Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 126060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126060 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 630(@200wpm)___ 504(@250wpm)___ 420(@300wpm)
You don’t need to belong with them, Amara. You belong with me. I’m the one who needs you, not them. I don’t belong. Haven’t you noticed? I’m not the same as the rest of them and I make them uneasy. I’ve never minded, but I don’t want you to feel that way. I don’t want you uneasy around me.
How could he think that? Did she make him think it was him? She slid her palms up his chest and linked her fingers behind his neck, her mouth moving under his in answer.
It isn’t you I’m afraid of, Geno. I love being with you, and I’m comfortable with you. It’s the others in your world.
His teeth teased at her lower lip, tugging very gently while his palm curled around the nape of her neck and his thumb swept along her cheek.
Give yourself to me, la mia danzatrice ombra. I swear, you’ll always be safe with me. I’ll make you happy.
There was no resisting him. She didn’t even want to resist him. He was right.
I want you to know you will always come first. Always.
What difference did it make if she didn’t fit in with his circle of friends? With his family? She fit with him.
The council will lose their minds. She felt compelled to warn him.
Let them. I’ll lose my mind without you.
He kissed her gently again and pulled back to look at her.
“My brothers fit with what a Ferraro should be. I made certain of that and still it wasn’t good enough. They both feel as if they need to settle down immediately and start producing children to further the line. Francesca is practically killing herself to give the riders what they need.” He framed her face again. “Not you, Amaranthe. They took enough from you. Your childhood. Your existence. They don’t get anything else you’re not willing to give them. And you won’t kill yourself to give them our babies. Hopefully, you’ll help me persuade my brothers to slow down before they commit to arranged marriages.”
There was acute pain stabbing at him and she doubted he even knew. She detested that Geno hurt the way he did. The pain wasn’t even for himself. This was for his brothers. He felt he’d failed them. She pressed closer to him and daringly ran her tongue along his bottom lip, tracing the curve.
She felt very small and delicate in comparison to his size. She’d never felt that way before. She had very firm muscles, but beneath her skin there was a layer of softness she’d never been so aware of until she was up against the density of his muscle mass. As his head descended, her lashes fluttered, and she veiled her eyes. She parted her lips, and his tongue swept inside her mouth, hot with a hint of spice, making her heart stutter.
She knew she would always be addicted to his taste. To this fire that he created. This was a slow burn that was like molten lava moving through her veins, so thick with desire she could barely breathe. Barely think. Her body went hot with need for him. He set up a craving that was never going to go away.
Amaranthe was overwhelmed with emotion, swamped with it. With the taste of it. Emotion surrounded her, pressed into every cell and bundle of nerves she had. She hadn’t known love other than those first four years of her life with her parents—but she felt it now. Tasted it in Geno’s kisses. There was no way to deny it. She’d never had that feeling, and now that she had, now that it was stamped into her every cell, she couldn’t live without it.
Geno might think he was a brute of a man, but he was a miracle. Her miracle. She hadn’t known love could exist for her. She hadn’t known she could taste it or feel it or become addicted to it. She hadn’t known she could feel that particular emotion, but he must have found a way through his kisses, or his mind, or sharing her cells to teach her, because she knew the growing feeling for him had gone from affection to love, and that made no sense when she barely had spent any real time with him.
You know me. Heart to heart. Soul to soul.
Yes, that was her Geno. He wasn’t just that brute of a man he thought himself. He was her secret poet—the man who read everything he could get his hands on in every language he knew. She melted into him. Wanted to be even closer. Wanted to be skin to skin. This man would be forever her secret.
He didn’t stop kissing her over and over, and she knew his passion for her was the real thing. Straddling him the way she was, there was no denying his body demanded hers. She had feared he wouldn’t want her as a woman. He was fiercely aroused. He wasn’t kissing her with the fiery passion he had before, but this smoldering burn felt as if he was claiming her. Was cherishing her.