Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 112069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112069 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 560(@200wpm)___ 448(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
“Did you want to get into the business after that?”
I shrugged.
“Because you do the voices—” Luca began, but then stopped abruptly. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.
And I knew why.
He was remembering the reason I’d started mimicking voices in the first place… to entertain the kids who’d been abducted just like me.
“I try not to think about it too much anymore,” I admitted. I closed my eyes as I let Luca’s strong fingers massage away the tension that had started building in my head as I’d remembered those days. Memories like that had kept me going for a long time after I’d been taken. Sometimes too long. “I should go to bed,” I said drowsily, even as I folded my arms and shifted closer to Luca so I could steal more of his heat for myself.
“Just stay a little longer,” I thought I heard Luca say, but I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that one minute I was listening to the sound of his heart beating beneath my ear and thinking it meant I was probably pressed up a bit too close to him, and the next minute I was slipping into the darkness where there was nothing to greet me but blissful silence.
Chapter Ten
Luca
I’d expected him to be gone by morning.
Not gone gone. Just not sprawled across my chest anymore.
But Remy was pretty much in the same exact position he’d fallen asleep in hours earlier, as was I. I wasn’t sure which was more miraculous… that Remy had let me hold him or that I’d slept for more than a couple of hours at a time.
Okay, so it’d only been like four hours, but sleep was sleep. I’d gone without it for so long that four hours felt like four days in my book.
As good as the rest felt, though, I wasn’t sure there was anything that could match the feel of Remy’s light weight on top of mine or the way his fingers kept reflexively curling into my chest. I still had my hand in his hair and the other was covering the one he had just above my heart. I wished I could see his face from our positions, but it was impossible, and I didn’t dare move him for fear of waking him up. I’d seen enough of the strain in his features yesterday to know he was just as behind on sleep as me. So the only thing I could really study was his hair. It was thick and soft, and I couldn’t even imagine him with no hair and bloody scabs all over his body. He smelled of the hotel shampoo and his skin finally had a little color, though he was still pretty pale. I wasn’t sure if that was just his natural skin tone or something a good percentage of the residents of Seattle had in common… the sun did seem to neglect this part of the country quite a bit.
But not today.
The sun was just rising and though our view from the room was of the west, the sun’s rays were casting a unique symphony of light and dark colors across the sky. It would probably be a perfect day to spend outside.
A perfect day for soccer with my kid.
The warmth I’d been feeling evaporated almost instantly at the thought of Gio lying practically comatose in his bed.
He was alive, but he was as out of reach today as he’d been over the past eight years.
More so, actually.
Remy stirred against my chest and I held my breath. I wasn’t ready for him to wake up yet. I didn’t want to see the regret in his eyes when he saw where he was… and I sure as hell didn’t want to see the hate or disappointment. Because despite him knowing about Gio, I hadn’t expected things to really change between us. How could they? I’d still left him. He’d still suffered terribly because I hadn’t kept my promise to him. It didn’t matter that I’d tried to find him. I’d been too late, and I’d known that was a very real possibility when I’d chosen to leave him to follow the lead on Gio.
And, of course, because fate didn’t think any of that was enough to contend with, I now had to battle a growing attraction to the young man in my arms that I hadn’t been prepared for. I’d been with a decent amount of men since I’d accepted my sexuality in college, but they’d mostly been anonymous hookups in shitty clubs.
The closest I’d come to having a relationship was with a young man who’d come on to me shamelessly at work after he’d been hired in the mail room. He’d been an insatiable fuck who hadn’t wanted anything more than someone to set him up in a nice place that a mailroom clerk would never be able to afford. There’d been no pretending that he was anything more than the gigolo he’d always wanted to be. He’d never sworn his undying devotion to me and I’d never had to pretend I had any personal feelings for him. I’d needed an exclusive fuck toy and he’d wanted to be just that. In exchange, he’d gotten a healthy bank account, a credit card with a generous limit, and an apartment in a swanky neighborhood. When things had ended right after Gio had been taken, I’d made sure the guy was taken care of long enough for him to move on to his next sugar daddy.