Page 24 of The Silent Mountain Man

"I was starting to get used to it…for you. But if I was a princess then, that means I'd have to be a queen now. And…"

"I'm the queen in this relationship."

A huge smile blooms on his face. "Yeah. You are. You're my queen. And my king. And my fucking everything."

"Even if I'm not the confused, angsty emo kid I tried to be? You sure that's not who you're in love with?"

"I fell in love with the person beneath the clothes and the hair and the…fucking contact lenses. I fell in love with your soul, Eddie. No one has ever made me feel the way you do, and I'm feeling it right now. Sitting here on the freaking floor with you. This is my idea of heaven. I wouldn't want to be anywhere else or with anyone else."

I take him in, this strong, gorgeous, genuinely kind-hearted mountain man, and smile.

One of his eyebrows lifts. "What?"

"Nothing. It's just…" I start to say softly through a chuckle. "You're talking. Actually, no. You're blabbering. Like, nonstop. How you used to."

"Yeah… I am." He seems a little taken aback, but then he shrugs. "Guess you bring it out in me, Princess."

"Oh.I'mthe princess now, am I?"

"Only if you'd like to be."

"Maybe I would." My hand slides between our bodies, stopping when it lands on his heavy bulge. "On one condition."

A carnal look ignites his eyes. "And what would that be?"

I lean forward and give the thick column of his neck one slow, delicious lick. When I reach his ear, I hum. "I want you to treat me like a princess, but fuck me like a cheap whore. Just like you did last night."

"You got it…Princess."

8

Harrick

I roll off Eddie and onto the hard wooden floor beside him. I swipe a hand through my damp hair, exhausted after giving him the rough and dirty dicking he requested.

"Was that the nasty sex you were looking for?" I pant.

I glance over at him. I fucked him so hard, so thoroughly, so brutally, I turned his tears of pain into tears of ecstasy. He's totally blissed out, lying there, sweaty, with his mouth gaping open, sucking in oxygen.

"So good," he eventually croaks, then turns his head.

Our eyes meet.

It's such a weird feeling. I nowknowhe's my Eddie, but his eyes were different back then. I'm going to need some time to get used to it, to reconcile the two Eddies into one.

Hopefully, this time, we'll get the time that was stolen from us a decade ago.

We lie there for a few minutes, naked on the floor, just staring at each other.

My mind revisits everything he told me—about his father finding the letters, his mom taking him to that god-awful place…him coming back for me as soon as he could.

"You're so strong," I whisper, as I delicately brush the side of his face with the backs of my fingers. "For surviving what you went through. Those places can fuck people up for life."

"You're strong, too." He clasps his fingers around my hand, brings it to his lips, and peppers it with sweet kisses. "Can't even begin to imagine the horror you saw on the battlefield. That messes with people for the rest of their lives, too."

"It's why I moved up here. To get away from everything."

Eddie keeps my fingers pressed to his lips, but he's stopped kissing them. He's thinking… His eyes might be a different color, but I can recognize that much.

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