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Allison calms down, her screams stop as soon as she hears my voice, and then she spins in my arms. She doesn’t look into my eyes or even up at me, though. Instead, she buries her face in my neck, and I feel the wetness of her tears as her body trembles in my arms.
“I’m here, sunshine,” I murmur.
I realize in this moment, as soon as the name slips from my tongue, that I missed calling her that. I missed her body, her scent. It’s only been a couple of weeks since I held her, but it feels like a lifetime ago.
There is noise around us, shouting and crying, but I can only focus on her. Reaching down, I slide my arm around the backs of her thighs and pick her up. I hear a woman’s voice calling out my name, but I ignore her.
She doesn’t matter.
Nobody else matters.
Just Allison.
Before I leave the living room, I carry Allison to the mouth of the hall and look past the crowd of people gathered in the center of the room until I find my father’s gaze. He jerks his chin, a smirk playing on his lips, and I know he’s giving me permission to disappear for a moment.
I would rather do this in a place that doesn’t have such bad fucking vibes, but I’ve fucked in worse places, and I need to be inside of my woman. I was away from her for too long. I’m done with this shit now.
My dad is right.
Allison is my prize.
She always was.
Always.
He and I were both trying to follow some fucked-up tradition that in the end doesn’t fucking matter. And even if this baby is someone else’s, Allison is more loyal than Harlow could ever be. Because Allison would never do, not in a million years, what Harlow has tried to do, not even to her worst fucking enemy. I know her well enough to know that about her.
To her core, Allison is good.
ALLISON
Hendrick carries me into a bedroom, and I try not to think about what could have possibly happened in this room. As soon as he lets me down to my feet and my head tips back, my eyes find his, and all thoughts of where we are, of who is just a few feet away, vanish.
He lifts his hand, cupping my cheek as his eyes search mine. “Whose baby is inside of you, sunshine?”
I almost laugh, because he’s been asking me this, and I’ve been lying to him for weeks. But I don’t need to lie anymore. I doubt he’s going to marry that cunt tomorrow. Sliding my tongue along my bottom lip, I sink my teeth into the corner and I let out a sigh.
“You know it’s yours,” I breathe.
He chuckles. “Yeah, sunshine, I do. You lied, and I know my dad was part of that lie.”
Tears prick my eyes. “I hate myself,” I whisper. “I am a greedy bitch.”
Hendrick hums, lowering his head, and his lips touch mine before he shifts his mouth to my ear again. His hand is still cupping my cheek, his other hand wrapping around my waist to hold me against him as he speaks.
“I wanted to keep you as my whore. Keep a secret family. I don’t blame you one fucking second for what you did, what you said, what you agreed to with my father. I was a fucking idiot. You are not my whore. You are my woman.”
His hand slides from my cheek to the back of my neck, and he grips me there, holding me against him as he deepens the kiss. His tongue slips inside of my mouth as he tastes me, fully, wholly. I missed this, every sensation of him.
Arching my back, I try to get even nearer to him, but I don’t think I could be any closer, not unless I were inside of him, and right now, I would be okay with that. I want every part of him near, inside, or touching every single part of me.
Slowly, he breaks the kiss, nibbling on my bottom lip as he does, but before he lifts his head, he shifts and slides his nose alongside mine. My entire body breaks out in goose bumps at the move.
“Nobody hurt you, did they?” he asks on a whisper, lifting his head a little more.
I know what he’s asking me, and I have no desire to make him wait for the answer. “No, Ace. Nobody hurt me.”
“Aside from me,” he chuckles.
