Page 634 of Coal Hearts

I snuggled closer. “In that case, I definitely shouldn’t say I’ve never experienced pleasure like I have with you. Never knew it was possible. Your anatomy is so perfect, it should be illegal.”

“My anatomy?” He snickered.

“Yep.” I grinned beneath our blankets. “You have this uncanny ability to hit my G-spot. A mythical spot before you came along, by the way.” I kissed his forearm wrapped around my chest. “If a sex toy company made dildos off your size and shape, then women might finally learn how to—”

“Squirt?”

“No!” I giggled, absolutely shocked that this moment was so normal, so...sweet. “I mean...find pleasure from other parts and not just her clit.”

“I’ll see if Victor has some plaster of paris lying around.” He chuckled. “We could ship replicas of my dick to every frustrated housewife around the world.”

A rush of jealous possession ripped through me. “I hate to tell you, Henri, but the only one who will ever feel you inside her is me. Real or toy.”

He fell silent.

Our light-hearted energy solidified into seriousness.

I didn’t want it to.

Everything had been far too serious for far too long, but we weren’t free. Nine new jewels were here. Peter was being tormented. Mollie was being abused. Rachel was pregnant.

Compared to them, I was so lucky.

I’d been given a man I’d never expected, and we’d experienced something soul-changing, but...this moment of reprieve was just that...a moment.

“I know I have a thousand messed-up feelings, but hearing you being possessive over me?” He yanked me tighter against him. “I can’t tell you how that makes me feel.” His voice turned achingly quiet. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted. To be wanted. To be loved despite all the shit inside me.”

Squirming in his arms, I turned to face him and cupped his cheek. His grey eyes glowed silver in the dark, the sheets hiding us in our own fabric world. His sheer size. His immense presence. He oozed power and masculinity, but beneath those muscles and all that darkness, he was painfully vulnerable and innocent.

It was that innocence I’d sensed all along. A wide-eyed naivete when it came to love and all its facets. My heart ached as I kept my voice too low for the cameras. “You’re mine, Henri Mercer. Got it?”

He sighed heavily. “I’m yours until my last breath, Ily.” Shifting a little, he added, “I’m yours, yet I barely know you. We haven’t had the chance to talk about such simple things, but...I know you. I do. I know all the important things.”

“Important things?”

“You have to have felt it.” He shrugged self-consciously. “Today, when I entered you? Something clutched me around the heart and forged me with you. I-I can’t explain it, but—”

“It felt like we were one?”

He flinched. “Yeah...” His gaze locked on my mouth. “You felt it too?”

“I did.” I ran my thumb over the hollowness of his severe cheeks. “And I think I know why.”

“You do?”

I dropped my eyes. “Umm...it’ll probably sound silly, but...someone once told me that I’d meet a man who would turn out to be my twin flame and—”

“Twin flame?” Henri whispered. “What does that mean?”

I twitched, not really ready to share my mystical hypnosis. “Eh, well...a soulmate is a separate soul you’ve known before. Someone you’ve loved in every lifetime and are connected to in many ways, but a twin flame...it’s the missing piece of your soul.”

He went very still. “How...how do you know when you find this missing piece?”

“There’s a few ways but the main one would be, um, the sensation that you’ve met before.”

“The recognition.” He froze. “The familiarity. You feel so familiar to me. You always have.”

“You too.” I smiled softly.