Freed: Fifty Shades Freed as told by Christian novel Chapter 138

I sense her smile. “If you insist, Mr. Grey.” She nuzzles my throat, once more. “You smell heavenly. I slept on your side of the bed because your pillow smells of you.”

Oh, Ana.

I kiss her hair. “Did you, now? I wondered why you were on this side. I’m still mad at you.”

“I know,” she whispers. My hand moves rhythmically down her back; touching her brings me solace and starts to ground me in the now. “And I’m mad at you,” she says.

I stop caressing her back. “And what, pray, have I done to deserve your ire?”

“I’ll tell you later when you’re no longer burning with rage.” She kisses my neck and I close my eyes and hold her.

Tight.

I never want to let her go.

I could have lost her. She could have been killed by that asshole. “When I think of what might have happened…” I squeeze the words past the knot of fury that’s still lodged in my throat.

“I’m okay.”

“Oh, Ana,” I choke out, and I want to cry.

“I’m okay. We’re all okay. A bit shaken. But Gail is fine. Ryan is fine. And Jack is gone.”

“No thanks to you,” I mutter.

She leans back and glares at me. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t want to argue about it right now, Ana.”

I think she’s weighing my words, and for whatever reason, she cuddles into me once more. She wouldn’t if she knew the truth.

She knows the truth.

She knows me.

The bad seed.

She’s seen the monster. “I want to punish you.” I whisper, like it’s a deep, dark confession, “really beat the shit out of you.”

She stills. “I know,” she whispers.

That’s not what I expect her to say. “Maybe I will.”

“I hope not,” she says, her voice quiet but unwavering.

I sigh. It’s never going to happen. This I know and I reconciled myself to that when she came back after leaving me.

But I want to.

Really fucking want to.

But she left the last time I did.

Now she’s my wife and here we are.

I hug her tighter. “Ana, Ana, Ana. You’d try the patience of a saint.”

“I could accuse you of many things, Mr. Grey, but being a saint isn’t one of them.”

And there she is.

My girl.

I chuckle, and though it sounds hollow, even to my ears, it’s cathartic. “Fair point well made as ever, Mrs. Grey.” I kiss her forehead. “Back to bed. You had a late night, too.” I pick her up and deposit her back on the bed.

“Lie down with me?” she says, her eyes imploring me to stay.

“No. I have things to do.” I reach for my empty glass. “Go back to sleep. I’ll wake you in a couple of hours.”

“Are you still mad at me?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll go back to sleep, then.”