Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 380(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
His eyes began to soften, his anger fading away like clouds on the wind.
“It scares me because…I know this is it. When I married Adrien, I thought it would last forever, but this is so different, I can’t even compare the two. I wasn’t the same person then that I am now—and this is who I’m supposed to be.”
He showed no anger at all now. Just a soft gaze.
I looked away because it was too much. “I love you so much—” within a single breath, the tears were in my eyes, blurring my vision “—that it fucking scares me. I drowned in a coffin, and I still want to stay. I’ve watched men try to kill you, men who would have killed me if they’d succeeded with you, and I still can’t imagine my life with anyone else. This is not the life that I wanted—but I don’t fucking care because you’re the man I want.” My voice rose louder as I continued to talk, continued to cry. “And I can’t believe this is it, that this is my life. Because even though I trust you, I’m still fucking scared because I love you more than I ever loved him, and you could fucking break me into pieces if you ever walked away.” My cries turned to sobs, an ugly cry, but I couldn’t stop the dam that had opened and the flood that rushed out. “I’ve never been so scared in my life. I would rather drown in that coffin again than watch you leave me for someone else.” I knew he would be angry with me for what I said, for comparing him to Adrien, for suggesting he was capable of such deceit, but those were my true feelings. I didn’t believe he would ever hurt me, but just knowing the power he had if he chose to hurt me was fucking terrifying.
“Sweetheart.” He moved over to me, his knees on the rug, sliding his hands into my hair to pull it from my face. He swiped his thumbs over my cheeks to catch the tears that dripped to my lips.
I looked at him, his face blurry from the moisture that coated my eyes. My breaths continued, labored and shaky, and I felt stark naked in a blizzard, vulnerable to the cold, with a sharp dagger to my heart.
I blinked a few times, his face becoming clear.
He continued to stare at me. “I have the power to hurt you, but you have the power to bring me to my knees, to make me fall stupidly and desperately in love when I thought I was incapable of feeling a damn thing. Now I have something I love more than anything, something I must protect like my life depends on it, because it does. I’m wrapped around your finger, trapped under your thumb, so hopelessly in love with you that I would burn this city if you ever left me.” He slid his hand farther into my hair and cradled my face. “But I know you won’t, not when I’ll never give you a reason to. Not when I’ll suffocate you with my love and desire. When I’ll never make you question what you mean to me, when I’ll never make you wonder where I am or who I’m with, when your call is the one I’ll always take. When a minute doesn’t pass before your text gets a reply.”
He wasn’t angry with me. Instead, he showered me with love that I didn’t know he felt.
“We’re in this together, sweetheart.”
I stopped crying, holding on to his wrists for the strength I didn’t possess.
He continued to stare at me, my face cradled in his hands, with his eyes soft but determined. “I love you.” It was the first time he’d said it to me, and he said it so calmly and so sincerely, like there was no doubt in his heart. “You’re the first, the last, and the only.”
“Bastien…” I felt my eyes water again before I pressed my forehead to his. “Fuck, I love you.”
6
FLEUR
We’d made love before, but this was different.
I used to hide my heart behind my eyes, lock my soul in a cage so it couldn’t touch his, but now, everything poured out like sand from a bottle. My focus was no longer on protecting myself, but on letting myself be open to him, feeling everything that I’d been afraid to feel.
He was on top of me, my knees squeezing his torso, my ankles locked together in the center of his back, bending and tilting to accommodate him as he rocked into me, his muscular arms holding his body above mine, his hungry lips kissing mine with sexy slowness, really feeling my lips, savoring them.
My hands scooped behind his shoulders, and my nails dug into his flesh, feeling him worship me with kisses to the neck, to the corner of my mouth, his tongue in my mouth before he stole my breath away.