Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117820 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 589(@200wpm)___ 471(@250wpm)___ 393(@300wpm)
I lift my head raising my mouth to receive his and gently we meet. For a while we stay like this, kissing softly, until it gets more heated and our breathing gets more desperate. For a moment there I thought we were going to do soft and gentle but it has become a frenzy of him trying to pull my underwear down my thighs.
He flips us over so I’m on my back and kisses his way down my body. I tug on his hair, stopping when he reaches my stomach and tries to slide my gown up.
“For all my bravado earlier, I don’t really want you up close and personal with my stomach.”
His incredible blue eyes glitter in the dark. “Why?”
“It looks like the inside of a crisp packet.”
At that he laughs until he sees I’m being serious. “You’re worried the part of you that gave life to our kid isn’t pretty enough for me?”
“It’s not my best asset, Kane.”
“It fuckin’ is.” He rips up my gown anyway and kisses below each of my breasts.
When he rests his forehead against my sternum and whispers something, I close my eyes. Unable to watch this moment that was once upon a time stolen from both of us. Flipper never got to hear her daddy’s voice.
“Kane,” I mutter sadly and grab his hair again.
“I feel sick,” he admits. “Knowing she’s out there, not knowing if she’s happy or sad, or if the people who took her would’a taught her shit like we would have.” He sits up, seeming to have lost the mood. “Would have taught her to drive already, she’d have her own quad, would’a stuck her name in sparkly shit on her helmet.”
“Kane,” I repeat, even quieter this time. I rub my hand over his shoulder. “Try not the think about it, it’s maddening.”
“We might’a been young, Immy, but I’d have done the right thing. Wouldn’t have treated her like my momma treated me or yours treated you.”
“I know.”
He inhales long and slow through his nose and I can see his emotions in his eyes like a storm on the horizon. He’s processing but it’s hurting him.
“Come here,” I breathe, grabbing his long hair and yanking. He doesn’t move so I tug harder. “I said come here.”
Finally, he drifts my way, leaning his body just close enough for me to place my lips on his.
“Let’s do something fun,” I say, straddling his lap and massaging his scalp with my fingers. I have missed how soft his hair is. He conditions now, I can tell. It’s incredibly sexy.
“Like what?” he asks, his eyes guarded now and tired.
“Let’s go for a ride.”
“Where?”
“Fuck it, who cares? Let’s just go until we run out of gas.”
He laughs once and grins at me. “Don’t have my car, flew here remember?”
“I’ve got mine.”
“Yours is a piece of shit.”
My jaw drops. “Fuck you. She’s amazing.”
“She isn’t a she, she identifies as a tin can or some shit.”
I throw my head back and laugh for real. It feels good. “You’re a mean boy, Kane Jessop.”
“And you have shit taste in cars.”
“I have great taste in men though.”
His smile is so cocky and arrogant and so entirely handsome it hurts my eyes. “Yeah you do.”
Webber’s Office
“These are all the files I have on that case.” Webber drops the folder onto his desk and looks between us both. “You can’t take these out of here. We have to keep the identity of the other families involved under wraps.”
“That’s fine,” Kane utters as he pores over the first two pages and winces. “This is fucked up.”
“Immy got the kinder side of Righteous Hill.”
“Righteous Hill?” Kane questions, looking up from the files.
“That’s what it was called,” I reply, cringing. “They didn’t have a very creative board meeting before deciding what to name the place that was going to ruin the lives of hundreds of young people.”
Webber hums his agreement. “Still gives me chills the kind of things that went on there.”
Kane licks his thumb and turns a page. “So they sold the babies?”
Webber nods. “Yep. Only managed to locate around fifty percent of them.”
“And there were ninety-something babies born right?” I ask, trying to recall the specific number.
“Ninety-seven in total that we managed to get confirmed. There’s likely more but without the victims and witnesses we can’t know for sure.”
“How much was our daughter sold for?” Kane asks through gritted teeth.
Webber looks at me for reassurance. He’s an agent but Kane intimidates him. Unsurprising. Kane is a force to be reckoned with. Webber is an old man now, he’s in his early sixties and it’s starting to show. But he’s damn good at what he does. Not to mention he is so compassionate. He’s the only person that could get through to me in the beginning. He brought me back to the light when there was no light in my darkness to be found.