Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 188966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 945(@200wpm)___ 756(@250wpm)___ 630(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 188966 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 945(@200wpm)___ 756(@250wpm)___ 630(@300wpm)
“His kisses made me vibrate inside, and I often felt as if I could fly out of my body and explode into light. His whispers of how much he loved me, how much he’d longed for me, had the power to make me sink into a velvety kind of darkness where everything became achingly intense. And when he touched me...truly touched me as a lover would...nothing was between us. Not flesh, not blood, not bone. We were linked on a level that frankly terrified me.
“After all, I was seventeen. I’d slept with one other boy who had no gift at making me feel such things. I cared for Joel, but I never truly understood how sex between two people could erase who I was and make me become something so much more. And...for all my passionate promises that I knew what I was getting into by falling into Aslan’s arms...I didn’t. Not really.”
“Did that scare you?” Dylan asked gently. “That depth of connection?”
“Oh dear God, yes.” I chuckled. “I’d lie awake at night with my heart suffocating at the thought of losing him. I couldn’t concentrate in class without wondering what he was doing. I could barely hold a conversation with my parents at the dining room table without shouting how deeply I was in love and how desperate I was to make him mine.”
“And he asked you to marry him.” Margot sighed. “On the second day you finally began your romance.”
I chuckled again. “Some would say that was far too soon.”
“I wouldn’t.” Margot clutched her pen. “I’d say love was speaking, not societal expectations.”
“I’d say the same thing.”
“So...what happened next?” She bounced in her chair. “Did your parents find your texts? Did they walk in on you with his hand up your skirt?”
I grinned, reliving those dangerous days. “We were diligent about deleting our texts and did try our best not to be entirely stupid. However, those first two weeks were the hardest. I wasn’t lying when I said we literally couldn’t keep our hands off each other. We teased each other by day with texts and innocent-enough photos, exploded in each other’s arms the moment I was home from school, and then spent the rest of the evening with my parents as if nothing ever happened.
“I look back now and honestly don’t know how my parents never noticed. Sure, we thought we were being sly. That the barest of hand holds or lingering looks went unseen. We thought we were invisible whenever Aslan would take the rubbish out, and I’d follow under the ruse of helping. We wouldn’t return to the house for ten minutes, flustered and red-lipped, unable to wipe the satisfied smirks off our faces.”
“How on earth did they not call you out on it?” Dylan asked. “I have a son. He’s fifteen and just learning about girls, but I can already pick out his horny face from his innocent one.”
I laughed. “It helped that Aslan wasn’t a new addition to our household. He’d laid a well-planned siege on gaining their trust with every plate he washed and every chore he completed. If he was spotted going down the corridor to my room, it was probably to place the freshly folded laundry on my bed, not to ravish me against my door. If he lingered in the lounge after my mother and father had gone to bed, it was because he was watching TV, not because he threw a blanket over my lap and sent me to heaven with his fingers.
“You see, the day Aslan saved me from drowning was the day he was given the ultimate faith and trust from both my parents. He could do no wrong in their eyes. I knew my dad kept trying to pay him extra for all his help around the house, and it only increased Aslan’s mystical worth when he refused.”
My face fell as my heart fisted. “I truly wish we’d just told them after those first few weeks. I knew in my gut that my parents would’ve come around after the initial shock had worn off. They would’ve seen how deeply Aslan cared for me. How tenderly he touched me. How his words would dry up and his body would sway as I walked past him.
“It wasn’t just teenage lust driving our midnight fumbling and hastily snatched kisses. It was true love. Everlasting love. A love that lasted their entire lifetime. A love that allowed me to read their epitaphs at their funerals with the wisdom of what they had shared themselves.”
“When did your parents pass away?” Margot asked gently.
I sighed with a twinge of sadness, but it was long enough ago now that I’d accepted they’d had an amazing life, shared most of it together, and got to see all my successes before they went on their next adventure.