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The pain of speaking the words aloud stabbed a knife into her heart. Life was so lonely. She didn’t want to be lonely anymore.
“That’s not true,” he murmured. “My family loves you. Especially Nana. Our children love you so much. I will forever herald your name in my music. You are a very loved woman, Nyana.”
Each breath shuddered in her lungs as she restrained her emotions. She clutched onto him. Seeking comfort. Counting on him to hold her steady when she might crumble.
For so long, she’d been alone, only able to rely on herself. Relying on Joel was so very different from what she was used to. She wanted him to rely on her, too.
“We’ve been gone for too long,” Joel said after a minute of holding her close. “Bastien is going to think the worst. Commence non-stop smirking and teasing.”
“No…” She grinned. “Can’t have him thinking this was some sort of tryst.”
“Can’t have that.”
Each of them wore silly grins as she packed up their things, and he helped her down from the tree. His hands lingered on her waist, suspending her in a beautiful, unforgettable moment in time.
I love you.
She wasn’t ready to say it. But she felt it. And someday, she would let her walls down enough to trust him with her heart.
Chapter 16
The door clicked shut.
Nyana stood on the stairs in front of the girls’ room after putting them to bed after a long night of celebrating the full moon with the Forest Fae. Eva hadn’t stirred the entire way Joel had carried her. Maisy had yawned ceaselessly until climbing into bed without complaint.
Now she found herself gazing back at Joel, her words from the lake an uncertain barrier between them.
“I want a real marriage. And everything that comes with it.”
What now? he seemed to ask silently as if waiting for her to throw him back downstairs on the hard sofa.
She answered his unspoken question by taking both his hands and placing them on her waist. Her heart pounded loud in the space between them, especially knowing she must be the one to initiate. He would never cross that line unprompted.
A coy smile lifted on the corners of her mouth as she glanced up at him beneath her lashes. “We are in the woods.” She trailed a finger up his chest and heard his breath catch. “I’m with my best friend.”
“Nyana,” he sighed, longing in his voice as he caught her hand. “We can wait.” Though the want in his eyes contradicted his words. “I’ll wait as long as you need.”
“But you don’t want to wait, do you?”
“Battling my desire has been tough from our first day of marriage. Shadows, no. I don’t want to wait any longer. But if you invite me upstairs, what fragile control I’ve had will shatter.”
“Then let it shatter,” she whispered, placing a soft kiss beneath his ear and another on the smooth skin of his neck.
She knew the moment the chains of his self-control broke when he backed her against the wall and kissed her with a hungry passion. She drank in each kiss like starlight in a barren sky, meeting him with a fever of her own. All rational thought fled her as she unbuttoned his shirt and pushed it over his shoulders. It fell to the ground in a heap, momentarily giving her a glimpse of the hard, defined muscles that lay beneath.
Mouths and tongues dancing a heated promenade, he lifted one of her legs to his hip with a hand beneath her knee. His touch heated her to the very core of her soul. Searing. Delicious. Long overdue.
Her dress soon joined his shirt on the ground, leaving her in her undergarments. Joel’s sweet kisses traveled to her bare shoulders and left a trail of fire in their wake.
Rational thought returned for only a moment when she realized they still resided outside the girls’ door. She took his hand and led him up the next several steps. In their haste, they tripped on the stairs, the steps digging into her back while he hovered over her, pressing gentle kisses along her neck and up her ear.
A giggle escaped her before she clamped her mouth shut with her hand. “Not on the stairs. We have two curious children sleeping in the other room.”
He groaned and spoke in a breathy whisper. “The bedroom is too far.”
“You will thank me tomorrow.”
Together, they managed to climb the rest of the staircase with a half dozen heated kisses every couple of steps. They fell through the partially open door.
