Page 42 of Dirty Little Vow
“I don’t know yet, baby. It’s all pretty fucking raw right now. I literally feared you were dead hours ago. If you make me answer that question right now, the answer will be nothing but bloody. I need you to just give me tonight, to just be with you. Can you do that? Can you give me that?”
“I was scared, too. They threatened you to get me to do what they wanted me to do. So I get it. I do. I want this over, but for good.”
“And it will be. Of that, you have my word.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Tyler
I wake to the sun breaking through an uneven curtain panel, with Bella nuzzled to my side, and a sloppy puppy kiss on my face. I can’t help but smile, which in itself is a testament to not only how my life has changed but how I have changed. After the bullshit that went down yesterday, I should be an asshole and a scowl mixed together to make a monster, but I don’t feel weaker because of this softer side of me Bella has created.
I meant what I said to Knox Allen last night.
He’s made an enemy of me, one with a reason to hurt him. I’m not about games like my father.
Bella shifts and blinks up at me. I kiss her and smooth her hair from her face. “Rest, baby. I’m just going to take Molly out.”
Her eyes fill with tenderness. “Do you know how much that makes me love you?”
I chuckle. “I’m glad it does.” I try to move away, and she catches my arm and says, “You’re a really good doggy dad.”
Molly whines. “I better go prove that to be true.”
She smiles and releases me.
I stand to pull on my pajama bottoms, and Bella says, “And you have a great ass.”
Now she’s just trying to take my morning wood to a whole new level. I glance over my shoulder. “Show me when I get back.”
She’s sitting up now, the sheet to her chest. “I will. You better hurry. It’s eight already. I know Allie. She’ll hear what happened and be over any minute.”
She’s right. That is exactly how Allie rolls. “Way to ruin all my plans to come back to bed.” I motion to Molly. “Come on, girl.”
A few minutes later, it’s like déjà vu from yesterday morning. I’ve just finished putting the chocolate coffee on to brew when Bella appears in her robe and slippers. “Feels like yesterday, doesn’t it?” she asks, her mood a bit more somber than when we woke up.
“Except I’m not letting you out of my sight today.”
“I can live with that,” she says, wrapping her arms around me. “I feel a little weird today, like this out-of-body kind of strange feeling. Like yesterday didn’t really happen.”
Because she could have died, I think, her use of the word “killer” to describe Oliver, knifing through me.
“Which is why we’re going to the office and acting like we’re unaffected,” she adds. “Like we have a plan we don’t have yet. Also, Dash and Allie will be here in forty-five minutes, so we need to go shower. I suggest we save time and do it together.”
I won’t turn down a chance to be wet and naked with Bella, but the rest of what she’s just said is another story. “Staying home today does not make us look weak, Bella. It might actually make us appear like we’re up to something.”
“I think we should go to work, Tyler. I think we look stronger that way. You, especially. You can’t come off like a woman makes you weak.”
“The last thing that man believes right now is that I’m weak because of you, Bella. I made my point clear. He touched you. He made an enemy.”
“You keep saying that, Tyler.” She eases back to study me. “What does that mean?”
“I laid in bed last night and thought about just that. I assumed my father pointed me toward the Allen family to threaten me, but maybe I wasn’t reading the puzzle correctly.”
“Meaning what?”
“Maybe it wasn’t a threat but a warning in his demented way of communicating. The Allen family is as good as a mob family. We represented them. My father did something dirty to get one of them out of murder, and they tried to hold him captive. He, in turn, held them captive. Now, he’s gone—”
“And they want to do the same to you.”