Blaze (Virtues & Lies 3)

I head back to the cupboard and grab the small backup box I stashed behind all the other shit.

I’m a fast learner. If I keep her happy, she’s a lot easier to handle.

“You’re being a little melodramatic over a bowl of chocolate cereal. Pour some chocolate powder on top of the plain ones and it’ll be the same thing.” I pour the single serving into her bowl.

“By that stupid logic, you could rinse my Coco Pops in the sink, and they would be as bland as your stupid rabbit crunch.”

“You have a funny way of being grateful.”

“Oh, of course, whatever would I do without you?”

“Starve.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.” She shovels a dry spoon of the cereal into her mouth as I pour milk into her bowl, just enough that at the end she has proper chocolate milk to drink. “I mean, you realise that I do the cooking, don’t you?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t burned the house down.” I slot myself between her thighs as we eat our cereal.

“You’re a dick.”

“That’s what you get for calling me old.”

The smile that lights her face is wide as she looks up at me from her bowl. Raising her spoon to mine, she taps it. “Happy Birthday, Daddy.”

Always unexpected. Always. I’m at a loss for words at the way she’s holding me in her half-lidded gaze. I can barely catch my breath as she cranes her neck to get closer, and I meet her halfway.

Our lips brush, hers still a little wet from the milk and sticky from the sugar. Her hot tongue runs over the seam of my lips with a sigh, and when I open my mouth to hers, the mild chocolate flavour is a welcomed assault with her breathy moan.

Watching her as she kisses me, I let her affection soothe my worry even as I maintain my alertness to everything around us.

I allow her to lick and explore, to suck and bite. I let her take whatever she wants while I indulge in the furrow of her brow as she deepens the kiss, her breaths getting heavier until she has to come up for air.

Eyes remaining closed, she sucks on her lips as she catches her breath. Touching my forehead to hers, I press one small kiss to her mouth and breathe in the languid sigh that escapes her as her eyes open up to mine.

With her cheeks warmed a light pink, she swallows before she murmurs, “I…I…I don’t want anyone to find us. Ever.”

For a moment I thought she was going to say something entirely different, and my heart is racing because of it. It’s just as well because then we really would have crossed a boundary we can’t step back from.

“Come on, Trouble, finish your cereal so we can get back to bed.”

Fleur frowns when I stand and carry on eating my cereal. She almost looks disappointed enough to forget her bowl of pure sugar.

We eat in silence before I take her back up to bed. She waits until I’ve stashed the gun again and I’m lying on my back, my arm sprawled across her pillow so that she can make herself comfortable beside me. And as always, my heart pounds in my chest while she rests her head over it, her leg hitching around the front of my hips like I’m a cushion for her body.

Lying in our silence, I listen to the ocean crash into the rocks below us. Her breathing is still too controlled for her to be asleep, and as I wrap my arm around her to rest my hand on her belly, she presses her lips to my chest with a deep inhale as our child moves around between us.

“No matter what happens—” I kiss the top of her head. “—I’ll always keep you both safe.”

With a nod, Fleur wiggles impossibly closer. Her curves mould to me with her bump almost resting on me and her leg wrapped so tight around me that the heat from her pussy has my dick throbbing in my underwear. I ignore it as I listen to her breaths settle and then steady

as they lull me to sleep with her in my arms.

Chapter 2

CASPER

“Look at it!” Fleur yells from the bathroom.

I’ve stuck her in the bath because she’s on one today. After we went to bed earlier this morning, she slept all of two hours. She tossed and turned before deciding to make me a cake. I haven’t had a cake for my birthday in years, something she seems to think is odd.