Debt
Page 35
There’s no one like you. No one.
Mia
Some of the ink on the page is blotted with her tears. I should never have opened this fucking letter. I’m doing the right thing, but then why does it feel so fucking shitty? A year has almost passed and there is still a sick feeling in my stomach about leaving Mia.
I pace around the balcony and punch the stucco wall so hard, my knuckles trickle with blood.
She had to fucking beg.
Alicia Keys – Try Sleeping with a Broken Heart
Another week done at Alea. The job that used to bring me so much joy is now another reminder of the void. Memories of Tax are everywhere. I can’t escape him. He’s imprinted on every part of my life. I know it’s weird I still live in the house where I was shot, but there are so many good memories here too. I am afraid if I move on, I’ll lose some of them.
I enter my house, kicking off my shoes, but I leave the light off like an unspoken wish.
Today has been really hard. It’s the one year anniversary of the day I was shot, the day I learned I was pregnant and lost our baby, and the day I last saw Tax.
I used every last bit of strength I had to keep it together at work, but in the safety of the walls of my house, I give myself permission to fall apart.
I go into my bedroom with my clothes still on, lie in bed, and weep. The heartache is as fresh as the first day. Somewhere in the darkness and tears, I drift to sleep.
In the tranquil haze of sleep is where I am most alive. It’s where I get to see Tax, and sometimes even, our baby.
Tax wraps his arms around me. His warmth, the firmness of his muscles, and his smell cloak me. My sadness lifts away as he fills the void he created when he left. He brushes my hair away from my face, and then wipes my tears.
“I’m sorry babe,” he says, the gentle breeze of his whisper caressing the shell of my ear. “I’m so sorry.”
This is the first time he has spoken in a dream since he left. I had almost forgotten what his voice sounds like: rich and haunted.
“I miss you so much,” I say to him.
“I’m here, Mia.”
He plays with the purple streak in my hair. I’ve kept it in, hoping one day he’d come back and twirl it in his fingers again.
“I thought I was doing the right thing for you. But I can’t say no to you. I just don’t know how to do the right thing by you. I don’t want to keep hurting you.”
“Just be here. It’s all you have to do,” I say.
“You always end up getting your way, don’t you?” I feel his smile against my shoulder, then a kiss.
“Please don’t leave me again. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t keep doing this without you,” I say.
“I won’t,” he says, his baritone voice humming against my temple. “And I never did.”
This is the part where the dream ends.
I always pray it won’t, that when I turn around and reach for his face to kiss him, I won’t wake up in an empty bed with only sobs to fill the silence. Maybe one day, the dream will become my life so I can stop living in this nightmare.
I turn to face Tax, the faint glow of the moonlight and a street lamp allow me to see the brightly colored tangle of snakes on his neck. Before reaching out, I look up towards the stubble on his square jawline, his plump lips, his warm brown eyes, and thick hair rustled against my pillow. I inhale his scent, arousing and comforting all at once.
I stare into his cocoa eyes, trying to take him in one last time, before I wake up alone, before I go back to my waking nightmare.
I reach for his face.
His stubble prickles my hand. His pillowy lips press against my tear-stained ones. His tongue flicks gently against mine, stoking flames that had dampened since the day he left. The taste of his kiss skates across my tastebuds. His strong hand slides up my shirt and grips my hip, as his thumb softly passes up and down against my scar.
I open my eyes.
He’s still here.
Nina G. Jones is the author of the Strapped series and Gorgeous Rotten Scoundrel.
She resides in Milwaukee, WI with her husband and two fur brats.
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Have you read the Strapped Series by Nina G. Jones?
“I fell in love with these characters immediately. And I fell in love with Jones' writing immediately. She is able to ensnare every single sense and light them on fire with even the simplest of scenes and that ability combined with the incredible depth built into these characters and their story makes for a series that stands alone amongst its contemporaries.” - Lightning Room Literary Reviews
“Bottom line , if you have yet to read the series DO IT NOW !! If it was too crazy for you and you gave up COME BACK AND TRY AGAIN YOU WILL NOT BE SORRY!” -Amazon Reviewer
“Wow what a storm of events. I feel like I ran a marathon.” -Amazon Reviewer
By all appearances, Shyla Ball has an enviable life: a loyal boyfriend, a great job, and family that loves her. She doesn't realize how deeply unsatisfied she is until she has an embarrassing encounter with a handsome stranger at a coffee shop. Taylor Holden, a successful businessman, takes a sudden special interest in her and offers her a job she cannot refuse. Soon after, she learns there is much more to this intensely private man than meets the eye. He is hiding many painful secrets, including why it is that he has seemingly plucked her out of obscurity for such a lucrative position. Her "perfect" world is turned upside down by her infatuation towards Taylor and in just a couple of months, her life looks nothing like it did before. While she is frightened by the changes she sees in herself, she cannot resist the lure of Taylor Holden. As Shyla slowly gains Taylor's trust, she learns of his complex history and how it has molded him into the person he has become. When elements of Taylor's secret past resurface and threaten to destroy them, Shyla finds out there may be more to Taylor's story than even he is aware of. Strapped is a story of passion, manipulation, obsession, and family secrets.
Strapped on Amazon
In the mood for some hot, snarky humor?
Check out Gorgeous Rotten Scoundrel, a standalone novel by Nina G. Jones
"Gorgeous Rotten Scoundrel is officially on my top romance list for this year." - Danielle of This Redhead LOVES Books
"I loved this book. Easily a 5 star for me. I love a book where it is written so perfectly that you feel every emotion." - Give Me Books
"Gorgeous, Sassy, Witty, Flirty, Ballsy and Smoking hot.....grab me a washcloth I am ready to give a bed bath!" - All Booked Out
He was a pig, a jerk, selfish, callous, crude, tactless, prone to outbursts and gorgeous. The kind of gorgeous where you didn't even attempt to hide the fact that you were staring. I knew the type: His entire life he has coasted on his good looks, artificial charm, and sex appeal. Everyone wanted to be him or be ON him. I had been hurt by jerks like him before. He was like those guys but far worse.
I was the unfortunate sucker to be offered a gig I desperately needed as his live-in chef for a Summer in the Hamptons. But I wasn't like the other girls--the models and socialites who came through the revolving door of his bedroom. I would bite the bullet, take the job, deal with his sexist comments, his expectation that I would fawn over him, and have no problem letting the door hit my ass on the way out when I was done with the gig.
Then something unexpected happened that changed everything and I realized that there may be more to him than the labels I had affixed to his character. Maybe.
But if he really wanted me, it wasn't going to be easy, not like everything else in his life. He was going to have to work, I was going to make him miserable. He was going to hate wanting me just as much as I hated myself for wanting him back.
Heath Hillabrand: International Supermodel. Womanizer. Gorgeous, Rotten, Scoundrel.