Page 157 of Love in the Dark

“You love me?”

He nods. “I’m in love with you. Everything about you. I have no idea how you could ever think that I’d look at anybody else when I spend every waking moment thinking of you and every sleeping moment dreaming of you. This is the last thing I thought would happen when I came to teach here, but meeting you, getting to know you, falling in love with you?” he pauses, inhaling a ragged, emotional breath. He steals a kiss from my lips. “It’s been the adventure of a lifetime. I could never have imagined or hoped to experience happiness like the kind I feel when I’m with you.”

Emotion swells in my throat as I hang on to him, my body giving out. It’s as if when I let go of the final walls guarding my heart, a physical weight is lifted off me and I sag into him. He holds me against his large chest, my face resting upturned in the crook of his neck, his arms wrapped like bands around my back.

So many words, so many thoughts, flit through my head but nothing comes out. Articulating my feelings back to him isn’t easy, and all I manage to give him right away is a long-owed acknowledgment.

“We’re dating.”

My delivery is somewhere between an announcement and a question, but it’s said with intent. A confirmation of what now is finally evident to me.

He laughs deeply, his mood lifting. His chest heaves with each chuckle, the movement comforting beneath the side of my face.

“Yeah, baby, for a while now. Thanks for finally catching on.”

My eyes flutter closed.

Baby.

He turns my face and brings his down towards mine. The first contact of our lips feels like stepping outside into the sun after being trapped inside all day. Energy zaps through me as he presses his mouth down on mine and I whimper happily.

It’s only been two days but it’s felt like a lifetime.

When I part my lips, he groans loudly. His tongue thrusts in, searching for mine. He pushes me against the wall, his hand coming down next to my head.

I reach for him to pull him closer, but he lifts his head. I’m lightheaded with lust by the time he rips his lips off mine and it takes me a minute to get myself together.

“You can’t ever do that again,” he grunts, hand closing around the front of my throat. “Disappear on me. I nearly lost my mind when I didn’t hear from you. Next time you’re pissed at me, you text me, tell me what a shit I am, tell me where you are, and you tell me you’re okay. No more running away.”

I nod and he squeezes my throat gently. Warningly.

“Okay,” I say. “But you have to promise me something in return.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t break my heart. I won’t forgive you for it. I’ve been disappointed and betrayed by those who promised they loved me. They hurt me. You know that better than anyone. Don’t do that to me. If you make me fall for you, own it. If you make me give you my heart, you have to keep it.”

His eyes darken, a smirk stretching the corner of his lips. His hand moves around the back of my neck to cup my nape.

“It’s already mine, Nera, and I’m never giving it back.”

He crushes my mouth against his in a devastating kiss. It’s the opposite of chaste. His other hand digs into my waist and presses me against his hard cock, but the kiss itself is slow. Tantalizing and excruciatingly seductive. His tongue twists with mine and licks my lips before he closes his mouth around my plump lower lip.

When he touches me, a different kind of electricity zaps through my body. This moment is so heady, so potent and charged, that I can feel it around me, burning us up together like a lightning flash before a thunderclap. Every touch on my body, whether it’s his lips now on my neck, his hand on my hip, or his fingers glancing over my pussy, every single touch of his sends me into overdrive.

In a moment of clarity, I’d had some comfortable clothes delivered to the hotel. He rips the sweatpants off, does away with my underwear, and then he’s there, pressed up against my pussy and demanding entrance.

I expect him to shove in but instead he finds my mouth once more.

“I love you,” he whispers against my lips before claiming them in a tender kiss. Slowly, he starts to push in.

He swallows the breathy moan I make and bottoms inside me. Fuck, it feels good to have him inside me and pressed up against me once more. There’s nowhere I’d rather be.

I grab the collar of his shirt and start tugging it over his head and off. Pure arousal shines in my eyes when they fall on his bare chest. He’s so thick and perfect, such aman. And somehow, he lovesme.

My nails dig into his back, clawing at him to get him closer. He has me pinned up against the wall, my legs wrapped around his waist as he pounds into me.

“You’re such a good girl,” he breathes against my mouth, punctuating the sentence with a thrust. “Smart.”Thrust. “Beautiful.”Thrust.“Mouthy.”Thrust.“Mine.”

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