Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 121310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121310 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 607(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Even if it's only massaging touches with clothes strictly on. I feel starved for her.
"I could come home early," I suggest, my voice roughening with the images playing through my mind. "We could do something together."
She just laughs and dances away again. "Breakfast's ready."
The workday drags like a wound being stitched without anesthetic. I check my phone between every meeting, hungry for any connection with Anna. By mid-afternoon, I've nearly worn a path in the carpet from pacing during calls, restless with the need to be home and have her in my arms.
I try calling her around lunch, but it goes straight to voicemail. I listen to her recorded voice—"Hi, you've reached Anna, leave a message!"—just to hear her and bridge the aching distance in any way I can.
DOMHNALL: Thinking of you. Hope you're having a good day
I text, wishing words could capture the depth of what I feel, the constant pull she exerts on me.
She responds almost immediately:
ANNA: All good here! See you at 7!
A heart emoji. Something so small shouldn't send such pleasure coursing through me, but it does. Sometimes I think I'd tear the world apart just to keep that heart beating, to keep her sending me these tiny digital tokens of affection. I've been such a lonely fuck for so goddamn long.
I abandon any pretense of productivity around six. My assistant raises an eyebrow as I sweep past her desk.
"Hot date?" she calls after me.
"Something like that," I reply, already halfway to the elevator.
I stop for Thai food—the spicy curry Anna loves but can never finish, so I get to eat the leftovers—and pull into our driveway with my heart already beating faster at the thought of seeing her. Pathetic, maybe, how after all this time, she still affects me like this—like a teenager with his first crush, not a grown man who's seen the darkest corners of the world.
But that's the magic of her, isn't it? She makes me forget all that darkness and feel whole again.
The house is unnaturally quiet when I enter, every surface gleaming like she's been scrubbing for hours. I find her curled on the couch, face peaceful in sleep, one arm thrown above her head in a gesture of complete surrender. An empty Red Bull can sits on the coffee table beside her—her third today, if the recycling bin is any indication.
I set the food down and move to her side, unable to resist touching her. I trace the curve of her cheekbone with my fingertip, marveling as I always do at how soft her skin is, how perfectly she's made. My chest aches with the force of what I feel for her—this fierce, consuming love that's reshaped me from the inside out.
"Anna," I murmur, brushing my lips against her forehead. "Wake up, love. I've brought dinner."
Her eyes flutter open, unfocused at first, then locking on mine with startling intensity. For a heartbeat, she looks almost afraid, like she's expecting someone else.
"Domhnall," she breathes, my name a prayer on her lips. "What time is it?"
"Just after seven," I say, smiling down at her. "You were dead to the world."
She sits up too quickly, pulling away from my touch, her movements jerky with tension. "I—I didn't mean to fall asleep." There's panic in her voice, a tremor I can't quite understand.
"It's alright," I soothe, catching her hands in mine. "You clearly needed the rest."
She stares at our joined hands, then back at my face, her expression shifting from confusion to something else entirely—a dawning wonder, as if she's seeing the sun for the first time after years of darkness.
"Anna?" I prompt gently, squeezing her fingers. "What is it?"
A slow smile blooms across her face—dazzling in its intensity, transforming her features into something luminous. "Nothing," she says, and her voice is breathless, almost giddy. "Nothing's wrong. I'm just... I'm here."
Before I can say anything more, she launches herself at me, throwing her arms around my neck with such force that we both tumble backwards onto the plush carpet. She lands on top of me, her weight a perfect anchor. Her body fits against mine like it was sculpted for this purpose alone. Her scent surrounds me—vanilla and sleep-warmth and something uniquely her—and I feel myself drowning in it, in her.
"I love you," she says fiercely, her hands framing my face, her eyes liquid with emotion. "I love you so much it terrifies me sometimes."
The raw honesty in her voice steals my breath. I reach up to trace the delicate arch of her eyebrow, the slope of her nose, the full curve of her lower lip—committing each detail to memory all over again, as if I haven't already mapped every inch of her with my hands and my mouth and my heart.
"And I love you," I murmur, the words inadequate for what I feel, for this bone-deep certainty that she is the axis around which my entire world turns. "More than life itself."