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)
“You.” I laughed softly, sticking our sweat-slicked bodies closer together. “You did just perform a magical act of coming without any stimulation.”
He chuckled, sending his cock shifting deliciously between my legs. “Oh, I had stimulation, aşkım. I have you in my arms and your heart in my hands. That’s all I’ll ever need to find euphoria.” Dropping his head, he found my mouth and kissed me.
A kiss of gratefulness, promises, and belonging.
I kissed him back, slinking my fingers through his hair and holding on tight.
His cock swelled inside me.
My clit sparked.
Our hips rocked to a time-worn rhythm.
As we lost ourselves and found each other, I thanked the empty ocean around us and the sun cloaking us in gold.
This wasn’t just the place where we’d met.
The sea wasn’t just my playground or backyard.
The day I’d met Aslan in its salty cradle, it became so much more than that. It became our shrine and our sanctuary, a house of prayer and benediction.
“Neri...” Aslan groaned as our thrusting dance became heated and hungry.
I felt it too. Felt the spindling and spinning, the gathering and colliding.
It turned out, we could come just by being inside one another.
That hearts could explode as spectacularly as our physical forms.
And it irrevocably changed me because up until now, I’d fucked Aslan, made love to Aslan, teased and played and seduced Aslan, but this was the first time we’d fallen into a different realm of emotional belonging.
A soul bondage.
A spirit enthrallment.
A silent form of transcended enslavement that could never be undone.
Chapter Nine
*
Nerida
AGE: 17 YRS OLD
*
(Love in Filipino: Pag-ibig)
ME: HI, TEDDY! YEP, HONEY WAS RIGHT. I am cool, and you’re not creepy. What did you want to ask about living under the sea?
Teddy: Hey! Nice to officially ‘meet’ you, even if it is through a screen. My sister won’t stop going on about you. I’ve had your number for a while, but she’s only just browbeaten me enough to make me use it.
Me: Honey might be tiny, but she’s mighty.
Teddy: No truer words have been spoken....Anyway, my partner and I (to give some backstory, my business partner and husband-to-be, Eddie Blackstone, is an architect like me). We finished our degrees and are busy deciding what legacy we want to be remembered for. I’m sure Honey has told you about my goal of creating a sustainable community that’s impervious to disasters, natural or otherwise, and I have to say, I’m intrigued with the idea of building in a different world entirely. Do you think it would be possible?
Me: You’re the architect. You tell me.
Teddy: I think we need to meet and discuss this over a copious number of cocktails.
Me: Sounds great! I should warn you, though, I have an overprotective fiancé who isn’t afraid to make sacrifices to the sea in the form of men who might hurt me.
Teddy: *Snicker. Did he ask you to write that?
“Oh my God. He totally just called you out.” I laughed, looking at Aslan as he finished cleaning the kitchen after we’d made a taco bowl for dinner. We were due to head to the airport in ten minutes to collect my parents from their research trip in New Zealand.
To be honest, I was looking forward to the change of scenery.
I was sick of being inside.
I was sick of Aslan dictating how I spent my holidays, even if it was a necessary chore.
The past few days had been hellish: spent indoors (bleh), on a laptop (double bleh), scrolling through rental listings for somewhere to live in Townsville. I should’ve sorted accommodations weeks ago. I should’ve done it the moment I earned my enrolment for my Bachelor in Marine Science...yet something had been holding me back.
Something named Aslan because it went without saying he would come with me. He’d already given me every dollar my parents had paid him over the past six years, telling me to put it toward our new home.
The amount he’d saved would keep us sheltered for a while.
It was enough to buy his own place (something small and modest with a mortgage), but just like we couldn’t go to many places, he couldn’t do most things others could.
We’d had to come face-to-face with that awful conclusion more times than I wanted to admit as we applied for studios and one-bedroom apartments, knowing we’d have to head to Townsville earlier than I wanted to go house-hunting.
I don’t want to go.
I didn’t want to leave this home where we’d been safe.
I didn’t want to be responsible for Aslan living in a bigger city where the locals weren’t used to him being part of the community, so familiar and protected by a well-spun lie, keeping him invisible right beneath their noses.
Here, he was mostly safe to drive, shop, and exist.
But there?
God, it’s so risky.
Just because he had enough money to keep us housed while I studied, didn’t mean he’d stay sane not doing anything with his days while I was off at school.