Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 207002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1035(@200wpm)___ 828(@250wpm)___ 690(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1035(@200wpm)___ 828(@250wpm)___ 690(@300wpm)
“Do you still love me, Neri? Knowing what I agreed to. Knowing what I’ll have to do?”
She groaned and shifted on my cock. “I love you more. I love you with everything that I am.”
I withdrew only to spear back inside. “I want you to come with me to Turkey. I want to show you my old home and build a new one with you here and there. Everywhere. As long as I’m with you, I’m happy. If you’ve figured out how to live beneath the sea while I’ve been gone, I’ll happily live there. Or if you want to fly away to the moon, that works too.”
I rocked into her, withdrawing until I almost popped out before sinking fierce and fast.
She pressed her forehead against the tiles, wet hair sticking to her shoulders. “I don’t care where we live. Like you told me when I was seventeen, I love you here, there, and everywhere. It’s physically impossible for me not to love you, Aslan. I don’t care what our address is. I don’t care if you’re now some lord of deceit and crime. You’re still you, and I love you.”
I chuckled low. “Does it turn you on? Knowing I have power? Knowing I’m no longer that penniless refugee you found clinging to a shipwreck?” My pumps turned shallower, quicker, riding her from behind as my balls tightened and my blood sang with sensitivity.
“Everything about you turns me on. The man you are now and the boy you were before. Avci and Kara. I love you both.”
I couldn’t get enough.
I’d never tire of her confessing how she felt about me.
I wanted to hear those words every day for the rest of my life.
Folding over her, I wrapped my arm around her chest and fondled her breast. “Good answer. And here’s mine in response.”
Wedging my forehead against her nape, I gave in to her. “I’ve loved you every day of my existence, and I’ll love you every day to my death. I’m never letting you go again, Neri. Never. You’re mine. I’m yours. No secrets. No lies. No more pain or fear.”
Pressing a kiss on her shower-slick shoulder blade, I gave into the devout appetite of my starving soul.
I wanted to consume her.
Possess her.
I wanted to remind her all over again who she belonged to for the rest of our days.
“Sen benimsin, Neri. Sonsuza kadar.” (You’re mine, Neri. Forever).
Words slithered from my mind as I gave in to the carnal calling between us.
My lips pulled back.
My breath turned to grunts.
I fucked her like she was my queen.
I made love to her like she was my ever after.
Because she was.
We were one.
One heart, one soul, one life.
And for the first time in my existence, I didn’t have the cold kiss of a guillotine pressed against my throat. I didn’t fear that she could be taken or horror that I could be stolen.
I was free.
Free in ways I’d never hoped or dreamed for, and I gave this woman everything.
I fucked her hard and deep.
I groaned as she came around my cock, fisting me, milking me, sending me spiralling into heaven.
And when I let go, I roared and quaked and marked her forever as mine.
My wife.
My soulmate.
My home.
* * * * *
“Wakey, wakey.”
I groaned and swatted at something soft poking my cheek.
Comprehension muddied with dreams, doing their best to keep me asleep.
I groaned as something heavy suddenly squashed against my belly followed by a worried whisper-hiss. “No, moonbeam. Don’t touch him when he’s sleeping. He might hurt—”
“Neri?” I blinked and looked down my chest where Nerida lay sprawled sideways over me, her hands locked around a tiny girl’s wrists. A girl with dark eyes, dark hair, pink nightgown, and a stern twist of her lips.
How long had I begged to wake to safety?
How many mornings had I longed to wake with Nerida in my arms only to find the stark, cold walls of a cave?
But now that it’d happened, I fought a dark chuckle.
I was free and back in Nerida’s bed, but this wasn’t quite what I expected.
“Hi.” Neri smiled shyly, still lying over my middle. “I, eh...Ayla tried to wake you up, and I panicked.” Letting her daughter’s—our daughter’s—fists go, she slowly sat up. “I’m used to you being a tad...violent when you wake.”
I sat higher in the sheets and reclined against the pillows. “It’s prudent to protect her from me, and obviously I can’t promise I won’t have another nightmare, but...I’ve lived them all. I have nothing left to haunt me. Nothing else to fear. I’ve let Emre, Jale, Afet, and Melike go. I truly don’t think I’ll wake with that sort of emotional pain again.”
Neri never took her eyes off me. A gleam of wonderful love lit up her blue gaze. “Have I told you I adore you this morning?”
I stretched and drank in my sleep-fuzzy wife. “Have I told you that this is the best morning of my life?”