And that was the key word. Normal. Yes, it felt right. But it could also feel normal now.
No more Bandits. No more flashbacks. No more chains binding me to the past. I’d never forget it, but I wouldn’t be beholden to it.
No, I could be just like all the other girls that had found themselves in relationships with the Black Reapers. I didn’t know them that well, but in my time with Mason, I’d gotten to learn all their names. Tara. Elizabeth. Hannah. Katie. Justine.
And now I could add myself to the list.
And while I might have had the longest past with any of the Reapers, I could just be one of them.
Mason made me orgasm at least two more times, an impressive enough feat considering how long it had been since I had had anyone inside of me. I got him to finish when I leaned forward on top of him, let my breasts fall over his face, and had his arms pin my body to his. His cock stiffened well before he came, leading to a rather long and enjoyable buildup as he went from just being hard for sex’s sake to hard to release.
Nothing was hotter than hearing him moan my name over and over again, seeing his eyes close and tighten in anticipation, and then his whole body tremble when he came. I held him as my own in that moment, guiding him from peak sensation all the way slowly down. And when he finally finished, I kissed him gently, his recovering cock still inside of me.
“Oh, sweet Jesus,” he said, letting out a half-grunt, half-chuckle. “You OK?”
“OK?” I said, laughing. “Babe, I’m more than OK. I feel amazing. And it was because of you.”
I laughed some more. I figured Mason was still trying not to assume anything, perhaps afraid I was hiding something. It was understandable, but it was also wrong. Sincerely, there was nothing else I wanted out of this moment.
Well…
OK, there was one thing I wanted to say.
But even I felt that saying it would have been a bit much for the moment. It had to feel right for both of us. And while it felt right for me, I was a bit afraid that it wouldn’t feel right for Mason.
“All right,” Mason said.
And then he did something I never expected.
He laughed too.
Like, a genuine laugh. Not the kind of laugh that someone did to be polite—the kind of laugh someone made when they’d finally gotten something off of their chest.
“Babe?” I said.
“Hold on,” he said, groaning as he took himself off. Fuck, it felt great for me too. “I just…I’ve waited for years for this moment.”
I went silent and looked into his eyes. Those soulful, beautiful eyes that no longer seemed afraid to hide anything anymore.
“I never, ever thought that I’d be able to have a moment like this with anyone,” he said. “I…I had long written off the chance that I’d ever find love. I didn’t trust myself with the people I cared about; the only person I had left was my sister, and I guarded her so closely that I sent her running off to one of my Reaper brothers. Luckily, that somehow worked out, but it wasn’t exactly something I was thrilled about either way.
“But now, here with you, it’s…it’s true. I feel it.”
He feels…love.I opened my mouth without considering it.
“I love you.”
We both said it at the same time.The same time.We just had a moment, and…
We kissed. It was all that we could do. There were no more words beyond the ones we’d just uttered.
After the nightmare of the last ten years, after the way that nightmare had tended to repeat itself, this moment was one that the deepest part of me yearned for but had largely given up. It was dangerous to think I’d find love again. For as broken as I—as we—were, it was risky to our psyche to assume something beautiful would happen to us.
And hey, maybe we did get lucky. Maybe, if our lives played out from the moment a month or so ago when I first emerged into the world a hundred times over, we’d never fall in love in any of those one hundred times. Luck couldn’t be ignored.
But I didn’t have to worry about that. I didn’t have to worry about the odds. The only odds that mattered were the odds that this was real, and that, I was sure, was one to one.
“I love you so much,” I said in between kisses.
