Things We Burn Read Online Anne Malcom

Categories Genre: Alpha Male, Contemporary, Sports, Virgin Tags Authors: Anne Malcom Advertisement1

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My hands clenched against the steering wheel thinking about how much I’d been robbed of.

While I was plotting Brax’s death, I absently looked at the town we were driving through. I didn’t see much beyond the darkness and lights as the storm was rolling in yesterday. Plus, I didn’t have the capacity to appreciate the scenery as I was riding toward the woman I thought had abandoned me. I’d come for a confrontation, yeah. But also because I had nowhere else to go. After being stripped bare to show all the things I couldn’t escape while locked up, all I wanted was to go home. Even when I was furious with her, Avery was my home.

In the bright light of day, Jupiter, Maine was fucking charming. There was no other word for it. Right on the ocean, houses dotted sparsely on the coastline, all small, quaint, well maintained. The Main Street was lined with small, unique stores, not a Starbucks to be seen. Everything gleamed with fresh coats of paint, colorful flower boxes.

It was all so fucking wholesome.

Not at all where I thought I’d end up.

But my woman had bought a house there. My pregnant woman.

So that was where we’d be.

Avery

I had managed to pull myself together by the time we parked the car. Kane had somehow got a spot right out front, unheard of even at that relatively early hour. It was almost summertime, which I’d learned was the peak time for tourists to visit. But even when I arrived in the late winter, locals still swarmed to the bakery, all wanting fresh pastries and coffee.

Therefore, parking out front was typically all but impossible.

Unless you were Kane ‘The Devil” Rhodes, it seemed.

I almost jumped out of the car the second he put it in park, not wanting him to do the whole opening the door for me thing. Didn’t want to give him a chance to touch me, to look at me in that tender way. I almost sprinted to the entrance. Unfortunately, I could only manage a brisk walk in my condition, and even that was no match for Kane’s unhurried, long strides.

To my frustration, he made it to the entrance to the bakery first, opening the door for me. I didn’t look up at him.

I was sending all the messages that I wanted space, yet Kane did not give it to me. His hand rested on my lower back and stayed there as we walked into the bakery and lined up. My stomach was in knots. And it was also growling for pastries as the scent of bread, sugar and cinnamon perfumed the air.

Every morning it smelled slightly different, since every morning Nora, the owner of the bakery, would bake something dependent on her mood, or what she was craving at the time. Nora was warm, shy, pretty and friendly. She owned the bakery with her best friend Fiona, both of whom had tried to engage me in more than small talk, tried to befriend me and neither of them had seemed to give up, despite my not-so-subtle rebukes.

It was probably sensible to befriend people in what very well could be my new hometown, especially since both of them were mothers and likely knew more about babies than I did—which was exactly zero—but I didn’t have the strength. I couldn’t answer questions about my life before there. Couldn’t answer questions about my plans for after I had the baby.

Which was one of the many reasons I hadn’t even told my mother or sister about the pregnancy. For the very first time in my life, I’d stuck my head far into the sand of denial, and just now, it was being wrenched out.

I was mulling over all of this as we waited in line, doing my best to ignore Kane and his hand on me. He was looking around, seemingly casual, at ease, just as he had been in the past. But I caught the slight downturn of his lips, the tightness of his shoulders. He was on guard, tense. Whether it was because he was waiting for someone to recognize him, because it was the first time he’d been out of prison and in a public place for months or even if it was because of me, I couldn’t know.

“You the baby daddy?” was Fiona’s first question when Kane and I made it to the counter.

Fiona’s gaze was sharp, probing, wary and vaguely threatening. I’d never seen such an expression on the pretty Australian’s face. She was always warm, genuine, greeting me with a friendly smile. She looked at her husband with a much sweeter smile, one that made me want to look away from all the intimacy in it. Then she gazed at her daughter, who was always in her husband’s arms with utter adoration.

But I’d never seen the woman look even vaguely hostile.


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