Page 125 of Criminally Yours
CHAPTER 52
Millie
Strike didn’t speak during the hour’s drive. They passed road signs to towns like Kollmouth and St Gabrielous, but she didn’t recognise the names of any of the places.
When they first got in the car, she’d tried to pry his secret out of him. Instead of responding, he’d laughed while waving at Joyce, who sat outside her house in the early evening sunshine, admiring the roses Millie had helped her plant.
Millie’s bright red dress, a present from Liss, tied at the waist, and the hem fell above her knees. She’d paired it with the wristband Strike had returned to her and a silver necklace with a book-shaped charm on the end from her memory box. Strike had gifted it to her on her sixteenth birthday.
Her mum couldn’t shame her for her love of books anymore.
She adored Strike, but that didn’t mean she had to stop loving toxic mafia men who did and said things she’d never want a real man to say. Strike was hers, and he was real. And maybe he’d let her role play mafia boss and wife one day, too. Shechuckled to herself.
“What’s got you laughing?” He side-eyed her.
“Nothing.” He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles.
“Have I told you how beautiful you look tonight?” He pressed a kiss to her wrist, above the bracelet.
“Once or twice.” Her cheeks heated. “Although when I left my room, I loved that you couldn’t form sentences.”
He laughed. “You have a special glow.”
“I feel like a woman, not the girl my family has made me feel like.”
“You’re whoever you want to be. No one gets to tell you otherwise.”
“No one but you?”
His lips quirked. “Only when you let me. In those moments, I’m the one in control, but you’re the one with the power.”
She shivered at the memory of all the things they’d done in the shower that afternoon until she insisted they leave because her skin would be too puckered for their date. “You’re still not telling me where we’re going tonight?”
“We’re nearly there.” Strike glanced at her. She widened her thighs, and his gaze lingered where the gap in her dress revealed her upper thigh. She ran her fingers across the necklace and the V of her neckline, drawing his stare. He tongued his upper lip as he watched her.
“Eyes on the road,” she replied, and he blushed redder than the postbox they passed.
“You’re stunning tonight. Don’t get me wrong, you’re fucking sexy and beautiful in everything?—”
“Even my joggers?”
“Especially those,” he growled. “They hang off your curvy hips. Sometimes when you bend, your top rides up, I see a glimpse of skin, and I make a mental note to run my tongue over that particular spot the next time you’re naked.”
He chuckled when her cheeks heated.
“You see it all, don’t you?”
“I like to think so,” he drawled as he pulled up outside a bookshop in a small beach town. “We’re here.”
He made visual checks of the street before striding to open her door and help her from her seat. As she slipped out of the car, his fingers threaded through hers.
She glanced at the swirling white lettering on the shop’s deep pink sign.Steamy Reads Bookshop. The books in the window displayed everything from illustrated covers to those featuring tattooed, bare-chested men.
“I know this place,” she mumbled. “Every month, they send books as part of their subscription service. I love that they send me a box containing a new free book every month, but I never signed up. It happened even when I moved. I’ve contacted them, but they said it’s no mistake.”
Strike choked. “I have another confession.”
“Seriously?” She stared at him. “It’s good to have secrets, but one of these days, I’m worried you’ll introduce me to the wife and thirty kids you’ve stashed somewhere.”
