Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 132097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 660(@200wpm)___ 528(@250wpm)___ 440(@300wpm)
I think he can feel them too.
His face screws up with need.
Yes. I want to scream it. Yes! Yes!
Instead, I stare up in awe, my entire body locked, overwhelmed with the need to feel him driving deep, scratching the itch he created.
Two halves of the same universe.
Together.
When he pushes in, he groans with such guttural fury I can’t breathe.
“I love you, Pages. But I’m going to fuck you to pieces,” he snarls. I whimper with delight before he rears back and slams into me again. “I fucking love you, Hattie Blackthorn.”
He swings so low it drives me wild, adding friction from his pubic bone.
With every breath, my nipples brush his chest, pulling me into his insanity.
I’m going to come again in minutes.
With him, on our honeymoon, my body knows no limits.
“My wife,” he growls, and the word drops through me like an anvil. “My gorgeous, adorable, thirsty little wife. She fucks like a fallen angel.”
Holy hell.
“Ethan!” I squeeze his cock until I see stars.
My thighs tremble as my legs hook around him, pinching tight.
“Not yet, Pages. Hold on, just a bit longer.” He kisses my jaw, and every muscle in my body goes taut, humming with anticipation.
White noise fills my brain, this need to explode rising every time my heart throbs.
So close.
So embarrassingly close.
He groans into my neck, adding his teeth when he hears me gasp.
“Say my name,” he says. “Scream it when you come for me.”
I can barely nod.
“Now?” I whisper desperately, the word fractured by the riptide in every thrust.
His hold on my wrists tightens, heightening everything.
“Not yet,” he commands.
I suck in a breath and do my best to hold back as his thrusts quicken, his breath ragged.
His eyes glaze with lust, animal ecstasy taking over his face.
I know he’s holding out, trying to stretch this as long as he can.
But we’re not going to last.
Not like this.
It’s unfiltered love that does it in the end.
The romance that breaks us.
“Ethan,” I whisper his name through clenched teeth, unable to hold on, and then I’m arching my back.
I throw myself into him as my core detonates.
Convulsions rock through me in a heat wave so intense it nearly stops my heart.
Then he’s roaring.
There’s a human waterfall crashing down, rasping my name with such fervor, and I blank out, holding on so tight.
We go down together, wrestling the same passion fit.
All I feel is his delicious throb as he fills me, his seed coming for what feels like forever.
In the aftermath, I’m surprised no one passes out.
We lay there, boneless and panting. I’m surprised when he gets up.
“Where are you going?” I ask sleepily.
“Like I said, I have something for you. I was going to get it before, but you distracted me.” He flashes a wicked grin that tells me just how much he minded. “Stay there.”
No worries. A fire couldn’t move me off this bed right now.
In under a minute, he’s back, cradling something that looks like a beautiful old oversized hardcover book. An old leather edition, maybe?
I sit up with my heart in my throat.
“What’s this?”
“Late wedding present. Don’t know if it’s tradition or whatever to do it like this. If it isn’t, it should be,” he tells me.
“Wow, it’s a masterpiece.” I smooth my fingers across the gold embossed leather before I look up sheepishly. “Um, I didn’t get you anything.”
“This is for us both, Pages.” He nudges me, the mattress sinking as he sits beside me. “Open it.”
Slowly, I open it to reveal empty white pages, just waiting to be filled.
A photo album.
A really awesome one.
Not a true book after all, but just as good.
It only takes a second to realize it’s not all blank, I missed something at the front.
There, on the first page, Leonidas Blackthorn grins back.
It’s an old photo in black and white.
Leonidas as a young man with a thick mane of hair.
As I flip through, there are a few more pictures, tracking his life. His wedding. Ethan’s grandmother.
About a third of the way in, the pictures of Leo stop with a final photo of a time I recognize.
I remember when it was taken.
Margot and I are on one side, and Ethan on the other. The old man has his arms around all of us, wearing a sly smile.
Margot and I were about thirteen in the picture, and Ethan a few years older.
He looks just like I remember—devastatingly handsome, cocky, a permanent blue storm in his eyes.
He was giving the camera one of his real smiles that day.
A sweet rarity.
On the next page, there’s a photo from our wedding. Ethan and me along the lakeshore, happy and holding hands.
The water is on fire with the sunset and fiery leaves behind us. He’s looking down at me as I laugh up at him.
“I had the photographer send that one early,” he explains. I’m tearing up. “The first set of photos, that’s the prologue. This is the first chapter of our story.”