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)
We’d broken another rule that night after I’d returned home from picking up Italian takeaway. Aslan and I behaved and sat at the table instead of on the couch, doing our best to stop our hands from wandering.
We hadn’t even finished before my fork clattered to my plate as Aslan curled his arm around my waist, pulled me from my chair and laid me on the table where my mother usually sat.
His hands spread my thighs as he dropped to his knees, and I’d choked on a scream as his mouth found my core and his tongue speared indecently deep inside me. He’d snarled and bit, tongue-fucking me to a release with his teeth on my clit and his hands on my breasts, kneading me, pawing me, drinking down my cries before standing up, shoving down his shorts, and dragging me to the edge of the table.
With a look drowning with love, he’d stabbed inside me so savagely, so possessively, my body had tangled with my heart, feeling both adored and used, worshipped and defiled.
That first week my parents were in Fiji had passed in a blur of sex, and I had absolutely no regrets. None. Okay, maybe one. The fact that I’d probably have to buy them new furniture was a very real thing.
When they’d returned, sun-kissed and more relaxed than I’d seen in a while, they’d announced they were only back to change the tropical clothes in their suitcase for thicker cardigans and wetsuits. While away, they’d received an urgent request for data from the University of Auckland on the native orcas down in the South Island of New Zealand.
Apparently, the pod was the only orcas who ate manta rays, and it’d been proven that, thanks to their remote location and different cultures within the matriarch-commanded group, they’d come up with their own chirps, trills, and songs, morphing into an entirely different whale language compared to the orcas in Norway, Falkland Islands, and Antarctica.
The university wanted recordings of those songs to prove it.
As Mum had packed their bags to go, I’d sat on their bed, jealousy pinching just a little. I’d travelled with my parents to New Zealand when I was eleven to help study the native Hector’s Dolphins. The water had been crisp and the weather temperamental, but I’d never forgotten what it’d felt like to have the smallest dolphin in the world stare right into my soul.
Mum had waited until Dad left the room before asking quietly, “Do you want to come, sweetie? You don’t start uni for another six weeks.”
My heart had leapt, and if life was just about me, I would’ve started packing immediately.
But it was no longer just about me.
I had Aslan.
And he couldn’t step foot in an airport, let alone a plane.
The thought of leaving him alone, not knowing if something would happen while I was away, that I might never see him again?
No.
Just no.
I would never be able to leave him, and I didn’t care if that made me stupid or lovestruck. I would rather enjoy every moment with Aslan, tucked up in our garden and hidden on the sea, than travel the world without him.
Eventually, you’ll get your own research assignments.
You’ll be sent overseas for work.
I shuddered.
“Hey...” Aslan whispered, brushing hair away from my sun-pinked cheeks. “What are you thinking about? You suddenly look sad.”
“Sad?” I kissed him. “Not sad.”
“Tell me what you were thinking.”
I hadn’t kept anything from him. I’d always been so honest—sometimes too honest—yet...how could I tell him that I’d happily spend the rest of my life never stepping foot out of this town again if it meant I got to keep him forever?
All my other dreams of travelling the world: of visiting the Narwhals in Greenland and the monk seals in the Mediterranean Sea were incomparable to the biggest dream of all. The dream of marrying him (for real) and creating a world with him.
“I’m fine, Aslan.” I wrapped my hand harder around his erection.
His nostrils flared. His hips rocked into my palm. But his eyes remained worried. They stayed worried as I shoved his boardshorts down just enough to free him, brushed away my untied bikini, and angled him to pierce inside me.
My mouth fell open as he pushed the moment he sensed my heat.
His jaw worked as he claimed me, stretched me, didn’t stop taking me until he’d given me every inch of himself. Only once he was fully seated and our short, shallow breathing matched each other did he bend his neck and kiss me.
He kissed me as he thrust into me, sending coils of need and crackles of electricity through my blood. He kissed me as if he knew where my thoughts had gone and felt the same agony of separation even though we were still in each other’s arms.
He swallowed a growl as he hitched my leg over his ass, widening my hips for him to rock a little bit deeper. “I’ll always love you, Neri. Always.”