Page 118 of Reckless Vow

I bury my face between her breasts, wondering why I still can’t kiss her. She arches her back and moans, and all my thoughts evaporate, giving way to pure instincts and desire.

I bring my fingers to my lips and suck at them. “Your taste is addictive.”

She groans. “Stop with the poetry and fuck me already.”

Throwing my head back, I laugh. I haven’t done that much, and the sparkles in my chest feel foreign but not unwelcome.

I return my hand between her thighs, pinch her clit and drag my finger around her heat, down to her tight rim. “Will you ever grant me access here?” I press gently and she gasps.

A blush spreads across her cheeks as she worries her bottom lip between her teeth. “I’ve never—”

God, the information cracks something inside me, like I could get a do-over for the first that never happened between us. Yeah, I’m a simple creature.

“Who else would you let there if not your husband?” I wink and return to her clit. As much as I want to, she is not ready, and I might be dominant, but I’m not an asshole.

Brook grips my hair and forces me to look at her. Her eyes shine with challenge this time.

“Dear husband, I’ll grant you access the day this marriage becomes real.”

My world tilts on its axis.

Chapter31

Brook

The end.

The exhilaration from typing those two words hits me, bittersweet. It’s relief and grief wrapped together.

A sense of accomplishment along with a sense of loss. Like the characters lived with me for months and now they’ve moved out, and I already miss them. Happy and scared to share them.

I lean against the chair, stretching my neck to the side. It’s a good thing I’ve finished, because continuing to write in coffee shops or at Baldo’s dining table, like right now, would soon result in a chiropractor visit.

He went to Italy, but he’ll be back tonight. He left at the crack of dawn, promising to be back as soon as possible. And telling me he’s leaving for a change. Progress.

I miss him, but I’m glad I had the chance to work. After the night of the fire and the following morning, I was finally able to focus on the story I was writing.

We didn’t say everything, and he didn’t open up completely, but we’re moving in the right direction. Now I just hope we can maintain the course.

I’ll believe enough for both of us.

What a bold statement. I don’t even know where it came from.

He had an engagement ring made for me. How long did he have this ring? A ring that a silly girl dreamed of back then.

He never came back for me, but at one point he was planning on it.

What stopped him?

We might not have survived if he had come for me. I was broken, in full-blown PTSD mode.

Years healed me to an extent, and what was still festering I successfully tuned out with work and social life. The louder, the better.

Would I have healed better and faster if he had returned? Probably not. Our parents would have suffered, our siblings would have hated us.

They were just establishing their own names in the world, and they wouldn’t want us tainting it.

Out of eight of us, as the two youngest, we were always the closest—we were like a real brother and sister. Our stepparents were our real parents.

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