Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
I would watch his eyes go wide with the same terror she must have felt, hear him plead the way she never got the chance to.
I would break every bone that had held him upright.
Shatter the finger that had pulled that trigger.
Tear apart every piece of him that had dared to exist in a world where she could not.
And when it was finally done, when even the memory of his voice was ash scattered to wind, when his name became a curse that mothers whispered to frighten children, when the very ground where he'd stood had been salted and poisoned so nothing would ever grow there again, only then, maybe, would that smile let me rest.
And maybe. . .
just maybe. . .
I would smile too.
Chapter one
Aftercare
Nyomi
I once read in some glossy magazine that lying in your lover’s arms could help you live longer. The article claimed it was about oxytocin, lowered cortisol, and steady heartbeats syncing, all triggering a reduction in heart disease, fewer strokes, maybe even a slower march toward death itself.
At the time, I scoffed.
Not because I didn’t believe in the science.
It just felt like a cruel joke.
I didn’t have anyone’s arms to hold me through the night. There wasn’t a man out in the world that I trusted enough to carry the weight of my baggage and imperfections without dropping me.
Articles like that were for women who already had everything I didn’t—ringed fingers, shared mortgages, steady marriages, or at least boyfriends who texted back.
So many nights, my phone had been my only bed partner, glowing blue in the dark, showing nothing worth staying awake for.
Sometimes the ache of empty sheets swallowed me whole.
But now. . .now as I lay naked in Kenji’s muscular arms, with the furnace of his chest pressed to my back, his skin hot and damp against mine, not even air left between us, his breath sensually feathering the nape of my neck, and his palm heavy and warm on my bare thigh. . .I believed every damn word.
Hell, I felt immortal.
As if my life had stretched its claws into forever simply because this dangerous, impossible man refused to let me go.
My shoulder ached in a steady, obedient throb where a neat square of gauze had been taped over his bite. Edges smooth. No tugging. Kenji had cleaned and wrapped his mark.
Saline.
Ointment.
Gauze.
He’d kissed the skin beside the wound.
The rest of my body tingled too—muscles trembling faintly, pussy sore from everything his cock had demanded.
And yet the erotic discomfort felt holy, not destructive. It was the kind of pain that said I was alive, claimed, tended to. That I had given and been given to.
That maybe forever wasn’t just for other people.
Kenji’s muscular hold was warmth pressed along my spine, a cage as much as a comfort, his thigh braced between mine, his heartbeat drumming slow into my back like a second pulse.
His scent wrapped around me too—smoked sandalwood and candied ginger.
Fiery, warm, and sweet.
Wood left to smolder.
Sugar just starting to burn.
Heady.
Decadent.
Slipping down my throat like forbidden liquor.
Each exhale made my body soften deeper into his.
His every inhale pressed me tighter into the wall of his abs, as they rose and fell against my spine.
In fact, breathing him in was just another form of being consumed—heat sliding into my lungs, his skin fusing with mine, as if no border between us existed anymore.
His cock pressed up against my ass, heavy and unapologetic. The pierced tip tickled me sometimes when he shifted. It was a teasing brush that sent sparks through the soreness already between my thighs.
It was also a promise of an orgasm he hadn’t even given me yet.
His balls rested against me too, warm and heavy, a silken drag of heat that made me crave him.
His body was a fortress wrapped around me, all walls, gates, and unbreakable stone, and yet inside those walls I had never felt freer. The heat of his cock pressed to my ass, the heavy drag of his balls against me—those were the anchors that told me eternity wasn’t some faraway horizon measured in clocks or calendars.
Eternity was touch.
It was the way his sweat still slicked our skin together, sealing me to him like mortar between bricks.
It was the way his breath moved over my ear, rough and steady, a sound I could live inside of and never get bored with.
It was the sensual ache of the bite he’d branded into my shoulder.
Forever was built out of flesh and pulse, out of the shiver that traveled my spine every time his pierced tip nudged me.
Forever was not endless days.
It was skin against skin.
His hunger carved into me, my surrender etched into him.
The salt of his skin clung to my lips where I’d kissed his wrist before we went to bed, double checking that I hadn’t cuffed him too tight when we played in the water.