Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100716 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
I giggle. It is unexpected but very much needed. “She may never forgive us if we set this up. She appreciates her privacy. Greatly.” I use couple terms to certify that that is what we now are. We’re a team. “But I did show her the intercom and gave her a quick rundown on how it works, so she knows how to contact us if the need arises. But she has slept through the night since she was three months old, so I am confident she is out until the morning.” There’s no hiding my pride in my last two sentences. Tillie doesn’t have nightmares because I did everything in my power to keep her sleep restful.
Now Ark has done the same.
I don’t hate him for what he did. How could I? He protected my daughter when a threat presented. I could never hate someone for doing that.
Love is the only adequate word to describe my feelings about what he did.
Ark’s exhale makes heating unnecessary when I slip my hand into his before guiding him out of Tillie’s room. We’re risking a lot spending the night together, but we both need this. We need to close out the world for twenty-four hours again and put the focus and energy we used to fight away our demons on each other.
“Mara… don’t. Fuck,” Ark pushes out breathlessly when a second after we enter his room, I commence removing my clothes. “This isn’t why I asked you to stay. I just…”
I stare into his impossibly beautiful eyes when he struggles to express himself while I unzip my skirt and step out of it.
His chest expands with a big breath when my shirt is the next thing to go. Attraction fires through the air as the heady scent of lust wafts into my nostrils.
My body is drained both emotionally and physically, but as I said earlier, we need this.
I need to express how grateful I am for what he did to protect Tillie, and he needs to know that protecting someone you love no matter the cost doesn’t make you a monster.
“Let us have this. They”—I point to the door I know he checked twice before coming to find me—“can have us tomorrow. But tonight… tonight is about us. Y-you…” I choke on a sob, and Ark is at my side in an instant.
“Don’t. God.” He breathes out slowly, his chest rising and falling faster than his mind works through the words he’s struggling to express. “The thought of you being scared of me. It’s killing me, Mara. I’ll… I’ll never forgive myself if I’ve scared you.”
“Why in the world would I be scared of you? I love you, Ark.”
“Don’t. Fuck,” he repeats. “I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve you—”
I end his lies by propelling onto my tippy-toes and kissing him.
He hesitates for barely a second before he returns my embrace with just as much devotion, love, and respect. Our kiss is soul-stealing, above and beyond anything we shared.
His sacrifice gave us this.
After kissing me so tenderly I feel dizzy, Ark drags his lips down my chin and along my neck before he buries his nose into my loose locks and inhales deeply.
I washed my hair every day for a week, waiting for this moment.
“You smell”—I wait for the praise that always boosts my confidence. I get that and so much more when he finishes his sentence—“like home.”
As we reacquaint our lips, we stumble back until the mattress folds my knees out from beneath me and I fall backward.
Ark catches me with one arm while the other gathers my wrists and pins them above my head. I squirm when the most intimate parts of our bodies collide before I rock my hips, grinding against the girth his pants are struggling to contain.
I barely get in two grinds when Ark’s focus shifts lower. After pulling down on the cups of my bra, he licks my nipples and grazes them with his teeth before his five o’clock shadow tickles the squishy part of my stomach I’ve not been able to shed since giving birth.
My legs scissor when he kisses each little mark Tillie’s growth caused my skin. His admiration is unmissable, and it has me teetering toward the brink of ecstasy.
Ark’s thrilling kisses stop at the edge of my panties. He lifts his eyes to my face, searing me in place with a hungry stare, before he does something unexpected.
He frees my hands.
I keep them locked together and above my head when his focus shifts back to adoring my body. He kisses the bow at the top of my panties before he slowly peels them down my legs.
A tinge of self-consciousness should plague me when he stares at my pussy, but it doesn’t. His stare is too hungry, too admiring, to instigate something as worthless as shame.