Chapter 25
MARA
For the next three nights, I’m only able to fall asleep with Warren humming me into drowsiness as he pins me to the bed.
Practically, anyway, because he keeps his weight shifted off my chest enough that I can still breathe comfortably.
But even then, I’m not sure how restful that sleep is because I wake up listless and exhausted at the prospect of facing the day.
Even Warren’s sweet kisses to my forehead aren’t enough to chase away the storm clouds circling my mind as I force myself to throw the covers aside and leave the safety and comfort of our bed in the mornings.
How could they be when every passing day brings me ever closer to the man from my nightmares? Maybe he won’t find out about me if we don’t go into town, but just knowing he’ll be so close makes me want to throw up.
My appetite for food and sex is nonexistent, and I’m fairly certain both Emmaline and Patches are picking up on my emotions because their clinginess has intensified. Warren was right about feelings. It’d be nice if they could simply be wished away, but they have to run their course.
On the fourth morning, it’s much the same as before.
But this time, I catch Warren’s frowning reflection in the mirror as I pick the first dress I see and pull it over my head.
“What?” I ask, belatedly cringing at my flat tone.
In all fairness to him, he doesn’t take offense.
But maybe that’s because his eyes are fixed to my waist. He doesn’t say anything as he comes up behind me and gathers the fabric between thumb and forefinger.
Oh. The dress still fits me very well, but perhaps it’s a bit looser than before.
I swallow and cast a glance up at him.
His frown softens as his hands come to my hips and waist, silently measuring them like he did months ago. “We can’t go through this again, Mara.” Warren’s gentleness causes my eyes to sting. “You’ve got to start eating more. Both for yourself and Emmaline.”
“I know,” I say through my tiredness. “I’m trying.” I’m just so exhausted. His arms wrap around me, and I sink backwards into the strength of his embrace.
The fifth day is marginally better as I force myself to eat more than I’m hungry for.
The sixth is much the same.
The seventh day, a beam of sunshine pierces the darkness when Emmaline, my darling baby girl, finally learns how to sit up on her own. Her toothy grin bursts with pride, as if she knows what an accomplishment it is to sit without having a protective hand at her back.
Warren whoops with excitement, and when Emmaline reaches for him, she falls backwards onto Patches, who sniffs at her head in concern. But instead of tears, she breaks out into a fit of contagious giggles as his tongue darts out to lick at her cheek.
It doesn’t escape my notice that I haven’t been intimate with Warren for a week.
He hasn’t pushed, even though it’s been impossible to ignore his obvious want for me when he blankets me with his warmth, and I almost sink further into my depression when I realize that with my husband, I’m allowed to actually experience my feelings instead of shoving them down and plastering a semblance of a smile on my face as I welcomed the next man to my bed.
But tonight, with his body touching mine in the darkness, something comes alive within me when he presses his face to my neck and breathes in, just like he’s done every night.
“Good night, wife. Sleep well and know that it’s my arms holding you.” The gentle scrape of a day’s worth of bristles and the low vibration of his words make me shiver. He smooths a soft kiss over the tender skin of my neck, and it’s then that the spark erupts into a fire as my senses roar to life.
I moan—just a small sound—but every inch of him stills when he hears it. I bite my lip and hope he does it again. As close as we are, the pounding of his heart dances with mine. He starts to pull away, but I lock my arms around him and urge him back down.
“Mara.”
There’s an unspoken question in the hushed way he speaks my name, and I answer him by softly dragging my fingernails in a line from his neck to the base of his back in silent invitation.
“Fuck, Mara,” he growls. His arms tremble from the strain of holding back before he gives in and nuzzles my head aside to kiss the length of my neck.
I close my eyes in bliss and let my fingertips learn the muscled shape of Warren’s back and shoulders all over again as his caresses grow more fevered.
“I missed being with you like this, wife,” he manages between tiny kisses that travel across my jawline and over to my waiting lips. “Don’t shut me out like that again.”
“I won’t,” I rasp through strained emotions. “I didn’t mean to.”
“I know, darlin’. I know.”
Those are the last words we speak before losing ourselves in each other.
Somehow my nightgown disappears while his trousers are kicked off, and we come together in a sweet slide of bare skin.
Warren’s thighs bracket mine, holding them captive as he enters me, and his low groan lights up my insides.
My hands wind up shackled on either side of my head, slim fingers interlocked with thicker ones as he makes me his all over again.
His pace is slow but with a restrained urgency that roughens each thrust.
Although my body is caged by his, there’s a freedom in his embrace.
Everything I’d suppressed in the last week…
fear, anger, despair, and now the all-consuming love for the man inside of me…
surges to the top and escapes in a soundless trickle of tears.
I don’t know if I can find release in this emotional state, but I don’t care. I need this closeness with my husband.
I need him.
But trying to sniff the tears away is a failure, and Warren stiffens when he discovers them. “Darlin’, why are you crying? Do you not want this?”
“No! Don’t leave me.” I wiggle my arms and legs free and hook them around him to stop his retreat.
“I’m not gonna leave you, wife, but I didn’t mean to make you cry. We don’t have to do this if you’re not ready for it. I can just hold you instead. I can wait as long as you need me to.”
I swipe at my eyes in the darkness with one hand.
“You didn’t make me cry.” Not on purpose, at least. Now there are even more tears because he acknowledged the damn things.
“Having you hold me and be with me like this makes me feel safe and protected. I just…I’m feeling a lot of other things right now, too.
Just know that I love you and I want this and these are good tears.
So don’t stop. I know that it’s you here with me, and I want this more than anything. Please…don’t stop.”
Warren hesitates, thumbing away the fresh wetness at the corner of my eyes before lowering onto me again. “Nothing can ever keep me away from you, Mara.” His cock pushes back into me, and a sob of stark relief leaves me at the full sensation. “I love you.”
“I love you, too. So much.” The tears never fully cease, but between kisses that burn as much as they soothe and the slow, lazy thrust of his hips, the heated desire builds again.
I surrender myself to the love he so freely gives, and when my release comes, it triggers his in a wash of husky groans that makes mine last even longer.
Panting, he slips out of me, and before I can protest the loss of him, he latches onto my breast.
“Ah,” I cry out at the unexpected sensation of his facial scruff rubbing the tender skin. But the intimacy is too intense, the closeness too peaceful, to push him away, so I cradle his head until he takes his fill of my milk and moves on to the other.
I must fall asleep from exhaustion and release before he finishes, because the next thing I know, I wake up to tiny hands patting my face and a heavy weight on my legs.
And when I open my eyes, I see the most beautiful sight in the world—my little girl babbling and beaming at me before turning at the last moment and launching herself towards her papa.
Patches—the heavy weight on my legs—gives a short bark before bathing the back of my hand in soft doggy kisses.
“Morning, wife.” Warren’s voice is scratchy with sleep, and when his gaze catches mine and softens, a tender seed of resolve sprouts in my heart.
This is a beautiful life, and everything is going to be all right.
I have all I could possibly need here in bed with me.
I refuse to let Montgomery Blackwood steal any of my happiness in this new life I somehow found myself in.