AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He could feel her as she came, the wetness increasing, the hitch in her breath. His fingers chased along the sides of her lips, triggering a second, and third, orgasm just because he could, and he knew her body so well. Anne would fucking remember him; he would make sure of it.
William felt his eyes stinging as he pushed into her. The feel of her around him, their connection, made his chest swell, and he closed his eyes as he lifted her legs up and fucked her against the bookcase with every drop of passion he had in him. She shuddered again, clinging to his shoulders and moaning loudly. Her staccato cries were his music.
When he came, he held her more tightly against the books. She gasped and pressed kisses along the side of his face. The pleasure rose up and shot through him, and he groaned deep in his chest and let the sound reverberate through the old store.
When it was over, William slumped down to the ground. Anne reached over to one of the unused cloths he’d been using to dust off books and cleared cum away before wriggling back into her panties and falling back on the floor. William sighed, not wanting to be the first one to speak, and jerked his jeans back on.
“Oh,” Anne said softly.
“Are you all right?” William wanted to smack himself for the concern in his voice. Anne would probably always be a vulnerable spot for him.
Anne sat up, holding something in her palm. He leaned forward, his brows raising as he realized what it was, and then took it. It was his damn ring; it’d fallen off and rolled under one of these shelves.
“Bloody fucking hell.”
“Right?”
“If I’d found this a few weeks ago, you’d still be butting your head against the wall on this case,” William said, staring at the ring. It was his alright. He could see the worn spot. He knew how every groove felt. He slipped it back on. “None of this would’ve happened.”
“Do you wish it hadn’t?” Anne asked.
William wanted to say yes. He wanted to break her heart and send her on her way. But there was no harming Anne for him. Not really.
“I wouldn’t wish away a moment with you.” William ran his thumb over the fleur-de-lis pattern. “I love you, Anne,” he admitted with defeat. “Probably always will.”
Anne picked herself up and brushed the dust off of her pants. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make this harder.”
“It doesn’t get any harder. It is what it is.” William looked up at her from the floor and sighed. “And if you ever change your mind, which you won’t, because you’re bloody stubborn.”
Anne laughed softly.
“But if you do…” William rested his head back against the books and watched her expression for a moment. It would’ve been easier to deal with anger than this resigned sadness. Passion had somewhere to go. Sadness just… faded everything out.
He glanced down at his hands and waited for her to leave. The sound of her heeled boots walking out of his life might’ve been the worst thing he’d ever heard. And there had been men who screamed at night in prison.
Then, William pulled his phone out of his pocket and returned Detective Jeffers’ call.
Chapter Thirteen
Every night since Anne had left William in the bookshop, she had imagined his hands on her body, his arms around her, and his velvet voice whispering in her ear. She’d hoped that by cutting off all contact, she could erase him from her life once again.
But she couldn’t. He was with her permanently this time, in every moment and every breath, and now she would have to live with the ache of loss that she’d created herself.
Work was non-stop. The past few days had been intense work, chasing leads and working together in groups. The entire team had come together, pitching in whatever they were best at. She was still the primary, but for the first time, she was seeing the other detectives look to her with expectation in their eyes. They knew she was making the right calls, and it meant the world to her.
Anne would lose that if they ever found out about William. Or she assumed so. They had been nonplussed in general when she’d told them that she couldn’t go back to him for information, due to the increased risk to him. That was a common bond between the detectives. It was hard to protect a source when things started to heat up, and no one wanted to be the person to get a source killed. In her case, she thought that if William died, she might die as well. Not that she could give up with Michelle and Evie depending on her, so living dead it would have to be.
Anne was pretty close to that as it was. Every day was the same arrangement. Getting up Evie, talking about the schedule with Michelle, leaving Evie with the sitter, going off to work. The sad thing was that it had been this way for years, but only now did it seem as though her life was lifeless. She didn’t even get to see Evie nearly as much as she’d like, often only when she was getting up or going to bed.
