Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 91467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91467 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Those were her words when I tried to force the issue. All she wanted now was to find our kids and bring them home and to see the ones responsible pay for what they’d done.
And though she’d break down and cry at least twice a day, I couldn’t fault her for that, or see it as a weakness since I felt the same damn way from the time I open my eyes in the morning.
I switched off the water and threw my head back with my eyes closed and begged for patience. The damn shower hadn’t worked.
Maybe if she’d stayed the same as she had been those first few days back I would be able to control myself. Back then she was like a wounded bird that needed my care.
But as the days unfolded and she came out of her shell more and more, I began to see my woman the way she was when we met. The more secure she felt, the more the fear receded and instead of a victim who needed to be handled with kid gloves, she was a woman on a mission.
She’s the one who’d been locked away, held captive and drugged while her children were ripped from her arms. But I’m the one who now finds myself trying hard to find my rhythm.
It’s as if I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waiting for her to collapse under the heaviness of all that she’d been through.
The Zandi I’ve seen in the last day or so is the Zandi I knew and loved. But how can I trust that? In my mind I still see her crouched in the dark, afraid, alone.
Was she putting up a front for me or was she really that strong in mind and heart? She doesn’t waste any opportunity to tell me that she’s sure we’d find our kids.
She already has it all worked out in her head. As her memory returns bit by bit, she’s convinced that whoever has them doesn’t mean to kill or harm them. As she said, had they meant to do that they wouldn’t have kept her alive all that time just to get her milk.
The more I listened to her the more I started seeing things her way. And for fuck sake, if she could be that strong and clear headed about it after what she’d been through, I’d better get my shit together.
That was all good and well but none of it helped with the problem I’m facing now. We’d laughed together, shared a few tender touches here and there.
Even sat together on the couch with my arms wrapped around her like old times as we pretended to watch a movie. The barriers she’d felt in the beginning were coming down one by one, but was she ready for more?
I left the shower, still moving slowly as I made my way to the bedroom. I gritted my teeth when I saw that the light on her nightstand was on and she was sitting up in bed reading.
She folded the book on her lap as I made my way to my side of the bed. “I know what you’re doing.” My jaw worked as I dropped the towel and hurried between the sheets.
“What?” I folded my hands under my head and looked up at the ceiling. If her eyes went south she’d see my predicament for sure. My fucking dick…
“What am I doing?”
“You’re trying to avoid me. Do you think that I’d think less of you because you want sex?” My head whipped around hard enough to give myself whiplash.
My eyes travelled from her smirking face down to her chest where the short silk robe she wore had fallen open. I swallowed hard and looked quickly away again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Now that she was bold enough to bring that shit out in the open I acknowledged my real fear. It wasn’t so much that I was afraid to fuck her, but more that I was afraid of hurting her.
In the past when we fucked it was never the sweet flowery bullshit people write about in poems. Other than the night I first took her, our wedding night, I’ve not been exactly gentle when I touch her. I want to be, but it never works out that way. Once I get my hands on her, and her scent hits me my dick takes over and he’s a greedy fuck.
It’s been two years. She’s been hurt and even suffered the pain of childbirth without me there. Apart from my worry about her emotional state, the thing that scares me most is losing control once I get between her thighs.
She put her warm hand on my chest and leaned in. “Don’t lie, you know exactly what I’m talking about. I won’t break you know.” I covered her hand with mine and swallowed the bolder that showed up in my lungs out of nowhere.