Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 113406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113406 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 454(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
The friction was already building again. Fast. Fierce. Wicked. Winding her so tight that she clawed at his back and tightened her legs around him.
“That’s it, baby, scratch me.” Bracken groaned as she did it again, clawing deep enough to mark. Fuck, he wasn’t going to last. All damn day long, he’d thought about nothing but taking her just like this, owning and marking what would only ever belong to him. Her pussy was tightening and superheating around his cock, dragging him closer to coming, causing fire to lick at his skin, course through his veins, and settle in the base of his spine.
As she sucked in a sharp breath and her pussy began to quake, he knew she was gone. “Come for me.” Bracken closed his teeth around her shoulder and bit hard. She screamed, pussy clamping down on him hard, strangling his cock. “Fuck yeah, baby.” He rammed harder and faster, drawing out her orgasm as long as he could. Then he let go, punching his hips once, twice, as he exploded inside her.
They both stayed there like that, panting, shaking, sapped of energy.
When his brain switched back on, he kissed her neck and breathed her in. “Shit, I needed that.” She just hummed lazily. Smiling to himself, he carried her inside the lodge, nuzzling her neck. That got a little purr out of her. “My pretty kitty,” he said into her ear.
She snorted. “If anyone asks, I’m as light as a feather.”
He chuckled softly. “Got it.” Upstairs, he headed into the bathroom, stripped off the rest of their clothes, and shepherded her into the shower stall. As they stood under the hot spray, he soaped her down, hands gliding over her possessively. “So . . . you love me.”
She lifted a brow. “So . . . you love me.”
“You sound genuinely surprised by that.”
She shrugged. “It’s just that, well, I’m not an easy person to get to know.” And a total pain in the ass. “It’s hard to be sure you love someone if you don’t really know them.”
He wrapped both arms around her. “I know you.”
“Kind of.”
“Fuck kind of, baby, I know you. We’ve practically lived in each other’s pockets for weeks now. We’re rarely apart. We’ve talked to each other in a way that we’ve never talked to anyone else.”
“True, but knowing someone isn’t just possessing the facts about them,” she pointed out.
He nodded. “That’s right. It’s learning their strengths and flaws, seeing them at their best and their worst. It’s learning their quirks, habits, mannerisms, and totally useless shit about them. Discovering their hot buttons and how they came to have them. Developing the ability to anticipate what they’ll say or do or feel. It’s knowing how to calm them when they’re pissed or make them smile when they’re sad. Learning what makes them unique and therefore totally irreplaceable.”
He caught her face with his hands. “There has never in my life been anyone like you. And there will never be anyone who could be who you are to me. Not ever. So yeah, I know you. And I can be sure of what I feel for you.”
Madisyn melted into him as he took her mouth, pouring herself into the kiss. Her chest panged. Hurt. But in a good way. “I didn’t just learn a lot about you. I learned a lot about me through you.”
“Like what?”
“I learned that alone had become my default zone. I was comfortable with it. But I didn’t really want to be so emotionally isolated from people. I learned that I wasn’t so highly independent simply because I was a pallas cat; it was also because I was scared of ever depending on anyone the way I’d depended on my parents. Losing them rocked the world, as I knew it. Which is cliché, really, and so I should have seen it. I guess I didn’t want to consciously admit to fearing something as simple as depending on someone.”
She rested her chin on his chest. “I don’t think anyone but you could have made me see all that. You make me feel . . . emotionally safe, if that makes sense. Make me feel that you’d never judge me, never trivialize my worries, never want to change me. Make me feel safe enough to say what I’m thinking and feeling, to engage in a little self-reflection.”
Bracken rubbed his nose against hers. “You are safe with me in every way that a person can be safe with someone.” His chest clenched at the pretty, trusting smile she gave him.
“I know.”
He rested his forehead on hers. “Then move in with me, Madisyn. Or let me move in with you. I don’t want to pressure you. I don’t. But going at your pace is a lot harder than I thought it would be.” Especially since he was used to being in control and directing how things would go. “If you really can’t live here, I’ll accept that. I will. But I need to feel that we’re making a home somewhere, not just sharing the same bed every night.” There was a difference.