Total pages in book: 146
Estimated words: 137226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137226 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 686(@200wpm)___ 549(@250wpm)___ 457(@300wpm)
Lemi lifts his head and Andor crouches down to stroke the dog, scratching behind the ears. “Be a good boy and give us some privacy,” he says.
Lemi understands. In a flash he disappears and reappears on the balcony, sitting with his back to us.
Andor lets out a quiet chuckle. “He’s awfully considerate, isn’t he?”
I smile, just a little, but it’s enough that he notices. His expression softens as he sits on the edge of the bed, staring down at me with liquid eyes. “That’s the first smile I’ve seen in a long time.”
Instinctively I turn it into a frown. He reaches down and runs his thumb over my lip. “It’s all right,” he says. “You’re allowed to feel some light. It doesn’t erase the rest of it.” He brings his fingers across my cheek, brushing my messy hair off my forehead. “I know what it’s like, you know. What you’re going through.”
“Our families are nothing alike,” I manage to say.
“That might be true, but death still comes for us all. You have lost so much more than I have, Brynla, more than I can even begin to imagine. I have had a life of privilege, a life that you never had. You have had a life of pain, in more ways than one.” He pauses, letting out a shaky breath. “But I know what it’s like to be so enveloped by your sorrow and grief, the way it consumes you like a ravenous beast. It becomes something physical, something real, something you feel you have to battle because if you give up, if you give in…you wonder how you’ll ever find yourself again. But you will find yourself again, lavender girl. I promise you that. You will find yourself and you’ll pull through and it starts with a smile. It starts with allowing yourself to see the light on the other side, even when you can’t imagine anything but darkness.”
The gravity in his words has a way of sinking in, of anchoring me in this place. I have been in the very darkness he speaks of before. My father, then my mother. Being in the Daughters of Silence didn’t give you much space for grief. I had been so focused on just surviving the convent that I didn’t have a lot of time to deal with what I had lost, and yet I was still stumbling in the dark.
In fact, I think I was stumbling until the moment I met him.
For a brief while, despite my fear of the Kolbecks and the circumstances of my being here, I actually had hope for a better life. I had hope for the first time ever.
Andor brought me that light and he’s also brought me this darkness, the very one consuming me with gnashing teeth.
And right now I need him, in all his shades.
“You’re allowed to feel good,” he murmurs, his fingers trailing down my neck, over my collarbones, so gentle that it takes my breath away. “Can I make you feel good?”
I nod, my heart beating faster. I want him to make me feel good, to bring me relief even if it just stays between the sheets, even if just for the night.
He gives me a deliciously wanton grin, golden heat flaring in his eyes. “Good.”
Then he reaches down and grabs me by the hips, yanking me to the side and to the edge of the bed. I gasp and he drops to his knees on the floor, kneeling as he spreads my legs roughly with one hand and pushes up the hem of my nightgown with the other.
Oh.
My cheeks go hot, my breath hitching as I raise my head to watch him. He’s staring between my legs with such hungry intensity that my pulse leaps in my throat. I’ve never been so vulnerable and bare before.
“This is all right?” he asks, his fingers scorching as they push into the soft flesh of my inner thighs as he spreads them wider.
I nod, swallowing hard. “I, uh, have never done…this before.”
He raises a brow. “You’ve never had a man feast on you like he was starved for a meal?”
I shake my head slightly, my fingers curling into the sheets in anticipation. Though I’ve been with my fair share of partners, none of them have done what he’s about to do. Thank the gods I had enough strength today to take a long bath and make sure I was thoroughly clean.
My answer brings a wide grin to his face, a look of absolute pride.
“I’ll try to be gentle, then,” he says, lowering his face until I feel his hot breath tickling, making me squirm. “No promises, though.”
His voice is so dark and raw, his desire for me so apparent that a wave of nerves and anticipation crashes over me, making my stomach flutter.
Andor moves closer, still kneeling between my legs, then presses his mouth against the sensitive skin of my thigh, leaving a warm, damp kiss there. Close, so close. I find myself arching toward him, my nerves screaming for contact.