Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99960 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
“I’ll coddle you just enough,” he promised. Then he smacked my ass playfully, making the hem of my short dress flutter. “Let’s feed the chickens first.”
“Hey, no touching my ass if you don’t intend to follow through,” I grumbled as he led us out of the house to the chickens.
Jared shot me a wicked smirk and I decided right there and then that tonight I was going to torment the hell out of him until he broke and made love to me.
Realizing he’d already distracted me from the news about Ashton’s stepdad, my annoyed glare turned to a tender smile. It was a beautiful day, the breeze a little cooler now that summer was on its way out, and on this farm with this man (who was good down to his soul), I was as far from the darkness of my past as I could get. The news about Andrew’s arrest didn’t change that.
This here was my future, and it was everything pure and real and true.
Jared glanced back at me from the henhouse and paused at whatever he saw on my face. He swallowed hard and took a shuddering breath. Then he strode to me. When he reached me, he took my face in his hands. Leaning his forehead against mine, his breath puffed against my lips.
Then he whispered raggedly, “I love you so fucking much. You have no idea. I’m sorry it took me so long to say, but those words just didn’t seem big enough for what I feel for you.”
And just like that, somehow, miraculously, my life got even better.
I leaned back to meet his gaze. “I love you too.”
His lips crashed over mine, his kiss hungry and desperate and filled with all that love he’d just confessed. I stumbled back as he moved us toward the house without breaking the kiss. My back met the brick wall near the mudroom door as Jared’s hands coasted frantically over my body, like he needed to touch me everywhere and all at once.
I wanted him to.
I never wanted him to stop.
The need to connect was so intense that we didn’t make it past the wall or out of our clothes. On that cool morning with late-summer sun cast out by the shade of the building, my husband and I had hot, frantic sex against our farmhouse.
It was perfect.
I whispered as much as Jared bowed his head in the crook of my neck and shuddered through the aftermath of his orgasm.
He groaned and lifted his head. “I love you,” he repeated.
Stroking the nape of his neck, my right leg still wrapped around his hip, I replied, “I love you more.”
Jared grinned, that wicked sexy grin that made my heart beat fast. “Not possible.”
“You saved me, Jared.” Tears of happiness burned my eyes. “In more ways than one.”
Suddenly, his smile dropped, his expression fierce. “You saved me right back. No man has ever been prouder to call a woman his wife. And I have felt that way long before you were ever in my bed.”
Joy and thrill suffused me. “Really?”
“Aye, really.”
“You should know I knew I had feelings for you when we got married,” I confessed.
“You should know I also had feelings for you when we got married, but I was a clueless stubborn bastard too stupid to realize it.”
I laughed and Jared grinned, pulling me into his embrace. He buried his face in my neck and groaned, squeezing me tight.
“I love you,” I repeated because I just couldn’t get enough of saying it now that I was allowed to.
Jared lifted his head to whisper in my ear, “Tha gaol agom ort.”
I pulled away in surprise. “What was that?”
“Gaelic.” His stunning gaze roamed between my eyes and my mouth. “Granddad taught me.”
“What does it mean?”
“I love you. But a better translation is ‘my love is upon you.’”
Emotion thickened my throat. “That’s so beautiful.”
“Not as beautiful as you,” he whispered hoarsely.
“Say it again.”
“Tha gaol agom ort.”
“Ha g-eul …”
“Agom ort.”
“Ah-kum orsht?”
Jared nodded as I repeated it correctly.
I bit my lip against a cheesy grin. “Your granddad was kind of a secret romantic.”
My husband brushed his thumb over my lower lip. “He loved my grandmother until the day he died. He never touched another woman after her death. Couldn’t even contemplate loving another woman.” Jared swallowed hard, and I realized it was against emotion. “I never truly understood that … until you.”
Oh wow.
“You better call Georgie.” I curled my fingers into his shirt, almost ripping the buttons. “Because you’re going to be late this morning. Very, very late.”
Jared grinned wolfishly and then picked me up like I weighed nothing to haul me into the house.
We didn’t even make it past the kitchen before he was on me. Inside me.
And I made him speak those Gaelic words over and over again as we made love on the kitchen floor.