ANMELDENHe doesn't rush. His tongue moves through my folds slowly, circling my clit without touching it directly until my hips lift off the bed trying to find the pressure I need. He holds me down with one hand flat on my stomach and gives me his tongue in measured strokes that keep me right at the edge without letting me fall."Please," I say. "Nick, please."His tongue pushes inside me. My back bows off the sheets and my hand tightens in his hair hard enough that he groans against me. He fucks me with his tongue, slow and deep and curling, while his thumb finally finds my clit and presses in tight circles.I come with his mouth on me and his name breaking apart in my throat. My thighs clamp around his head and my hips grind against his face and he rides it out with me, his tongue never stopping, his thumb never stopping, drawing the orgasm out until my body is trembling and my hand falls from his hair to the sheets.He presses one last kiss against my inner thigh. Then he crawls up my body,
EMILYThe fire is already lit when we walk in. Orange light moves across the stone floor and the wooden ceiling beams and the walls that look exactly the way they looked when I was eighteen and believed the man beside me was going to save my life.I stop in the doorway. Nick's hand rests on the small of my back.The ceiling still slopes toward the back wall. The fireplace still dominates the left side. The wide-plank oak floor creaks in the same places it creaked six years ago, and my foot finds the one beside the door, the one I used to step on deliberately because the sound made Nick look up from whatever he was doing and smile.He's looking at me now. Not smiling."You kept the beams," I say."I kept everything I could.""The mantle is the same.""Same stone. I had it cleaned but the mason said it was too old to replace without taking the whole chimney down."I walk further in. My fingers trail the back of the couch, newer than the old one but positioned in the same spot facing the
"I was so scared, Em," his voice breaks. "Every time I leaked a design I wanted to throw up. Every time you looked at me and smiled I wanted to tell you. But he had pictures of Lily at her daycare. He knew her schedule. He said if I told anyone...""I know. Sage told me everything.""I didn't know it was Alex until last night. I thought I was protecting Clara from Jessica. And then Alex showed up at my door and laughed in my face. He sat in my passenger seat and laughed."My arms tighten around him. "You're safe now. Clara and Lily are safe. Cole sent a protection detail within the hour. No one's going to touch them."He pulls back, wiping his fogged glasses. "I'm sorry. I know that's not enough. I know I have to earn it back. But I'm sorry.""You stopped being my employee five years ago. You're my family. You should have told me.""I know," his voice cracks again. "I know that now."A nervous, young maid in a Silver Moon uniform appears beside us. She doesn't look at me with any flic
Mia's question lands in the marble foyer like a stone dropped into still water."Dad, is this the house where you made Mummy crawl?"The air leaves my lungs. My hand is still in Nick's, and I feel his fingers turn to iron around mine. For one terrible second, I am not standing in this sunlit foyer with new locks and a new staff. I am on the floor of the great hall, eighteen years old, my palms scraping against stone while two hundred people watch the man I love call me nothing.Nick drops to his knees. Not the slow, calculated movement of an Alpha taking charge, but the fast, frantic drop of a terrified father."Where did you hear that?" His voice is level, but I can hear the fracture running through it. "Mia, sweetheart, where did you hear that?"Mia points at Mason. He's standing by the staircase, his jacket buttoned to his chin, his grey eyes wide. "Mason told me. He heard it at court. The man with the mean voice asked you two questions, and he said Mummy was on the floor and you w
NickI wake before the sun. Emily’s hair is strewn across my chest, her bare leg hooked over mine, and for a long moment, I don’t move. The bedroom is dark and quiet. She’s breathing slow against my shoulder, her blue dress somewhere on the floor with the rest of last night’s restraint.I press my lips to her forehead. She stirs, making a soft sound before settling again."I need to go to the pack house first," I whisper. "Security sweep before everyone arrives. Cole’s waiting."She mumbles something caught between *okay* and *go away*. I kiss her once more, slide out of bed, and by the time I’m dressed, she has already pulled my pillow into the empty space.I leave a note on the counter: *Coffee's made. Back by noon. We're still doing the cabin. - N*The drive to the pack estate takes forty minutes. The gates open as I approach, and the house rises at the end of the drive just as it always has, stone, glass, and too many windows. A monument to my father's ambition.I park and stare a
We finish the meal and I pay the check, and we walk out into the night with her shoulder bumping my arm on every step. My man on the corner tips his chin as we pass and I tip mine back. The street is quiet, and her heels click on the pavement, and the city feels like it belongs only to us."Your place?" she says.I stop walking. Take her face in both hands and kiss her on the sidewalk at midnight—slow and deep, her hands gripping my shirt and her mouth opening under mine with the taste of wine and truffle and her.I pull back. Her eyes are dark. Her lips are swollen."I want to savor this," I say."Savor what?""Tonight. You in this dress. The wine. The way you looked when you kicked me under the table." My thumb traces her jaw. "I don't want to rush to the part where we take each other's clothes off. I want to spend the whole night wanting to.""You're turning me down.""I'm extending the anticipation.""That's the same thing with better marketing.""Saturday. The getaway. Two days."
NICKI hit the tarmac with Mason in my arms and my bare feet on the cold ground and I don't feel the cold. I don't feel anything except his arms around my neck and his heartbeat against my chest and the wet of his tears on my shoulder."I've got you," I say into his hair. "I've got you, buddy. You'
MASONThe car stops and Jessica pulls me out and we’re somewhere with little planes.Not the big airport where Dad took me once to watch planes land. A small place with a fence and a gate and a man who waves Jessica through without checking anything. It’s dark and the lights on the ground are blue
EMILYNick is on his fourth phone call in twenty minutes and each one is louder than the last.“I don’t care about jurisdictional procedure, David. I care about the fact that a judge who spent Christmas at my father’s estate is sitting on my custody case. That’s not procedure, that’s corruption, an
‼️‼️‼️PLEASE READ BEFORE STARTING‼️‼️‼️This chapter contains triggering themes. It would be the only one in the book to have themes of a mother hitting her child. Spoiler, it is a slap. I promise the dark cloud passes soon. If you cannot handle it, please skip to the ending.I promise you the book







