Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 80564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80564 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 269(@300wpm)
“Hey, you,” she smiles sleepily. She’s still sad. I’ve explained to her what Marcum is trying to work out. We both agree it’s the wisest move we have, but that doesn’t make it any easier. “Any word?” she asks.
“Yeah. Marcum heard back from the Governor an hour ago. The deal is in place.”
“He’ll pardon you?”
“He told Marcum no less than three to four weeks after I turn myself in.”
“What? No! Max that’s a month! You can’t be locked up in that hellhole for a month!”
“Kitten, are you forgetting how long I was in there before I met you?”
“No, I’m not! That’s exactly the reason you shouldn’t be going back in there, Max. I still don’t see why we can’t take off for Aruba like we planned. I know we were worried about what could happen, but I think we’re just letting fear stop us.
“He can’t just do it the day I’m arrested, Tess.”
“Why not?” I give her a look, and she frowns at me, but it stops her lecture. “I don’t like it, Max.”
“Duly noted.”
“When does all this, go down?”
“Tomorrow,” I deliver the word like the sucker punch I know it’s going to be. Tess’s hand tremors and she puts it on her stomach where our child is resting. You can’t tell she’s pregnant and besides her being tired, there are no outward signs, but I swear, sometimes I can see it all over her. It’s going to kill me to be away from her.
“That’s too soon…” she whispers.
“The sooner it happens, the sooner I can come back to you and the baby.”
“You promise this guy can be trusted?”
“Marcum says he can,” I tell her.
“Okay,” she whispers standing up. She walks to me and stops when she gets right in front of me. She gives a smile, which is meant to be naughty, but the sadness in her eyes drowns it out.
“What are you doing?” I ask when she drops down onto her knees and reaches up to undo my belt.
“Making sure you know what’s waiting for you when you get out.”
“Tess…” My hands are caressing her face. This woman is cementing herself inside of me. She’s becoming a part of me, and it’s a part I can’t do without. Her small hand circles around my cock and I watch as she pumps it slowly. I want this, but still… “Kitten, you’ve been feeling bad…”
“I need this, Max. If I’m going to have to give you up for even one day, then I need all the memories I can gather.”
What man could say no to that? Not me. Then again, I’m thinking I could never say no to Tess. Ever.
It’s that sick feeling you have in the pit of your stomach; that refuses to let you go. That fear that threatens to buckle your knees and choke you with each step you take into the unknown. The slamming of your heart against your ribcage, so powerful, it is physically painful and the roaring of your own blood echoing in your ears. That’s what today is to me. Each step I take into the police station is agony.
We started this charade yesterday. This is day two. I’m being questioned as a follow-up to the report I filed yesterday.
“Ms. Oliver,” the portly officer at the front desk says. They know me, of course, it doesn’t even matter that I was here yesterday. Everyone knows me because my face has been plastered on the television. I’m wearing black dress pants, a red dress shirt with matching heels and big clunky sunglasses. My hair is pulled back in a reserved, austere look, and I appear to be every inch the cold legal professional—at least on the outside. On the inside, I’m a freaking mess.
It’s no coincidence that I am dressed almost exactly, the way I was, the day I met Max. That’s my signal to him. I don’t even know if I’ll get to see him today, but I’m hoping. He turned himself in yesterday. Marcum has a cop on his payroll, several really, but this one is a detective, and Marcum and Max decided this would be the cop who would take Max into custody. Detective Slater is a nice, older guy, and he treated Max with the utmost respect. I hope that continued, even after Max was arrested again, but I somehow doubt it. Today, I’m being interviewed, by Officer Slater’s partner; Detective Jake De Luca. He is everything that Officer Slater is not. He’s probably Max’s age or younger, he’s got jet black hair that’s trimmed close at the bottom and neat, a little thicker on the top, but styled so that not a strand is out of place. His body is muscled and well defined, in a way that if a girl wasn’t so in love with Max, she might look and enjoy looking, more. He’s got an Italian-New-Yorker-transplant accent, and his voice is deep. I don’t know how he ended up in Florida, or what his story is. The only thing I do know is that Detective De Luca doesn’t like me—or at the very least, he doesn’t believe me.