Page 52 of Mine before Dawn
“No.”
James hauled her tightly against him again.
“So, help me God,” he muttered into her hair, arms crushing around her. “You scared years off me. I was so close to losing ya.”
“I won’t go,” she whispered.
“No, you won't." He pulled back enough to look directly at her, blue eyes blazing fiercely. “Yer mine now.”
The blunt certainty of it should have frightened her. Instead, warmth spread painfully through her chest.
“And so’s t'boy. Both of you are mine now.”
Asha's eyes filled up again. James cupped the back of her head roughly, forehead pressed against hers.
“We stay together,” he said hoarsely. “You won't have another man in this lifetime.”
He sounded a little crazed.
Outside, somewhere downstairs, Mrs. Burton shouted at somebody to stop slamming doors.
The pipes rattled. An ancient bus roared past outside. Life continued around them exactly as before.
And yet everything had irrevocably changed.
***
An hour later James finally went downstairs to collect Tanay.
Asha had fallen asleep curled on her side after the second round. He was rougher than he meant to be but the very ideathat she could have left him with no way to find her made him go a little insane.
He had tugged his shirt over her bare skin first, swallowing hard at the sight of her drowned in fabric that smelled like him. He went slowly, eyes tracing the bruises he had left on her, marking her. Then he tucked the blanket carefully around her shoulders.
For a moment he simply stood there looking at her.
His fiancée. His wife soon, if he had anything to do about it.
Christ.
His heart felt too big for his chest.
The couple who lived just below them were squabbling. He wondered if they heard him with Asha just half an hour ago.
He swore silently that when they had their own place, there would be a separate room for the boy and solid walls between the neighbours. Not a tiny corner bed where they had to bite down on every sound and move around each other like guilty teenagers. No, every one of Asha's moans and shrieks of pleasure would be his alone.
He was halfway through imagining Asha asleep in a bed big enough for both of them when he heard Mrs. Burton calling up to him.
James straightened immediately, trying to suppress his natural response to the thought of Asha. The old witch would see straight through him otherwise.
When he carefully went down to get the boy, she looked him up and down suspiciously.
“I’ve fed t’lad stew an’ bread,” she announced. “An’ he’s had two bloody great slabs o’ cake.”
She sounded deeply offended by her own generosity. James hid a smile.
“Thanks, Stella.”
“Hmph. Off with ya and take the boy. You can drop him off for a bit if he needs watching tomorrow.”
