Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
A tingle spreads in my abdomen and up into my chest, and I arch up into his body in an attempt to be closer. All our clothes are in the way, but this time, it’s not for a chase of pleasure. It’s for a feeling, a connection, an intimacy that can’t be replicated.
A thought pops into my head, and I can’t stop my cheek from lifting as my mouth curves upward. “Clay, I’m actually really scared…”
His eyebrows knit together in concern, and I tilt my head to the side as I finish. “I’m scared if you don’t make love to me right now, a werewolf or a vampire may appear in this forest and steal me away to be his lifelong mate right out from under your nose.”
Clay chuckles then, grabbing my hips and pulling me down the bed so suddenly I gasp. “No Pattinson or Lautner kid is stealing my girl.”
“Wait…what?” I giggle. “You know Twilight?”
“It was part of the husband training course I took.”
I outright cackle. “Oh my God!”
He winks. “It was on TV in a marathon one day. What can I say? I got sucked in.”
A snort escapes my nose. “You’re so punny.”
“I get it, you know, the whole plot. Some say it’s unbelievable, but I’d totally fight a war over you.”
I smile and shake my head. “Take off our pants and get up here already.”
“That might be my favorite thing you’ve ever said to me.”
I can’t hide my enthusiastic grin as he undoes his belt and shoves his pants down his legs, taking the black boxer briefs I know he wears with them, and then comes back to me to roll my blue dress up from the bottom, past my belly and boobs, and up and over my head.
I hold him over me as he tosses my dress to the side, and I force him to stay. He chuckles, pushing the hair back from my face and leaning in to kiss both of my eyelids and then my lips. It’s so soft, so intentional, I swear I can feel him opening up his entire soul to me.
His hips settle to mine, and as the tip of him finds my center, he pushes in with one smooth stroke. My head falls back, and a moan slips from my lips. My eyelashes flutter, and Clay’s hands run across my skin from top to bottom.
Slow but firm, he pulls out and strokes back in, his hips grinding to mine as I lock my feet behind him and pull him as close as I can. This is lovemaking at its most pure. It’s storytelling with our bodies, promise-giving for our future.
It’s special in ways I can’t even begin to describe and boundlessly fulfilling. “You’re the love of my life,” Clay whispers, his voice just raspier than normal.
Ditto. I nod, soaking him in and willing our bodies to become one. I need to be closer, to have more, and he gives me everything he has from his hips to his hands and all the way to his lips.
My gasp is loud in the otherwise quiet space, and the sound of his thrusts builds a rhythm in my mind. I let it climb, chasing and chasing as pleasure spikes at our connection and spreads through the rest of my body.
Clay grunts, sinking a gentle bite into the skin of my shoulder. It’s not enough to hurt; it’s claiming and primal and so right I can’t explain it. I come in a blaze of glory and bright light and mind-pausing indulgence. I am only this moment and nothing more, and it’s everything I need and then some.
Clay finds his release too, just milliseconds after me, toppling together into the most perfect union.
We’re married.
Happiness from now on is synonymous with the word “us.”
Serenity is this.
And I never want to know a world without it.
27
Clay
Thursday, September 22nd
Josie looks so peaceful as I slide out of the bed and run a hand along her bare hip. She’s sleeping soundly, fully purged of energy from our three rounds of marriage-celebration sex, and I’ve finally worked up the courage to leave her long enough to get a glass of water.
My dry tongue and fatigued body thank me.
I pad gently to the kitchen of the small cabin, pulling a glass from the cabinet beside the fridge and turning on the tap to fill it halfway. A gentle lull of night sings from outside through an open window, and I take in the perfect moment with laser focus.
The crickets, the gentle breeze. They’re only background for what we are—who we are—together.
I want to remember this in the times of suffering or the fights we’ll have. I want to reference this when we’re not sure how to carry on, and I want to hold space to get back to it.
I want the perfectness of what we are to be a constant in my mind that I never take for granted because Josie is the woman I would have created in a dream if I could’ve.