Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 575(@200wpm)___ 460(@250wpm)___ 383(@300wpm)
I shifted, guiding her onto my lap, her knees bracketing my thighs as she melted into me like she’d been built to fit there. Her hands slid up my chest, her body pressing closer as I kissed her again, deeper this time, slower and more deliberate.
“It’s not just tonight,” I breathed against her mouth, her forehead resting against mine as our breaths tangled. “It’s me and you again, Ari. It’s always been us.”
Her eyes shone as she nodded, her hands fisting in my shirt like she was anchoring herself to the truth of it. “It’s always been us,” she echoed.
The music still played softly behind us, The Fray humming through the room, but the world had narrowed to the space between our bodies and the choice we were making.
It was reckless.
It was forbidden.
It was everything I’d spent years convincing myself I could live without, only to have the brittleness of that lie break the moment I saw her again.
Years, I’d yearned to touch her. Decades, I’d longed for one more night, one more chance.
And here it was.
I kissed her again, slow and unhurried this time, like I had all the time in the world, like I wouldn’t have to somehow sneak her back home tonight and stomach the fact that she had to stay put in that house with that piece of shit man — at least for now, until our plan played out.
For a moment of blissful ignorance, I pretended like everything was already okay, that we didn’t have anything to lose.
And I knew, without a shred of doubt, that neither of us was turning back now.
Same. Same. New.
Ariana
Present
I didn’t know if it was hope or desperation, but whatever it was encompassed us like a storm.
Shane’s hands on my hips were a crack of lightning. His moans against my throat were a pained roll of thunder. His mouth on mine was a frantic whip of wind. I felt his heart pounding through his chest and right into mine like the steady pelting of rain. I held fast to him like a shoreline bracing for landfall.
It was wrong. It was so, so wrong. I was married to another man. That man was Shane’s boss.
But no amount of common sense or logic could stop me now.
Because in the end, it was right — me and him, he and I, this, us. We were starlight and space, water and air, ink and paper.
Strong on our own, unstoppable together.
Drawn into each other’s gravity.
Unable to exist the same way apart.
We weren’t whole without the other.
And some things, no matter how forbidden, are simply inevitable.
It was a symphony of sounds as Shane hauled me into his arms and carried me through his house to his bedroom. It was kisses and sighs, moans and pants, whimpers and whispered promises. The balance was somewhere between frenzied and tranquil, like we weren’t sure if we should rush and seize this very moment before it slipped away, or if we had the time to savor every touch.
It was a wild love, and we held fast to the reins, determined to hold on.
“I wish I could slow this down,” Shane mused against my skin, his expert hands stripping me like he’d done it a thousand times in his dreams. He had me pressed into his comforter, my thighs spread around him, his erection pressing into where I ached for him most. “I wish you could understand how much I’ve missed you, how badly I’ve longed for a redo, how much I’ve tried to bargain with every deity known to man to go back in time and never let you go.”
I kissed him silent as he unfastened the buttons of my silk pajama top, and the groan in his throat when he pressed back on his knees to look at me made my neck burn furiously.
“Fuck, Ari,” he said, voice husky with reverence as his eyes drank me in. I wasn’t wearing a bra, all part of selling the I went to sleep story to Nathan, and now I was exposed for Shane for the first time in decades. “You are so beautiful.”
I flushed deeper. “Not exactly the youthful girl you once touched.”
His eyes snapped to mine, a firm line appearing between his brows. “Don’t.” He leaned back over me, one hand braced beside my head, the other settling warm and sure at my waist. “Don’t talk about her like she’s gone,” he said quietly. “Like she was better because she was younger.”
His thumb traced the soft curve of my stomach, slow and deliberate, like he wanted me to feel every inch of the path.
“This body,” he went on, voice roughening, “has lived. It’s carried years and choices and love and loss. It’s held you through everything that tried to break you.”
His gaze softened, something almost fierce in it now, and then he lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss over my scar. He held my gaze as he let his lips linger, telling me without words that he saw and knew every part of me and loved me still.