Swallowing a sob, I clenched my eyes closed. I missed her so much. Losing Nova had been a blow no one had seen coming. It seemed like the entire town of Creswell Springs grieved her death. That she’d already been living in New York when she died didn’t matter. Every resident had loved and adored Nova Hannigan. She’d been a real-life angel living among us.
Not for the first time, I fell asleep crying.
A warm, hard body tucked me in close, and I inhaled the familiar scent of my husband. Brain foggy, I buried my face in his chest and hugged one arm around him as hard as I could. He pressed a kiss to the top of my head, and I was about to drift back to sleep when reality flooded back in.
Jerking my head back, I glared at Max. It was too dark to read his lips, even as close as we were, but talking was the last thing I wanted to do. He was supposed to be in the guest room or sleeping on the daybed we had in Ronan’s nursery. Or the freaking couch. It didn’t matter which, but he was not supposed to be in our bed.
Not that he’d been doing any of that. A stack of pillows and blankets occupied space on the floor on my side of the bed. That was where he’d been resting his head for the last seven nights. Which had not given me warm butterflies in my tummy. It had not eased even a little of the anger or hurt that was festering inside me from how he’d ignored my request that we not seek out the ENT specialist.
Not one little bit.
Ugh, I was such a liar.
I loved that he’d been unable to be even a room away from me every night. Max’s obsession with me, his inability to see anyone but me, was something that fueled my soul. This man could have anyone, but he only wanted me, the defective girl who couldn’t hear and who used to be homeless.
Even cocooned within the loving care of the Reid-Hannigan world that was now mine, I found it hard to shake off the shame of what my life had been like when Max discovered me. Hungry, dirty, all alone on a foggy road one night. He’d nearly killed himself when he wiped out on his bike to avoid running over me.
Sometimes I wondered if he’d gotten some kind of brain trauma from that wreck and that was why he was so over-the-top obsessed with me.
I tried to pull away from Max. My goal was to turn on the lamp beside the bed so we could have a conversation. I couldn’t “talk” to him when there was no light for either of us to see what I was saying with ASL. I had no way to tell how loud my voice was if I said aloud all the things I wanted to say, and Ididn’t want to risk waking Ronan. He’d only just started sleeping through the night, and I wasn’t about to disrupt that.
Max had other plans, though. Tangling one hand in my hair, he captured my mouth in a kiss that instantly stole all the thoughts from my head. Seven nights, eight days. That was how long it had been since his lips had been on any part of my body. In the years since I’d come face-to-face with Max, not a single day had passed when he didn’t have his mouth on me somewhere, which had made the last week that much more unbearable.
With his body pressed so close, I didn’t miss the vibrations that rattled his chest as he deepened the kiss. Rolling me onto my back, he used his knees to spread my legs, making room for himself. His body was so much bigger than mine, covered in tight muscles and beautiful black ink. He had a treasure chest over his heart, something Lyric had tattooed on him before we’d gotten married. My name was hidden within the detailed art piece, because I was Max Reid’s treasure.
Just remembering that he’d permanently marked his body in dedication to his love for me never failed to make me wet.
Each breath shuddered out of my husband, his chest rumbling with a noise I wished I could hear. Sweat coated his skin as he guided one of my hands to his back, urging me to hold on to him without breaking our kiss. All I had on was one of his old T-shirts and a pair of panties that were already drenched.
Our differences didn’t make sense to me. They never had, and I doubted they ever would. He was so much bigger. Kind. Generous. Gentle. Perfect in every way. At least in my eyes. To others, he was scary, dangerous. The devil in human form, wearing an Angel’s Halo MC patch on his leather cut. Some—most—people kept their distance when they saw him. They turned a sickly gray color when my husband scowled. It didn’t even have to be turned on them. If Max was unhappy, the air gotcharged and people ducked and hid. I’d seen grown men tremble in his presence, bow their heads, cower.
And it was so dang hot.
I shouldn’t like that people feared my husband. It shouldn’t turn me on. But it did, because I knew that as long as there was air in his lungs, I was safe. It was the most freeing feeling, when I’d spent so long before meeting him afraid.
Callused hands pushed my clothes out of his way before they caressed my body, expertly setting every nerve aflame. He pinched my already hard nipples. I’d stopped breastfeeding the month before, but they were still hypersensitive. It had been one more thing I’d felt like I was failing at as a mother when my supply dried up. At first, I’d thought I might be pregnant again, but that wasn’t the case. My doctor said it sometimes happened when stress levels were high, and since I was still working my way out of the postpartum depression, with the added loss of my dearest friend, it was understandable.
None of it was understandable to me, though. I had no control—not of my life or my own body, and I fucking hated it.
Lifting his head, Max guided my other hand to his throat, forcing me to feel the vibrations of his vocal cords. He did that often when we made love in the dark. I hated and loved the action equally because it was another reminder that I couldn’t hear whatever he was saying.
Max ripped my panties aside, the crown of his tree-trunk-like cock already lined up to my dripping entrance. With a hard thrust forward, he impaled me, stealing a whimper from my throat. I felt the vibrations of his vocal cords as he spoke while he drove into me over and over.
Pleasure replaced the anger, the hurt, all the self-doubt, and the fear of hope. There was only us, my Max and me, lost in each other. I got lost in the way his body worshiped mine, how his giant cock owned my small body, the feral way his throatvibrated as his breathing became more labored. He pumped his hips harder, causing the bed to move. We’d broken more than one bed over the years, and I’d lost count of how many holes he’d put in walls.
Seeing the damage caused by our lovemaking always gave me a little thrill. I had pictures of every single hole he’d made, my only souvenir to cherish since Reid would slip in and repair the walls while we were at work.
My nails bit into Max’s back as my release started to build. Wrapping my legs around his waist, I began to choke on each breath as his monster cock stretched me for the first time in far too many days. He felt thicker than usual, something I put down to having gone without for a full week.
Our first time after our son’s birth, when the doctor had given the thumbs-up while cautioning us to take it slow, Max felt as if he’d tripled in size. Afterward, he’d refused to give me his dick for a few days, just like when he’d taken my virginity all those years ago. But that was fine, because now I was an expert at sucking my man’s cock. It didn’t take much to cause him to lose his mind when I choked on his mammoth-sized dick.
“Max.” I wasn’t sure if I whispered or screamed his name as the orgasm rippled through my body when he slammed into me one last time. Ropes of his come filled me, detonating another powerful wave of pleasure as the thick, warm fluid flooded inside me.
A continuous vibration worked beneath my fingers, causing my hand to tighten for a moment around his neck. Tears leaked from my eyes as I wished yet again for the ability to hear him. Just once. I wasn’t greedy. I’d take a single sound and live on the memory for the rest of my life.
I passed out from the exhaustion of the last few days, combined with the rapture of my orgasm knocking me out.Probably what the dang man had wanted to achieve anyway. He’d fucked me to sleep more than once to avoid an argument.
When I opened my eyes again, light was streaming through the curtains. I found myself trapped in the center of the bed, my six-foot-six husband wrapped around my smaller frame. Blinking sleep away, I realized he was wide awake, watching me with awe, as if he couldn’t bear to look away.
