Things are shifting, I can feel it. She’s coming around. Some of the gifts have been getting used. And as much as I promised Hudson I wouldn’t read her fucking diary, I have been checking to see if she used it again. The latch is loose enough that I can flick through the pages to tell if they have been used.
Which they have. At least twenty pages so far. They typically line up with when she receives a note from Hudson.
I’d give my entire soul to read those words. I can scour the web, every single section of it, to find the information I need, but the only information I want is written in an archaic form that I gave my word I wouldn’t hack my way into.
Privacy.
Fuck that.
Once this girl is mine, she’ll have zero fucking privacy. Nothing will be off-limits.
But not yet.
I need to keep it together a little longer.
Swallowing, I reach for her denim shorts, undo the button at the top, and carefully lower the zipper. Slipping one hand under her lower back, I lift slightly and use the other to slowly tug her shorts down her legs, leaving her in a plain white set of panties with a tiny bow at the center of the waistband.
What color is that? Something light, because it barely contrasts with the white.
Reaching behind my back, I slide my hand behind the waistband of my pants and seek the contents of the hiddenpocket. My thumb grazes over the flat metal hilt until I’m able to slip my thumb into the hole and withdraw my blade.
Lowering to one knee, I lean over the panties and carefully pinch the bow, applying tension until the tiny stitch that keeps it attached is exposed. Then I use the very tip of my blade to nick the thread and separate the bow from the panties.
Straightening, I glance up at Emery’s face and find her hazel eyes staring at me, a V of confusion between her brows. Before she can question my plans for her bow, I set both it and the blade on her desk and grasp her hands, gently pulling her up to sitting.
Without a word, I undo her bra through her shirt, then help her work the straps down her arms, removing it and dropping it to the floor. Her stare burns into the side of my face, but I don’t give her what she wants.
She lies back down, and I find both of her bears and pass them to her, wishing Derek would give Teddy back. Then I draw the blankets up to her chest, tucking them in around her, and take a step back. Scooping up the discarded clothes, then my blade and trophy, I make for the door, but quiet words have me glancing back at the woman who has claimed me.
“Why didn’t you tell me what their plan was?”
“They are my family.”
“Why did you stay with me?” She looks deliciously fragile and lost, hidden beneath her blankets, her words almost too quiet to hear.
My ribs ache. “You never asked me to leave.”
Those big hazel eyes stare back at me, unblinking, as more confusion clouds her eyes.
This girl, she has no idea, no idea of the power she holds over me.
“Go to sleep, little dove. I’ll be here when you wake up.”
I’ll be here always. You’ll never have to be alone again.
Chapter 40
Emery
“Is that a…”
“Yep,” I respond to Oakley’s unfinished question. “That’s a vibrator.”
“He sent you a…I didn’t know they came in that color.” Oakley reaches out and prods the purple box sitting on the dining room table. “And isn’t that…I don’t know, big? Like, too big?”
I side-eye her and remind myself that she is nowhere near as experienced as I am. “It’s larger than average, yeah, but it’s not too big.”
“Is it like, battery-operated? Or do you need to charge it?”
