I paused in my action of sliding a pillow into a clean case. “A beer bottle did that?”
“Yeah.”
“How old were you?”
“Sixteen.” He tossed a pillow in a case onto the bed. “After he cut my face, I beat him senseless. He went to jail, and I went to the hospital to get stitched up. He made bail a few days later. Mom went back to him immediately, and I left town. Never looked back.”
My mouth tightened into a line. “What about your dad?”
“Never knew him.” He looked at me and paused. “What?”
I launched myself at him, tackling him to the bed. He fell onto his back as I straddled him. His hands wormed underneath my shirt and rested at my hips.
“You’re a miracle,” I whispered. “Do you know that?”
“What do you mean?” he asked in confusion.
I worked my lip through my teeth. “When you found out I was pregnant, you could’ve bailed. You didn’t. Now that I know about your past? Jesus, Slash. You’re a miracle. Do you know that?” I cradled his cheeks in my hands and stared deep into his eyes.
He lifted his leg and twisted his body, flipping me over onto my back. He gently lifted my shirt and grazed his lips against my still-flat belly.
“Woman…” He sighed and rested his cheek against my skin.
My fingers tangled in his damp hair.
It had been a perfect day. And an even more perfect night.
Chapter17
“Where did you go?”I murmured in the dark.
Slash’s hand slid up my back as he cocooned me in his arms. “Hmm?”
“When you left town at sixteen. Where did you go? What did you do?”
He didn’t answer right away, and I was afraid he was going to shut down the conversation. But he was finally opening up, and I prayed he continued.
“I was taking an auto tech class in high school,” he said. “My teacher was a good guy, came from a rough background himself. He had a cousin a few hours away who owned a garage. He made a call. I got onto a Greyhound bus with my shit and worked for Mackey for a few years and got my GED.”
He fell silent, and I knew he was done talking about it. Sharing clearly didn’t come easily to him, but he’d unveiled a lot to me tonight. It was enough.
I slipped into a dreamy doze, sated and warm, with Slash’s arms around me.
The sound of shattering glass roused me from sleep. Slash launched himself out of bed as the bakery’s alarm began to blare downstairs.
Woozy and half asleep, I got up and followed him.
“Stay here,” he commanded as he grabbed his pistol from the nightstand.
“Be careful.”
He didn’t reply as he slipped through the doorway in nothing more than a pair of boxers and a pistol in hand. I paced back and forth across the living room floor. There wasn’t a lot of space, so I had to turn around every few steps.
The door opened after a few minutes and Slash filled the doorway. He stood there shirtless with his expansive chest and ink on full display, and for a moment I was distracted.
“Get dressed,” he said.
“Did you find out what happened?” I asked as I moved to the bedroom. I quickly pulled on a pair of jeans.