Starting tonight.
Standing at the foot of the bed, I tugged the covers away from her figure. Each inch of the blanket revealed more of her figure in that fitted camisole, past the sliver of skin where it ended a couple of inches above the waist of her charcoal grey sweatpants.
I crawled onto the bed, the mattress dipping under my weight. Hovering over her, not lowering myself onto her yet, I took in the last precious moments of seeing her completely at ease.
Expectedly, she began to stir, and her eyes blinked open several times. When the sleep faded from her and awareness grew, she sharply gasped as she stared up at me.
Immediately witnessing the panic flood her face, I firmly placed a finger to her lips. “Shh, shh, shh. It’s just me, Corbin,” I rasped out in as soothing a whisper as I could manage. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
God, I wanted to do the opposite and make her experience things that would send her a sense of weightless ecstasy. I wanted her to feel how I do when soaring through the air, floating and free.
Wide eyes stared up at me, her quick breaths sending warm air onto my finger pressed to her mouth. At first, her expression was startled, but then it mellowed slightly as recognition registered.
Noticing the rabbiting pulse in her neck, I realized how bad this looked. She had every right to curse me, to bash my head in with a brick, or claw my wings off.
I removed my finger from her lips, my palm moving to cup the side of her face. Barely making contact with the smoothness of her skin, my thumb hesitantly stroked a light caress over the swell of her cheek.
Peering down into her eyes with the dark amber ofmine. “Please,” I said in a quiet plea. “I just had to come see you.”
Something shifted in her. Her body showed subtle signs of relaxation, her tongue darting out to lick over her lips, and her breaths evened out.
The slight dilation of her pupils said she felt it, too. This intensity of unnamed feelings between us vibrated like strings on a musical instrument.
Ducking my head down, my long strands of hair brushed against her temple. Whispering into her ear, “Mine. Do you understand me, Harlow? You’re mine. Not because I own you, but because you’re the place my spirit calls home.”
Pulling back slightly to study her face, I continued, “All I’m asking is that you let me in.”
Charged silence stretched between us until she breathed out her response.
“Welcome home, Corbin.”
Chapter
Thirteen
Hearing those words leave her mouth, the dam broke inside me. She responded to my plea, and that cracked open something wide in my chest. Whatever blood flow remained that wasn’t already in my cock hastily made its way there.
I don’t know if Harlow realized the power she had over me, what her words had unleashed, but my focus tunneled. There was nothing but the desire to feel her, consume her, and claim her as my lifelong mate.
My hand slid from the side of her face to the back of her neck. Supporting her head, I drew her to me, meeting her halfway before my lips crashed onto hers.
A small voice in my head said to be gentle. The primal instinct that had my cock throbbing told it to go fuck off even as Harlow’s surprised gasp was lost against my mouth.
She could have rejected me, kneed me in the balls,screamed for help, or even attempted to inflict blunt force trauma on my skull. I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had, but she didn’t. Instead, there I was breathing her in and drinking her down like the smoothest whiskey while relishing in the intoxication.
Tasting her mouth, my tongue lashed against hers in a frantic need to explore all the places that I never knew I craved. My brain was muddled with thoughts of all the sins we could share between us.
My body lowered onto hers, still maintaining enough awareness to brace myself so as not to crush her beneath my weight. Still cradling the back of her head, my fingers threaded through her silken tresses. My hand clenched and unclenched around the handful of hair, fighting the urge to control her fully as I ravaged her.
Time slipped away, our connection remained unbroken. Her gasps came out muffled in the clash of our tongues, teeth, and passionate exploration. Harlow’s hands were anchored on my shoulders, one moment pulling on my body and the next pushing.
There was something about the way our bond strengthened the more I indulged. Or maybe it was just freedom from all the restraints I had placed on myself over the years. No one had ever possessed the key to these self-imposed shackles inside me. The ones that refused to acknowledge anything beyond the physical.
Even now, there was a profound shift inside me just by a kiss alone. I had never been one for lingering on this particular act of affection, yet here I was willing to spendall night just tasting her. I let my mouth silently do all the talking of how much I wanted her.
My body trembled from a raging storm of feelings like a leaf caught in a tornado of shared moments. Behind my eyelids, vivid memories were seared into my brain of all our interactions. Every spark that had danced along my skin from the brush against each other outside the bookstore, the heated breaths we shared inside the general store, and the way our fingers weaved together at the festival.
That moment, standing by the tractor, our heartbeats synced while the world bowed to the rotation of our combined axis. Her spirit had felt like the cool illumination of moonlight spilling over the black and glasslike surface of my sea. The effect was calming even when the waters violently crashed against the distant shore.
