Page 88 of Fragile Heart

She shivers, a sound dangerously close to a whine bubbling up her throat. She looks up at me through her lashes, her hands trembling even more.

After a long moment, she says, “Okay.”

She scoops up her clothes and drops them on the foot of the bed, folding them with more expedience than precision. Withoutlooking back at me, she leans over the bed, grabbing her phone where it’s perched unobtrusively on the nightstand I never use.

My shirt rides up her legs, baring her beautiful thighs and ass. I’m hard in a goddamn instant, my dick straining at the zipper of my jeans.

How in the hell had that man decided she wasn’t the best fucking catch of his life? How could he have possibly decided she in her own right wasn’t enough to satisfy him? What stick was shoved up his ass that blinded him so completely to the reality that she’s the goddamncatch of the century?

I close the distance between us, palming her hips and pressing my rock hard dick into the swell of her ass. She looks over her shoulder, her eyebrow cocked high. Lavender blooms around us. I skate my hands down her thighs until I reach the hem of the shirt. She smirks as I ease the shirt higher, baring her completely. When she doesn’t pull away, I drop to my knees. Her legs are already soaked with her slick, and I run my tongue along the inside of her thighs, tasting every last inch of the sweet liquid. Her breathing grows choppy as her scent grows around us.

“Ethan,” she whispers. I skate my lips over her clit, barely touching, and she shakes in my hold. She cants her hips back, trying to get closer to me.

Satisfaction rips through me. I bite the sensitive line where her thigh blends with her cunt, grinning as she cries out. I repeat it on the other side.

“Holy hell,” she whispers. “I’ve never… Fuck, I didn’t think I’d like the feeling of being marked like that.”

It’s a small mark, really. Nothing compared to the permanent claiming bite shared between an Alpha and Omega. And it’s not like it’s anywhere she’ll have to hide it.

“You prefer your marks somewhere people can see?”

Slick gushes from her, an answer on its own. I slowly lick it up but pause when she doesn’t say anything.

Her voice shakes as much as her legs. “Y-yes,” she admits. “I like how public Caleb’s bruises are. I…Fuck.” She shudders in a breath as I bruise her inner thigh. “I like how people know what they mean—the Alphas that see me in town that wanted to ask me out when I first moved back.”

The growl is swift and lethal, and I don’t bother to quell it.

“Don’t worry, princess,” I mutter. “I’ll make sure they know some of them are my bruises, too.”

I run my nose along her center. She shudders and whines.

“Please, Ethan,” she begs. I kiss her clit, and she whines. “Please.”

With the first swipe of my tongue, she collapses on the bed, her hips canting back toward me. Her whimper is a fucking balm to my soul. As her legs shake with the force of her first orgasm and she buries a hand in my hair, all thoughts of being on time for getting Camden from my sister drain away from me.

Chapter Thirty-Nine

ETHAN

“Finally decided to show up, brother?” Emily stands at the top of the porch stairs of our parents’ home leaning against the railing, her arms crossed and her hair pulled back. I pause at the base of the stairs, trying to gauge her mood. Her voice is neutral, but the look she pins me with is borderline hostile.

When I scowl, she just shakes her head.

“When I took Cam last night,” she says with acid in her voice, “it was with the understanding that you were stuck in Jackson and wouldn’t get back before his bedtime.”

I cock an eyebrow and cross my own arms. “All right?”

I let it sit as a question between us.

“So since Caleb is currently flying a damn plane, you get to explain why you both lied to me and then had the audacity to show uptwo hours lateto picking up your son.”

“I was stuck in Jackson yesterday afternoon dealing with paperwork bullshit.” I start up the stairs. “And you don’t actually want to know why I’m late, Emily.”

The sight of Brielle collapsed against the side of her bed, her legs splayed and her cunt wrapped tight around my knot as I brought her to her third orgasm this morning flashes behind my eyes. Mint permeates the air around me, and her eyes narrow. I shrug but don’t say anything.

“You were in Jackson?” She double checks.

I nod again, trying for patience. In reality, I want to collect my son and spend a quiet afternoon riding up to the Arch or maybe Bluebird View.

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