Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77205 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 386(@200wpm)___ 309(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
It wasn’t long, though, before my gaze was drifting behind me. To the wall where I’d propped Millie up. Where she had her leg over my shoulder as I buried my face in her pussy, devouring her sweet taste, finger-fucking her until she was shaking and crying out.
On a grumble, I tossed off the rest of my clothes, and climbed in the shower, reaching down to start stroking my cock, trying to ease the ache that had been at the forefront of my mind since the moment I’d walked into the bathroom to find her wearing nothing but her panties.
When I climbed out of the shower a while later, I was trying to convince myself that it was good she was injured, that we couldn’t get more physical.
Shit was too complicated already.
I still didn’t even know her history, for God’s sake.
Still, as I passed her, stopping to drape a blanket over her body, I admitted to myself that there wasn’t anything I’d wanted quite as much as I wanted her, though.
And I had no fucking idea what to do with that realization.
CHAPTER TEN
Millie
“Millie!” a voice shouted just a second before hands grabbed my shoulders, shaking me until the nightmare finally released its hold on me, making me snap back to the present. “Christ,” Silvano said, eyes wide, chest heaving.
Like he’d run down those steps to get to me, trying to rouse me from the depths of my horror, before finally deciding to just grab me and give me a solid shake.
“Sorry,” I said, hand going to my chest, feeling the way my heart was knocking against my ribcage.
A cold sweat had broken out across my skin, chilling me.
Storm was at my feet, whimpering.
“Bad one, huh?” Silvano asked, moving to sit beside me, his warmth making me want to curl up into him. The most I allowed myself was to lean closer, then reach to pull the blanket up over me.
“Yeah,” I admitted, taking a deep breath.
“Wanna talk about it?”
No.
God, no.
But the fact of the matter was, the nightmares were getting worse. Night by night. The past two, Silvano had needed to wake me up because, apparently, I was screaming out in my sleep.
I’d been actively just trying to bank the memories and worries down, to try to take my grief and put a future date on it.
Clearly, it didn’t work that way.
“Mills,” Silvano said, head ducked, his dark gaze on me. “It’s time,” he said, voice coaxing.
He wasn’t wrong.
I’d been in his house for two weeks already.
We’d both been careful to sidestep the topic of how he’d found me, why I’d been there.
It got easier as time went on, both of us just falling into a rhythm.
In the early mornings, he took Storm out, coming back with breakfast.
In the afternoons, we both went for a walk since my ribs were mostly feeling better. I knew from experience that I still had to be really careful with turning too fast, or trying to lift much, but other than that, I was doing alright enough to start to get out of the apartment.
We often caught lunch on the way to bring Storm home.
In the evenings, Silvano would show me around to his favorite spots in the city. Then let me drag him to see some of the things I’d always wanted to experience. The Museum of Natural History. The Met. The usual tourist attractions.
And we just… actively didn’t talk about my recent past. Though I did tell him details about my childhood, about how my father raised me, and my mom just… never wanted to be a mom, so she never even took me home from the hospital.
We laughed about the stories I told that my father had relayed to me about how he used to bathe me in five-gallon buckets because he didn’t know any better. Or how he kept my hair boy-short until I was almost in middle school because he didn’t know how to take care of anything more complicated than that.
And in turn he told me about how he’d always been made to feel—by his step-father—like he wasn’t part of his family because he wasn’t related by blood. I filled in the blanks there, figuring that had more to do with the whole… mafia thing than just a normal family dynamic.
I could tell by the tension in his jaw, by the tightness in his voice, that it had really taken a toll on him.
And from what he said, it seemed like it had really screwed his relationship with his step-brother too. Until recent times, when it seemed like they’d been working on repairing their relationship.
I learned about his cousins and their wives. Even the kids. And how one of the family members, Brio, would sometimes show up at someone’s door with a new pet for their family.
But we never, ever talked about the woods.