Control. I need the illusion of control, and once I have it, I let myself go.
I have no idea what this is supposed to feel like. I always thought I would be pleasantly bored, having someone lick me, while waiting for my future Owed husband to shove it in, bounce a few times, then get the hell off of me.
But my Owed husband is Connor Heyward, and he worships my pussy the same way that he worshipsme. He digs his fingers into my thighs. For a heartbeat, I think that I’ve smothering him so I try to shift back. Nope. His nails leave grooves in my skin as he pins me down, pulling him toward him.
“Don’t go anywhere,” he snaps before returning to nuzzling my clit.
The heat of his mouth revs up my need. He dips his tongue inside of me, then laps at the moisture that keeps on coming. Every time I get used to the sensation, he flicks my clit with the tip of his tongue before scraping it with his teeth.
He hums. The vibrations works as well as the suction of my cheeks did on him, and though I could let him do this to me forever, it isn’t long before I’m doing exactly what he orders me to: come on his face.
I gasp, and for the first time ever, I tell him, “I love you.”
I’ve thought the words. When Connor obsessively tells me every day that he loves me, I’ve even quickly scrawled on a page:love you, too. But as the words bubble up inside of my chest, exploding the same time as I do, I can’t keep them down.
I love him. Maybe it’s right. Maybe it’s wrong?—
Okay. It’s wrong, but that’s not going to stop me, is it?
And even if it did? It’s sure as fuck not going to stop Connor, and now he hastwo‘H’s carved into his body to show the entire world what it took me more than twenty-eight years to understand: we were made for each other.
TWENTY-SIX
BLOODY WEDDING, PART I
CONNOR
The first time Haven slept through the night beside me without waking up whimpering, screaming, or needing me to give her another sedative, I stayed awake next to her until morning just in case.
Not because I thought something was wrong. For once, it was the opposite. She was curled on her side in the center of our bed, one hand tucked beneath her cheek, the other resting against my chest where she’d shoved it before falling asleep, like she wanted proof that I was still there even when her mind finally let her rest.
Her hair is longer than it had been when I brought her home last year. I offered to cut it for her if it was bothering her, and she wrinkled her nose as she gestured to my pocket. I laughed, saying that I don’t use my knife foreverything, and she just sniffed, obviously disagreeing with me.
That’s not the only physical change I’ve noticed. She’s gained a little weight, too. Not a lot. Never as much as I’d like, because my lovely wife is still stubborn as hell even when it comes to something as simple as finishing her breakfast—plus some of theOffering training from when she was a kid has definitely held—but enough that her collarbones don’t look like they’re trying to cut their way out of her skin like they did after her time held by Winter and his goons.
She’s gorgeous, and she’s mine, and it was a shock when it hit me that she looked peaceful for the first time that I’ve ever noticed when she was in my presence.
So, yeah. No surprise, I fuckingpanicked.
I spent hours watching her breathe, counting each slow rise and fall of her chest, reminding myself that sleeping quietly was a good thing. She’s suffered from nightmares ever since I brought her home to me and even if she missed one night of them, that had to be progress.
I asked her about them once. I wanted to know what had her waking up whimpering, reaching out for me, clutching me as though I was the only thing she could believe in. I knew it had something to do with those six weeks she was out of Harmony Heights. Sometimes she brushed me off, telling me she didn’t want to talk about it. Others, she couldn’t even find the words to snap at me to leave her alone. And then there were the mornings and the middle of the nights when her tears were answer enough…
They’re not as frequent now. A year after I rescued her, she’s doing so much better than she was.
So am I.
Mostly.
Okay,fine.
I still watch her sleep when I can’t, but now she usually wakes up, opens one grey eye, and tells me to stop being creepy before shoving her cold feet beneath my thigh and falling back asleep.
Or, if I’m lucky—and I consider myself super fucking lucky every single day that Haven Heyward wears my ring—then she shoves me onto my back, tugs on my cock if I’m not already hardas a stone, and climbs on top of me to rock my world before she passes out again, my cock still inside of her where her pussy can keep it warm the same way as her love keeps me fuckingalive.
That’s another reason why I delight in my own insomnia. Those six weeks destroyed me in a way, too. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over my fear of falling asleep only to wake up and discover that Haven is gone again. When it comes to nightmares… I have my fair share of those suckers.
I dream that she says she hates me. Unlike every other time she has, I don’t smugly tell her she’s lying. In my nightmare, she reallydoeshate me, and no amount of playing the part of charming Connor Heyward will get her to change her mind.
