Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 90426 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90426 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 452(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 301(@300wpm)
He felt something weighing on his chest, the weight was mighty, crushing him.
“I promised I wouldn’t do that and so”—she held her hands out to the sides—“I’m not.”
“Maxine,” he forced out.
“Satrine,” she corrected gently.
“You are not that,” he whispered.
She nodded. “Maxine knows I’m her, and she’s me. Don’t ask me to explain. I just think she’s in there, somewhere, deep in her head. We don’t give her enough credit. But I’m Satrine here, and not only because I think it will help with any confusion.”
“You didn’t come here to end things with me.” He stated it, but it was a question.
“I came here thinking you were going to end things with me, and ready to beg you not to exit Maxine’s life. I came here ready, no matter how much it would kill me, to promise I would absent myself when you visited. You saved her from that situation in the cellar, and until today, I didn’t realize how deeply she experienced that and depends on you to keep her safe. I probably should have, but I didn’t. So it would harm her, I think, if you—”
“Cease speaking, darling.”
The instant he called her “darling,” her eyes filled with tears.
“I love you to my soul. It’s like you’re a part of me. I’m scared as fuck of losing you,” he whispered.
Her face grew tender. “I can’t tell the future, honey, but right now, I’m right here.”
“Come to me,” he ordered.
“Meet in the middle?” she offered.
“Fuck yes,” he replied.
They didn’t meet in the middle.
They collided there.
She was Satrine, so she went for a kiss.
Instead, Loren swept her up in his arms and began to exit the room.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“Taking you to bed.”
She clearly didn’t mind that, but asked, “Can we kiss first?”
“Not if you don’t want to consummate our love on the parlor floor.”
“I don’t want that, but Loren, we—”
He looked down at her as he took the steps, two at a time.
“You’ve had others.” He grinned at her. “I am the beneficiary of your experience, as you are of mine.”
Her astonished eyes on his mouth, she asked, “You’re not angry?”
“Why would I be?”
“Dudes like virgins.”
“Dudes?”
“Men.”
They’d made his room, and he kicked the door closed behind them.
He then took her to his bed and tossed her on it.
He watched her bounce.
And then he stated the obvious. “I like you.”
She stared up at him.
Then she said, marvel in her voice, “I get to be me with you.”
He tipped his head to the side. “Weren’t you always?”
“Yes, but you get me.”
Her language was much changed, the oddness far more pronounced.
So he “got her” and he loved what he got, because now she could be herself to the fullest.
And he was on the receiving end of that.
“I get to tell you everything. Everything about me,” she continued.
“Yes, you do, and I relish those future chats. Now, may I ravish you?”
She grinned a grin he felt throughout his body.
And she replied, “Absolutely.”
* * * *
Satrine
I held him with everything I had, limbs and eyes and heart, as he slid his beautiful, thick cock inside me slowly.
So very slowly.
Until I took all of him.
Gods, I knew he’d fit perfectly.
Having him, finally, my lips parted, this movement happening against his mouth because he was right there.
Right there.
“The best thing I’ve ever done in my life was try to save some horses from the rain.”
“The best thing I’ve ever done in mine was try to stop you.”
“I don’t know how to ride a horse,” I admitted.
His beautiful eyes right there, so close, widened in shock, before they hooded when he started moving inside me.
Oh yes.
Perfect.
“How about I ride something first, and then we’ll worry about you,” he murmured.
“I’m totally down with that.”
I knew he understood my lingo, even though he didn’t, with the way his head ticked.
But he didn’t miss a stroke.
“You know I love you,” I remarked.
“Not nearly as much as I do you.”
“Totally more.”
“Impossible.”
Gods, this guy was da bomb.
“This is gonna be fun,” I decided.
“Is it not already?”
It so was.
“Oh yeah,” I breathed. “Totally.”
His eyes smiled.
His hips moved faster.
And my sex-god, future-husband, vigilante, badass hot guy from a parallel universe kissed me.
And all was well in my world in a way that I knew, with Loren at my side, no matter what was thrown at me…
In the end, it always would be.
Chapter Thirty
Gossamer in the Darkness
Satrine
Hawkvale
Dalwin Castle
Cottishwell Region
“If you’re nice to Valentine, she’ll bring you peanut butter,” the Winter Princes of Lunwyn, Sjofn Drakkar, known to those close to her (which I now was) as Finnie, said. “And marshmallow fluff.”
“Nice to her and give her diamonds.”
“Or emeralds.”
“Or pearls, rubies, sapphires or gold, she isn’t picky.”
They all laughed.
“They all” encompassed Cora, Circe and Maddie, otherwise known as Lady Ulfr, the wife of the head of the most powerful House in Lunwyn. Her husband, incidentally, being the dude with the kickass name of Apollo. The man Loren had mentioned those weeks ago he was partnered with in some business ventures.