was beautiful when he was inside her. Her face, the way she looked at him. But he had taken them without her consent. He didn’t take them because he was into porn, he took them because of her face. Yes, they were having sex, but he needed to see that look. There was no way to describe it, but love for him was there, completely focused, wholly on display.
“I’ll let you know next time.”
“There isn’t going to be a next time, Steele. Get rid of those pictures.”
“It isn’t happening, so drop the subject.” He needed to make that very clear. He didn’t want her to ever sneak his phone and get rid of the ones he needed so desperately.
“You are the most exasperating man, and we’re not done talking about this.”
“I’m done talking about it. We need to talk about things that matter to you. To us. We have to fix us before we get our son back.”
“There isn’t any fixing us.”
There was that resolve in her voice he liked to hear, just not on this particular subject. He studied her face. How had he not seen how young she was? He’d always thought she looked an innocent angel, she still did. So many of the patch chasers had looked hard and used up. It had been her eyes. He’d stared into them enough to know she was old inside. He found himself swearing again in his own language.
“We’ll get him back,” she assured softly, just as he’d assured her. “I know them so well, Steele, they can’t hide from me forever.”
He should have let it go, but her voice was magic to him. His woman. So beautiful and so damned young. “Why the hell did you have to be a child? Do you have any idea how I felt when I found out? The bottom dropped out of my world.”
She nodded. “Actually, your reaction when I told you my age is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. You weren’t very nice. In fact, you were a complete bastard. I realized, when you shoved the money into my hands and told me it should cover the year, that you weren’t at all the man I thought you were.”
“I never once called you a whore, Bree,” he said. “I never thought it and I never called you that. I was shocked and angry and a part of me wondered if Bridges deliberately put you up to it in order to blackmail me.”
“I doubt if Bridges remembers how old I am. It wasn’t like he wanted a child around, Steele. In any case, you know, you’re kicking yourself for something that isn’t even real.” She watched as he put his number into her phone. “In Louisiana, I was of legal age when I was with you. My father gave me to you. That was his consent. I was above the legal age.”
“You were underage.” He knew he sounded terse about it, but he couldn’t go there. Not again. Not in his mind.
“Not in Louisiana. In any case, I was far older. You know the difference. The things I had to do made me older than my birth age, as I imagine happened with all of you. I suppose it would be much like a soldier who goes off, fights for his country and then comes home and can’t walk into a bar. I didn’t think about my age because in my life, age didn’t matter. I could be of use to Bridges by him giving me away. You saved me from all of that. You treated me with respect. For the first time in my life, I knew there was something called happiness. I may not have had it long, but I know I want to find that again and I’m not about to settle for less.”
“Breezy—”
She cut him off. “Just listen for a minute, Steele. At first, I was so scared and hurt that I couldn’t think about anything but how much it hurt and how scared I was. But I was lucky, and I met a woman, Delia, and she took me under her wing. She owned a diner and gave me a job. She helped me get a place to live and my GED. Once I could breathe, I had a lot of time to think, especially at night because I had never been alone before. I realized that year with you was a gift to me. A revelation. Whether or not it was to you