Total pages in book: 46
Estimated words: 44890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44890 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
I glare at a boy who watches her with admiration in his light blue eyes. He can’t be older than seventeen, but I still want to poke his fucking eyes out for staring at her. Who does he think he is to show me this type of disrespect? To look at what’s mine as if he has every right to?
His father seems to understand my sign and scolds him in low murmured Italian words.
“Why is he yelling at him?” my little Petal asks me as she sucks on a grape.
For a second, I’m lost in the way her lips wrap around the fruit before it disappears inside her mouth. Fuck me. She’s like an erotic dream come true.
“Nothing you need to worry about,” I answer her question.
She narrows her eyes. “Why do I not believe that?”
I lift my good shoulder as I whisk her away from the workers’ field of vision. It’s not the season of olives, so fewer are on this side.
Even though Petal’s dressed in a simple floral dress that matches the spring sky, I don’t like that anyone can look at the hints of skin showing through the cloth.
She’s mine and I want it to remain that way. Just mine. I don’t even like it that she learned — or remembered — enough Italian to strike up simple conversations.
Possessiveness. Fucking Google it.
My little Petal leans her head against my good shoulder, her small fingers wrapping around my bicep as we walk in silence.
We have done this a lot since I was shot. Walking, going into the forest and breathing the earth’s scent.
Usually, we spend more time with the workers and my little Petal would leave me stranded under a tree — with her fucking cats — and go help. They try to refuse, but she doesn’t take no for an answer and puts everything into it as she works with them.
Today the cats are with Salli and I’m not allowing her to leave me. I need my dose of her, too.
“I love it here,” she says with a sigh.
“Pretty sure it’s because I’m here that you love it.”
“Stop being an arrogant jerk.” She glares up at me. “Besides, you tried to ruin it for me.”
I raise an eyebrow. “How so?”
“Um...excuse me? You don’t remember making me run in this forest naked and barefoot while you kept shocking the fuck out of me?”
“Admit it, you loved it.”
She huffs. “Whatever.”
“You did love it. Besides…” I run my fingers over her collar and a slight shiver takes hold of her. “You love your collar.”
“I do not.”
“You mean you don’t like how I hold you by it while I fuck you raw?”
She keeps her glare, pretending to sulk, but soon enough, she returns to admiring our surroundings.
It’s genuine, the fact that she likes this place, I mean. She wakes up with a smile on her face and she speaks to her cats in that soft, happy tone telling them about all the fun they will have today.
However, even I know that if she gets a chance, she’ll run and never look back.
It’s not about her job, her friends, or the life she left behind in Chicago; it’s about her father. She’s yearning to meet Paolo and the more I keep her away from him, the more she wants to run to him — and leave me.
The fucker was right. Blood does run thicker than water.
But once again, I’ll be a motherfucking selfish bastard and keep her. Truth is, I can’t begin to remember my life before I saw her at the hospital.
It was a dull, black hole. It was fucking emptiness. And while I enjoyed tracking and carving up fuckers’ faces, it never had a purpose.
My little Petal and I might have formed a connection through the depraved kinks and fantasies, but over time, it’s become more.
It’s become something even I can’t begin to describe.
Don’t get me wrong, the fucked up sex is us. I love owning her body and making her my own tailored slut, but there’s more.
So much fucking more to my little Petal.
“You must’ve had an amazing childhood in this place.” She smiles then winces when she realizes what she said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring back bad memories.”
“Don’t be. This place isn’t tainted. I still have the best of memories in it.”
“Such as?” Her pupils dilate with excitement.
My curious little Petal.
“Such as Nonno and Nonna. They loved me so much, I was their favorite.”
“Always arrogant even as a child.”
I chuckle. “I mean it. Nonna told me stories and Nonno took me with him on walks like these. He taught me the southern Italian ways, to respect elders and to protect the weak.”
“He must’ve been an amazing person.”
“He was.” And he would’ve loved the fuck out of my little Petal. Everyone in my family would’ve. She’s down to earth and kind and tries to make people feel at ease even if her own life has always been ten degrees of fucked up.