Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116263 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
“Pax,” she sobbed.
I kept one arm looped around her waist as my free hand wound in the dripping tendrils of midnight locks, which were drenched and stuck to her face. I pressed my lips to her crown, my voice the roughest scrape as I murmured, “It’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
She cried harder at my words, and her fingers curled into the fabric of my tee as she clung to me, like I could be a buoy.
Her safe place.
It was the only fucking thing in this world that I wanted to be.
“Pax.” She wheezed it, my name a riddle in the middle of her horror and shock and disbelief. She rose up on her knees and pressed her freezing body against mine.
“I know. I know.”
Except I didn’t fucking know. I had no clue how any of this was possible.
A ferocity beat chaos into my blood, my devotion and fear so intense that it pounded through my bloodstream.
So loud I could hear it booming in my ears.
So hard I could feel it booming in my spirit.
But it was Aria who had always boomed in my soul.
“Tell me what happened.” Getting the question out was close to impossible.
She gave a harsh shake of her head, and she pushed her face up into my neck, her fingers digging into my shoulders to draw me closer, her breaths panting against my flesh. “I don’t want to talk about it. Right now, I need you. I need you.”
Her plea filled my senses.
Sweet and intoxicating.
“You have me, Aria. You have me, just like I have you. I won’t let you go. I won’t let them have you. I won’t let them hurt you.”
Our connection screamed. A howl that echoed through the room.
We began to rock where we were, both on our knees on the bed, taken on a wave, set out to sea. Her lips rolled up my throat and over my jaw until she was panting at my mouth.
Her eyes were open wide.
Eyes that scored on me like the haunting of a dream.
Our bodies quaked and writhed, and her nose brushed mine, and she whispered, “I will never believe that loving you this way is wrong.”
At her words, the last threads of my restraint snapped, and there was nothing I could do but take her mouth in a kiss.
A fucking fire erupted at the contact, and Aria opened on a gasp. Her nails sank into my skin, and our tongues tangled in a fit of greed that I wasn’t sure could ever be sated.
Desperation billowed between us. Tendrils and flames that wound and claimed.
“Aria,” I murmured against her lips, never breaking the kiss, which had turned frantic.
“I need you” rushed out of her in return, and she was clawing at my tee. I edged away so she could pull it over my head.
My hands slipped under her shirt, and I splayed my palms across the silken flesh of her back. I was singed by the cold that clashed with the heat.
“Please.” She fisted my hair as she pushed herself closer.
And there were no boundaries left between us.
No veiled rules that could stand in the way.
No walls left to climb.
Because she was right. This was the way we were supposed to be. I was created for her, and she was created for me.
Our connection was bigger, more profound, than we’d been led to believe. There was no stopping the feeling that swept through like a windstorm, the impact of this touch that glided through our veins.
I dragged her soaked shirt up, and we broke apart long enough that I could pull it over her head and toss it to the floor.
A sharp breath punched from her lungs before she threw herself back at me. She pressed her bare chest flush against mine. Her nipples were pebbled and hard, and fuck, I thought I might die just from the feel of her like that alone.
I groaned, and her name left me on a prayer. “Aria. You’re every dream I’ve ever had. Every vision in the day. Every hope that I’ve dared to have. All of me, it’s yours.”
Chills rolled through her, and she curled her arms around my neck while I threaded my fingers in the drenched locks of her hair, my other arm looped around her waist as I kept her close.
She kept kissing me and kissing me, just as fiercely as I kissed her back.
Sweet hands explored. Riding over my shoulders and down my sides. Nails raked my chest, sending pleasure shooting through my body, and every inch of me was trembling when she reached far enough between us to slip them under the waist of my sweats.
I hissed, and my stomach tightened. “Is this what you want?”
“You, Pax. I want you. All of you, like you promised me. I don’t know how long I have. How long I can run. But I do know that if I get to have one wish, it would be to experience this with you.”