Page 98 of Wistful Whispers

We’re scarred and stubborn and still here.

This time, we move forward with eyes wide open.

No more running.

Only choosing each other.

Every damn day.

thirty

Seamus

The Next Day

It’sjustpasttenwhen I crack an eye open and realize two things:

One, the sun is already blinding.

Two, the woman curled against me has somehow managed to steal all the covers.

Again.

Marcella lets out a sleepy noise and snuggles deeper under the blanket, her thigh sliding over mine. I grin into the pillow.

“You awake?” I murmur against her hair.

She hums. “Barely.”

“Good.” I kiss her temple.

She nestles against me, slow and decadent, her warm curves pressing into mine with all the familiarity of a woman who knows exactly where she belongs. “What time is it?” she mumbles, voice thick with sleep.

“We’ve got a couple hours,” I murmur, brushing her hair back to kiss her temple. “Plenty of time to be fashionably late to my ma’s.”

Marcella giggles and buries her face in my chest. “She’ll know exactly what we’ve been up to.”

I grin. “Especially if you hoard her brown bread like a dragon. She’ll know how we’ve worked up an appetite.”

She snorts, her laugh vibrating through my ribs, and I strengthen my hold around her. It’s easy again. Comfortable. Like we’ve been waking up tangled in each other for years, not just a few short months.

Three and change, to be exact.

Three months of falling hard and fast. Of messy honesty and a couple near implosions. Of figuring out what it means to choose each other when the world’s spinning too fast and trying to pull you apart.

We’ve already had a rough patch. With moments when I wasn’t sure we’d find our way back.

We did.

Now it’s like we can’t get enough of each other. We’ve been trying to erase the ache of those weeks every time we fuck each other like feral rabbits on a countdown.

We’ve earned this part—the love. Sex. Ridiculous banter. Our return to something steady. Grounding.

She finally pushes the blanket down and rolls to her back, one slow movement at a time, her body arching, like she’s waking from the deepest sleep of her life. The sheets slide off her skin.

My breath catches in my throat. Every. Fucking. Day.

She’s bare from head to toe—draped in morning light and nothing else. Her heavy breasts rise and fall with every breath, full and flushed from where I’d already spent the better part of the night worshiping them. Her nipples are dusky and tight, drawing my eyes like a fucking magnet. One leg is bent, the other extended, her hip curves into the mattress like a sin I’m about to commit all over again.

---