Page 94 of A Voice In Chains
It’s hard to breathe with his dead weight on my chest, but I’d gladly let him suffocate me to death. This is Arkin we’re talking about—my biggest love and my greatest destruction.
“We need to fuck soon. I don’t think I can wait much longer,” I admit.
Arkin nuzzles my neck. “Don’t make me leave this spot right here. This is my happy place.”
I hug him close, eyes wet with tears as I gaze up at the fairy lights overhead and the stars beyond. It’s such a novelty to talk to him so freely, to hear his gravelly voice and have its smoky tenor caress my senses. “I love you.”
The words leave my lips before I even realize they are on my tongue.
Suddenly scared, I freeze.
What if he rejects me? What if he thinks we’re moving too fast? I don’t want to scare him off—I’ve only just gotten him back.
He lifts his head, his blue eyes flicking between mine. “Say it again.”
My brows rise toward my hairline. “I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you.”
A breathtaking smile spreads across his face—so beautiful and genuine that my chest aches.
He leans down and hovers his lips over mine. “I love you too, Zachary Beckett.”
Words fail me. How did I get so lucky?
When his warm lips claim mine again, our tongues brush in soft sweeps, and my heart flutters behind my ribs.
I’m growing hard again, when a voice clearing tears us from our lust-filled bubble.
Arkin lifts his head, and the caveman inside me beats his chest at the thought of my friends seeing Arkin like this—cheeks flushed with arousal, hair mussed up, and kiss-swollen lips. No one else should see him like this but me.
But then I remember my friends are straight, and that reassurance settles the caveman enough that I don’t feel like strangling them when Arkin rolls off me.
“Looks like you made up,” Ryan teases, his voice filled with warm humor.
I stand up, grateful that the dim lights hide the wet patch on my jeans. “I still haven’t forgiven you for kidnapping me.”
There’s a leaf in my hair, and a twig. Removing them, I ignore Ryan’s big, smug grin.
“Yeah, you have,” he says, not a doubt in his voice.
My own smile peeks out.
“Let’s head back. Your parents are unloading Arkin’s stuff in your room as we speak. I’m sure they want to say hi to him.”
There’s so much to unpack and process in that statement. I turn to Arkin, who watches me closely.
His expression is more guarded now, as though he’s worried I’ll turn him down.
Swallowing hard, distrustful of the hope flaring in my already throbbing chest, I whisper, “Your stuff?”
His eyes stay locked on mine, dark and still, like a deep, blue lagoon.
“He’s been accepted to our university,” Harrison explains, but I’m still studying the man in front of me. “We offered him to stay with us. We can make room for him on the couch if you’re not comfortable?—”
“No!” I shake my head, the word a sharp whip. “He stays with me.”
