Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
“I’m sorry, too,” I yelled in return. “I’d just been assaulted, and I lost my job, and I…” My chest ached at how stupid I’d been. “I just took out all that fear on you, on top of already being scared of us. I took it out on you because I wanted to have control over something. I took it out on you because—”
“You never have to apologize to me,” he said, shaking his head and silencing me with a kiss. “You can take anything out on me because you know what? I can handle it. I can take it. I can go to war for you, or with you, if it’s what you need.”
I choked on something of a laugh at that. “I’m a mess,” I said. “And I hate to scare you off now that I have you again, but I’m afraid I’m like my mother.”
Leo frowned, confused.
“I’m stubborn,” I clarified. “And something tells me it’ll only get worse with age.”
Leo smiled at that, letting out a long exhale like he’d just remembered to breathe. He brushed my hair back, tilting my chin.
“No matter what life throws at us, what you throw at me — we will make it. Just stay,” he said, kissing me again. “That’s all I need. Stay, and I promise, no matter what happens, I’ll make it right.”
“You may regret those words one day,” I warned him, knowing the chaotic disaster I tended to be.
But Leo shook his head, his lips finding mine as he lifted me again.
“Never,” he promised.
And I believed him — with every messy inch of my heart.
Leo
“I think you might actually rub my skin raw if you keep kissing me like that,” Mary said, her sleepy smile the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen as I trailed soft, lazy kisses over her shoulder.
“I’m counting,” I said, planting another. “And until I get to a thousand, you’re stuck here.”
She chuckled, pulling me back down into the sheets with her so that my next kiss was on her mouth.
I hadn’t even had to say a word to Blake after the game for him to pack up his shit and leave the room we’d been assigned to at the hotel. He had cracked a joke or two to Mary on his way out, but I was thankful that he knew we’d want the night alone together, that he hadn’t made a big deal of it. We were teammates, brothers, and I knew he’d sleep on a pullout couch in another room if he had to.
As soon as we were alone, it’d been a blur of clothes being shed. We were both so starved for each other that we skipped over foreplay altogether, and I was fucking her into the mattress within five minutes. We both came fast, sweating and panting and clinging to each other like we’d had our first sip of water after walking in the desert for a week.
But we were still thirsty.
I felt it in every long, slow, intentional touch from her as we laid in bed after our shower. Neither of us bothered to put clothes on again, and I reveled in the feel of her body pressed against mine, in the bite of metal from her piercings, the softness of her thighs sandwiching mine between them.
“God, I was miserable without you,” I confessed into her neck.
She squeezed me tighter. “I was a mess, too.”
“I thought I’d lost you again. I thought…” I shook my head, and then I was pulling her in closer, like even a centimeter of space between us was too much. “Have I apologized enough yet? Because I really want to say I’m sorry another million times. Oh! I could start saying it in Spanish. Lo siento. Lo siento mucho.”
Mary kissed my hair. “Save your apologies for the next time I’m a stubborn witch.”
“Witch,” I mused with a laugh, leaning up on my elbows so I could look down at her. “That’s pretty accurate, considering the spell you have me under.”
“Mmm,” she mused, trailing her fingertip down my chest. “I wonder what I can use my powers to make you do…”
“I think at this point we know the answer to that is anything.”
Mary bit her lip, shaking her head on a long, sated sigh. She kept trailing lines on my skin, her expression softening. “So… what now?”
“What do you want?”
“To be together,” she said, lifting her eyes to mine. “Really be together.”
“As if there was another option.”
She smiled a bit. “I just mean… I know there’s a possibility of you getting drafted. And, if you do…”
I arched a brow, waiting. “Say it. What do you want, Mary?”
She glared at me, but her smile broke through. “You’re such an ass.”
“I just like to hear my girl confess how badly she wants me,” I argued with a roll of my hips into her. I was covering her in kisses again as she wrapped her arms around me, her soft laugh the sweetest sound.