly vanilla and totally…well…wonderful.
But the next day when we’d gotten back to the city Tommy told me that he had to take off for about a week to clear up some stuff to do with his father. He wouldn’t tell me very much, just packed a bag, made love to me, and then he left. He told me he’d text me daily. He told me his brother was staying at the house while he was gone to keep an eye on things and keep me safe.
I stayed home the whole time, other than hanging by the pool. I baked, I watched Tessa’s boys one day, I played Ms. Pacman, I burned through a half a dozen romance novels on my reading app on my phone, and not much else. Dario and I had a few meals together, but he seemed pretty busy, pretty preoccupied, mostly spent his time in Tommy’s office.
Tommy and I had texting conversations daily. Most of it was just quick check-ins from him. On the fifth night I was in bed and hadn’t heard from him all day so texted.
Hope you’re okay.
Love you.
Miss you. Xo
When I got his message back a few hours later, it woke me up,
Tommy: Hey
Me: Hey
Tommy: Whatcha doin?
Me: Zzz’ing. Dreaming about you. Missing you. You?
Tommy: Send me a pic of your face.
Me: I’ve been sleeping. I’ll look all sleepy and messy.
Tommy: Don’t care.
I snapped a selfie with my lips puckered. Gah! I looked more than sleepy. I looked like something the cat had dragged in. I sent it anyway.
Me: You asked for it.
Tommy: Gorgeous.
I smiled and cuddled into the pillow.
Me: Send me your face.
Tommy: Send me a pic of your boobs first.
I laughed out loud and snapped a picture of my chest with a bit of cleavage and the use of my arms to squish my boobs together and up but I had a tank top on. I sent it.
Tommy: Naked boobs please
I giggled.
Me: I’m not that kind of girl. Send yours first and maybe a dicture (lol) I’ll think about it.
Tommy: Dicture?
Me: Dick picture. LOL.
Tommy: You first.
Then it hit me. What if this wasn’t him? I cringed and thanked my lucky stars that I hadn’t sent a naked picture.
Me: Gimme the code word. So I know it’s really you
Five minutes passed. I started to feel sick. It’d been instant replies up until that point and now nothing. I dialed his number.
He answered. “Tia?”
“Hi!”
“Hey, Baby. It’s late. You still up?”
“I’m so happy to hear your voice.” I started to shiver.
“Me too. Miss you. Sorry I haven’t texted you today yet. Been a bit nuts. I should be home in two, maybe three days, though. Why you up so late?”
“Tommy.”
“What?” His voice changed. He knew something was wrong. “What, Baby. What?”
I told him what’d happened.
“Fuck! Fuck, fuck, fuck!” He growled, “I’ll deal. Go to sleep. Don’t stress.”
“Don’t stress?”
“No. I’m calling Dare. I’ll get to the bottom of it.”
“Kay,” I whispered.
“Tia?”
“Hmm?”
“Love you. Good catch.”
“Yeah. Love you.”
“Save the messages. My brother might need to look at your phone.”
We said goodnight. I didn’t sleep a wink the rest of the night.
Who now? I couldn’t wait until all of this was over, until he got us out and away from the danger.
It was embarrassing when Dario went through my phone in the morning. Him seeing the banter and my silly kissing photo, not to mention the tank top with the cleavage and references to Tommy’s dick. Ugh. He took my phone while we were at the island in the kitchen, perused the messages, his jaw got tight, and then he disappeared into Tommy’s office with the phone. I didn’t hear anything else about the matter and he gave me the phone back and told me to keep being vigilant about messages.
The night before Tommy was scheduled to come home, I woke up to an alarm blaring the house down. Burglar alarm?
I jumped out of bed and threw my robe on and climbed under the bed. There was only the knife strapped, Tommy hadn’t replaced the guns. My heart hammered in my chest and I wasn’t sure if by this point I should be permanently traumatized or starting to get numb to this sort of stuff.