Page 92 of Fighting With Light

She pulls her mouth from mine and I dip my head down to her chest, dragging my teeth over her skin, leaving wet, sloppy kisses. I want to leave my mark on her.

“Do it,” she gasps.

I lean back and she nods. “Do it, mark me. I want them to know,” she says breathlessly.

I growl and flip us so she’s beneath me. Tucking my nose to her neck, I suck on the skin at her pulse and she moans, digging her nails into my back. I lean back to see the red mark that will turn into a hickey and grin triumphantly. She bites her lower lip and I continue my re-exploration of her body until I get to her waist. Her silk shorts are all bunched up, and I grab the waist and rip them like they are floss.

“Liam!” Aelia yells. I grin and nip her chin.

“I’ll buy you fifty more,” I mumble on her skin.

“Now I don’t have a matching set,” she grumbles, then gasps as I leave another mark on her hip.

“I’ll buy you every color of the rainbow.”

“I do like color,” she breathes as I reach the apex of her thighs.

“I prefer you without it.” I kiss the soft skin on her inner thigh.

She moans and tips her head back. “The same could be said for you,” she mutters. I smile into her skin, then sit up and toss my towel.

“Better?” I ask her. She nods and stares at me for a moment. I get back on the bed between her legs and her cherry scent fills my lungs. “I think I just distracted you instead.” I graze my nose against her and she moans into the ceiling.

“No more talking,” she gasps.

I smile and use my tongue for better purposes. She grips my hair like a handle, arching her back, quaking in my hands, and I groan into her.

“Oh...Liam!” Aelia cries out as she falls down the rabbit hole. She lifts up on her elbows and looks down at me.

I kiss her hip and sit up. “I like it when you scream my name like that, princess.” I grin.

She smiles back, her eyelids droopy and satisfied. “Then make me say it again,” she whispers.

I move back up her body to her mouth and she links her arms around my neck, holding me hostage as she plunders my mouth with her tongue, and I brand her with mine. I want her to experience the way she makes me feel so she’ll never forget it. I want her to be shopping somewhere and look at a pair of silk pajamas and remember me. I want her to see a surfboard and know that I haven’t stopped thinking about her. I want to carve myself into her skin so she can’t take a shower without smelling the memory of me on her.

She kisses me like I’m all she wants and I think maybe, at least in this moment, we are all each other needs.

34

Aelia

The door opens, wakingme up, and I hear the ocean like it’s playing on a speaker before it’s dulled again by the door closing. I peek my eyes open and Liam is standing there with a bouquet of flowers in his hand and a smile on his handsome face.

I sit up, pulling the sheet to cover my chest. “Morning, beautiful,” he says and walks to my side of the bed.

Brushing my hair out of my face, I smile, trying to ignore the way my heart dances around in sync with the butterflies in my stomach. “Wow, Liam, these are gorgeous,” I say, a little taken aback. He grins and hands me the collection of roses, sunflowers, and daisies.

Breathing in one of the roses, my eyes burn, and my chest gets tight. No one has ever bought me flowers before. I glance at him reading something on his computer, and I’m suddenly petrified. I think I’m falling in love with Liam Coldwell, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

He’s like cliff diving and not looking at what’s below you. He’s a rush of adrenaline coupled with safety. He’s the man the little girl in me always hoped would rescue her from the dungeon she was born and raised in.

He frowns and takes a step towards me. “Are you okay? Are you allergic to one of those? I can take them back. I’ll find you different ones.”

I shake my head and set the flowers on the bedside table, still at a loss for words.

“Okay,” he says, drawing out the word. “Then why do you look like I kicked your puppy?”

My eyes burn and I want to say those words to him so much it hurts. I want to ask him if we can find a way. But over the short time we’ve been together, I know what he will say.