“Bethany.” He released her hair, pumping himself into her mouth.
She barely recognized her name, his voice gravelly and strained. Was she doing this right? He hadn’t stopped her. Was it too much?
She took a moment to glance up at him and nearly faltered at what she saw.
One fist clenched against his mouth, eyes pinched shut and… tears streaming down his face.
She closed her own eyes, allowing him the privacy he needed and then took him even deeper into the channel of her throat.
Shewould provide him relief. He needed this.
And oddly enough, she needed it too.
He’d shared a deeply held secret and she had the ability to comfort him. It was her purpose in life. It was her calling. Giving was the one thing she had power over.
He’d told her to keep her love to herself because he hadn’t understood that love went both ways. It meant having the capacity to give as well as the ability to take. He hadn’t realized that she could never be happy simply being protected or cared for.
I need to give. I need to matter.
He didn’t always have to be the protector, the comforter. She appreciated he wasn’t only sheltering her from theton, and from nasty gossip, but he’d wanted to protect her from himself.
Her throat convulsed but Bethany continued, allowing moisture from her mouth to ease his way.
If possible, he’d grown larger, harder, and this incited her to lap at him with greater enthusiasm. He was close. He needed this. He needed her. This was all she’d ever wanted.
His hands clamped onto her shoulder, and with a sudden jerk, he moved to push her off and away.
To protect her, once again, from himself.
She held tight instead, outlasting his efforts to spare her. As he throbbed inside her mouth, Bethany experienced a moment of fear, of panic, but it just as quickly went away. She didn’t let up her hold until all of the tension flowed out of him. Feeling protective, she swallowed, released him and then rested her cheek on his lap.
Life presented one with moments to give and moments to take. As his wife, she wanted to embrace both. She marveled at how naïve she’d been before all of this happened. She had not understood love at all.
They’d not been married even a week. How much more of love was there to learn? A tear trailed down her cheek, but it wasn’t because she was sad.
It was because she was alive.
Chapter 27
Damn Blackheart!
Chase had no idea how much time passed before he landed on earth again. Nor did he understand how it was that he felt empty and yet overflowing at the same time.
And shaken.
His hand rested in Bethany’s hair. Silky, soft, curling tendrils he was becoming increasingly familiar with.
“Bethany?” His voice caught. She’d humbled him. Again. “Are you all right?”
She sat upright, resting on her heels. He could barely make out dried streaks on her face, left from the salt of her tears. When he reached out to touch the corner of her eye, she shook her head.
“I’m fine. Please. Please, don’t apologize. I’ve… never felt anything like this. Like I matter. Please, don’t take that away from me.”
Her words broke through his last argument, and he scooped her up onto his lap, tucking himself away in the process.
Like she mattered? Of course she mattered.
Who was this precious person he’d married?
