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Was he with someone else?
Was he hurt?
I wasn’t sure why I was even asking myself that. I mean I didn’t give a damn, right? Still though, it made for a restless night. His house being in the dead center of the woods didn’t do my nerves any favors. Every little noise had the hairs on the back of my neck rising. I took up sleeping in the guest bedroom because it didn’t feel right being in his room without him.
Rolling onto my stomach, I looked at the digital clock on the nightstand and read the time.
It was midnight.
He had officially been gone for three days. Anger and something akin to sadness coiled inside my chest.
Every day I asked myself the same thing and could never come up with an answer.
Why did I care?
I was woken up what felt like only minutes after I’d fallen asleep by the bed dipping on the other side.
My eyes flew open in alarm. I moved so fast that I would have face-planted onto the floor if not for his arms wrapping around me.
“It’s just me, Rebel.” Pierce cradled me to his chest in an almost suffocating embrace. Pressed against him with my heart racing, I sharply inhaled the smell of cognac and cigar smoke.
“You’re in my home. You’ll always be safe with me,” he mumbled, running a hand through my hair before pulling away.
Was he drunk? I glanced over my shoulder, but the dark room prohibited me from seeing his face clearly. The bed let out a soft groan when he got back up.
The soft ruffling that followed was a telltale sign that he was removing his clothes. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I kept my gaze trained on the back of his head, refusing to ogle the toned body I knew was hidden away beneath his expensive suits.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You’re my wife. You sleep beside me,” he replied curtly.
It was on the tip of my tongue to point out we weren’t married yet and that I’d been sleeping alone for the past few nights, but all I really wanted was to go back to sleep. This wasn’t anything new. No matter what we said to one another during the day, if he was home we always wound up together at night.
“Whatever,” I sighed, lying back down and rolling to my side. A second later, Pierce was pressing against my back and burying his nose in the crook of my neck.
He was definitely drunk.
Pierce didn’t cuddle. Not the real Pierce, anyway—the old one who had fooled me into thinking he was a decent guy for a day or two had.
“Did you miss me?” he asked after an elongated moment of silence. I pretended to be asleep, willing him to do the same.
Go to bed, Pierce. You’re drunk.
Truthfully, I was glad he was. Otherwise, he would know his small touches were enough to make me ache between my thighs and were setting my skin on fire. We hadn’t done anything with one another since the truth came out about who he truly was, and there was no replacing him with my hand–I’d tried that already.
“One day soon, I promise…I’ll tell you the truth,” he mumbled. His weight slightly shifted and eventually his breathing evened out as he fell asleep.
I remained awake, staring into the dark, left to wonder what he else he was keeping from me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Past
It had to be below freezing.
I’d been standing outside for over an hour. I didn’t even know who the fuck I was waiting for. My father woke me up at four in the morning and damn near dragged me out of the house.
He was still trying to punish me for refusing to bury my Uncle Chester.
They’d had a falling out which had resulted in two bullets being lodged in Chester’s lungs.
My father spun some elaborate tale of how it happened instead of fessing up in front of the other men, but I was there. I saw the whole damn thing. My father had killed my uncle over a game of bones. The man who always preached about putting family first had no loyalty to his own. He was a hypocritical bastard.
Feeling like a drug dealer on a dead corner, I moved back towards the shuttered store behind me. A heavy gust of wind blew, kicking snow into my face, pissing me off that much more.
Who the hell did he want me to find?
“Wait for her, and don’t kill her.” That was all he had said before shoving a gun in the waistband of my slacks and kicking me out of the car.
I couldn’t tell him no, just like I couldn’t show signs of pain from the hot oil he’d dumped down my back the night before. One of his goomahs had run to help me as soon as he was gone.
