Page 46

Quickening my steps, I brush past guests strolling down the quiet hallway.

My heart restarts, its rhythm frantic, joining the desperate yearning in my gut.

I need to find Ethan to tell him he misunderstood what he saw on the deck.

I need to ask him why he’s Polaris and why he’s never revealed his identity.

I need to know if the woman from his emails, the person he loved, who broke his heart…

if that person was me.

My breathing is in loud, rapid pants, and I lift my silk gown and rush to the end of the corridor where the library is.

Moments later, I stand in front of the large oak door, my fingers twitching, my pulse throbbing.

Slowly, I turn the knob and step inside.

The door clicks shut behind me.

It’s dark and quiet, except for the crackle of the fireplace.

The distinct scent of weathered pages and worn leather fills the air.

Moonlight streams in from the wall of windows ahead, casting a silvery glow over the endless rows of overflowing bookshelves.

A small seating area rests atop a dark rug.

For a moment, I don’t see him—my gaze fixed on the intimate room, half-veiled in shadows.

But then, I feel him.

A quiet presence. Unyielding.

Impossible to ignore .

Ethan stands in the corner, looking out the windows at the dark waters outside.

He has one hand braced on the glass, his forehead knocking softly against the pane, like he’s trying to wake himself up.

His muscles bunch, straining against the confines of his tuxedo.

He looks so lonely. Haunted.

Worn down by pain.

A lump swells in my throat and my nose burns.

The spot on my chest aches.

With a shaky hand, I take out my phone and swipe it open.

I pull up Polaris’s email and type a reply.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: RE: RE: Do you ever want to meet?

I don’t accept that answer.

And I know who you are…

Ethan.

I hit send and hold my breath.

A second later, his phone pings.

He takes it out and looks at the screen.

A sharp inhale. He straightens to his full height.

It’s him. Polaris is Ethan.

I should be angry. Furious at this breach of trust. But…

I can’t.

I can’t bring myself to be mad at him.

If anything, everything suddenly makes sense—why both men evoke such powerful reactions in me.

They are the same person all along.

Ethan has been with me every step of the way, even when I was cold with him after I woke up.

The deep connection between us transcends the time we’ve spent together this past year.

And when I’m in his arms—I feel safe, treasured.

Loved.

“I have faith in you… I’ll protect you with my life.”

His words at the swimming pool echo through me.

And before I can stop myself, a gasp tumbles from my lips .

Ethan’s head snaps toward me, his eyes wide with shock.

“Nova,” he rasps.

I stumble toward him, my right leg not quite working.

My vision blurs from tears—grief I don’t understand but somehow know intimately in my heart.

I love this man. I was already falling for him with every moment we’d shared since I awakened to this unfamiliar world.

But now, I realize…perhaps I’ve loved him all along.

And from his glittering dark gaze, the way his arms are twitching at his sides like he’s physically restraining himself from rushing toward me, I know feels the same way.

Ethan Anderson, Polaris, they’re one and the same, and they both love me.

Desperately.

This is what’s missing in my heart.

This big gaping hole nothing can fill.

“It was you all along, wasn’t it?” I stumble to a stop a foot away from him.

The harsh moonbeam casts his features in stark contrast.

He swallows.

“You’re the man I’m looking for, aren’t you? The person I’ve forgotten but holds the missing pieces of my heart. You were in front of me all along.”

I wish I remembered us, our past in those missing four years—those precious memories that formed the inexplicable connection I have with this man.

Wetness glints in his stormy eyes and his nostrils flare.

My fingers tremble as I reach up and caress his face.

A sharp hiss escapes his lips before he snatches my hand and turns his head, pressing a searing kiss onto my palm.

“And I pushed you away for so long.” Tears slide down my cheeks, but I don’t care.

“How come you aren’t mad at me?” I shove him in frustration.

“I hurt you! I never understood why my heart ached or my head throbbed whenever I saw you. I thought it was fear, that my body was trying to tell me something, but it was the opposite all along, wasn’t it?”

I shove him again, my mind overloaded with emotions.

Tears spill over, tracing silent paths down his cheeks, and the sight cleaves me in half.

He hasn’t spoken a word, but his pain crashes into me, raw and unrelenting.

My fists flail, landing half-heartedly against him.

He catches them, pressing them against his chest—keeping me from hurting myself, from hurting him any longer.

“It was the opposite, wasn’t it? Tell me, Ethan. My mind forgot, but my heart…my heart remembers. It was love all along, wasn’t it? That’s why it hurts so much to have lost it.”

Sobs rack my body.

I don’t deserve him.

His kindness. His silent support.

His love.

He’s solved my problems—the internship, my fear of swimming, the loneliness of having no one to talk to—all without asking for recognition.

All without asking for me to love him in return.

My heart recognizes him, even if my mind has forgotten our story—what must’ve been a beautiful, heartbreaking story.

Because what else can explain his devotion to me?

I gasp— has he waited all these years for me?

That’s impossible. No one can do that.

“I don’t deserve you, Ethan.” I shake my head.

“I-I wish I could remember us. Our memories. I’m so sor—”

He yanks me to him and smothers my next words with his lips.

I’m finally home.

His mouth swallows my cries, and I kiss him back with everything I have.

We’re a mess of tears and passion, grief, love, and desperation.

He grips the nape of my neck and angles me to the side to deepen our kiss.

Harder. Conquering. Healing.

Moaning, I claw at his tux jacket and in a flash, he chucks it off.

He groans and crushes me tighter against him, binding me almost to the point of pain, but I’m already lightheaded.

Drunk on him.

Ethan’s tongue sweeps into my mouth, tasting me, savoring me, drinking me in like he’s parched and dying of thirst. Fire burns down my body, prickling my nipples into tight buds, settling between my legs.

“Never,” he rasps when we break apart for air.

“ Never apologize to me. You have nothing to be sorry for, you hear me? None of this is your fault. Fate stole a decade from us. I don’t hate you. I’m not angry at you.”

He caresses my face, the intensity in his eyes matching my rioting heartbeats.

“I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you. I’ve waited,” he chokes up, “w-waited almost a decade to tell you these words again, Nova. And now, I finally get to say them.”

A ragged exhale escapes his throat, and he unleashes a devastating smile—one of pain and happiness.

His eyes glisten with moisture again.

“So don’t you dare apologize to me. Don’t you fucking dare. Because I love you so fucking much, and now I can finally tell you again.”

I cry and throw myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck, my legs curled around his waist.

I kiss and suck any part of him I can reach—his eyes, his lips, his rugged jawline.

He returns the favor, and our kiss quickly spirals out of control, the inferno overtaking us in a flash.

Ethan carries me somewhere.

I’m dizzy with lust, love, and everything in between, and before I know it, my back hits a bookshelf and darkness encloses us.

I might not remember if I’ve ever had sex before, but being with him like this feels as natural as breathing, like I’ve done this many times before and my body remembers.

My nails dig into his neck before I yank off his bow tie, then his shirt, and he makes work at removing my dress at a breakneck speed.

I can’t get enough. Can’t get close enough.

Too many clothes. Too much distance .

“P-Please, Ethan. I need you. I-I need—”

I scream when he bites the pulse point on my neck.

“What do you need, Nova?” a deep guttural growl, and my pussy weeps, soaking my thong in a matter of seconds.

He sucks his way down my neck, laving my collarbone before he yanks off my strapless bra as well, baring my breasts to the night air.

“Fuck me,” he grunts.

He sucks a nipple in and tugs.

Then he bites down.

I scream, the sharp pleasure shooting straight to my clit.

I gyrate my pussy over his groin, his hard cock digging out of his pants.

“Shit!” His breath falters and I feel him throb and grow between my legs.

Moving faster, I rub my heat over his thick length, needing more friction, more pressure, more everything.

Dropping my head back, I hear the sounds of books toppling off the shelves.

Then, the rough sound of the zipper and the rustling of fabric as his pants disappear between us.

Followed by a heady burn when he rips off my thong.

“Yes…Ethan, oh my God, yes, just like that!” I moan when his bare cock glides over my folds.

There’s a desperate need for him to fill me like this is a sensation I’ve been missing for a long time.

I’m so wet. I should be embarrassed, but apparently that only turns him on more.

“I can’t go slow today, Nova.” He slides his hand between us and rubs my swollen clit.

My legs shake as I barrel head first into what will be an earth-shattering orgasm.

“I…I need to be inside you. I can’t last… It’s been almost ten years.” He grunts, and his tip notches at my opening.

My eyes snap open as his words finally register.

“T-Ten years? You haven’t—” He hasn’t been with anyone for a decade?

His eyes are lightning.

Thunder. Tornadoes. Breathtaking storm.

“How could I? I’m taken. My heart and body belong only to one woman.”

His answer sends me into a tailspin.

I’ve done this before with him.

The thought echoes in the back of my mind—a surety I’d bet anything on.

I claw his bare back and clamp my legs tightly against him, urging him on.

“Fuck me, Ethan. I need you inside me. Bare. I’m on the pill.”

There’s no need to tell him I’m clear.

He already knows. And from his revelation, I know he’s the same.

He roars and surges in, his hard cock spearing me, but there isn’t any pain.

Instead, white-hot pleasure shoots into my veins as he pistons inside me.

I feel so full, so complete.

This is not tender kisses and slow lovemaking.

This is a hard, rough fucking.

A claiming.

The bookshelf groans under our assault as Ethan pummels me relentlessly.

The sounds of skin slapping against skin echo in the room, followed by the rumbling of more books falling to the ground as he hammers harder, his movements desperate.

It’s insanity. It’s heaven.

It’s everything I need.

“You’re so fucking tight, Nova. You’ve been waiting like a good girl, haven’t you?”

“Yes. Yes. Yes!” I bite his shoulder and he jerks inside me.

“A fucking biter too, my Nova. I’ve missed this.” Thrust. Thrust. Thrust. “I’ve missed this so much.”

He hoists me higher against him and spreads out my legs, holding me up by my ass.

My tits bounce as he ruts into me, his eyes glazed, mad with passion.

He stares at my nipples saluting him, then at my lips, then my eyes.

My eyes roll back as a sharp current of pleasure surges from deep inside me, from a spot his cock is now hitting with every hard thrust, every gyration .

I shake against the shelf, my hands grabbing the ledge, sweeping more books to the floor.

My teeth chatter as sparks gather between my legs.

Tighter. Tighter. Even tighter.

“Come for me, Lexy. Bathe my cock with your cum. Let the world know who you belong to.”

His words push me off the edge, and I explode.

“Ethan!” A lustful cry tears out of me and I tremble uncontrollably in his grip.

“Yes, yes, yes. Fuck, you’re strangling me so good. Yes!” He roars his release, and I feel the hot spurts of his cum shooting deep inside me.

It’s unending, like he’s saved all his pleasure for me.

Lurid sounds of wetness echo with our loud breathing as he continues thrusting, not letting up, and soon, a new storm gathers where we’re joined.

Within seconds, he has me on the edge again.

He flicks my swollen nub and wetness spurts out of me as blinding pleasure obliterates my senses.

Our cum drips out, no doubt making a mess, but that only spurs him on.

“I can’t get enough. Never enough,” he rasps.

He slams his lips on mine as he carries us to the floor.

Then, he hoists my legs over his shoulders, bending me like I’m a rag doll and slams back inside, this time getting deeper than before.

I bite his lip and he returns the favor, his hands reaching between us to grab my tits, his fingers pinching my nipples.

“Another one.” He quickens his rhythm to jackhammering.

“I-I can’t,” I moan, but my body doesn’t get the memo.

My pussy accepts his invasion and my mind is in a state of bliss as he pounds me like getting me off is the last thing he’ll ever do.

“Yes, you can, Nova. I’m hungry. Ravenous. I haven’t eaten in a decade. I haven’t felt your pussy sucking the cum out of me, killing me and giving me life at the same time. You’re going to give me another one, and this time, I want your scream to deafen my ears .”

He pins my legs down so they’re by my ears, his cock growing impossibly thicker and longer.

He’s so deep inside me.

I can feel him everywhere.

More wetness sluices out of me.

He pounds me harder, every thrust hitting a sensitive spot with the precision of a marksman.

My moans and cries are uninhibited, and my vision blackens.

I’m once again perched at the edge of nirvana.

“Oh my God, I-I’m going to come!” I cry, my body locking, then spasming.

“Come, Nova. Who do you belong to? Scream it to the world.” I feel his thumb breach my ass and that added sensation rips reality away from me.

“Yours. Ethan, I’m yours!” My answer echoes in the library.

Pleasure shoots through my veins, rendering me speechless.

“Fuck yes. And I’m yours.” A deep growl rumbles from his throat and he topples over the edge, his hot cum streaming out of his throbbing dick in never ending pulses, his hips moving, gyrating in a softening rhythm, riding out the intense aftershocks.

Sometime later—it could be a few minutes or an hour, I can’t be sure—he slides out of me and lowers my legs.

Our cum drips out of me, and he growls his satisfaction when he pushes it back inside.

“I want all of it inside you. Every drop.”

My pussy flutters at the possession and obsession in his voice.

Sweat glistens our bodies as we lie on the carpeted floor, his larger frame spooning mine.

He presses a soft kiss on the sensitive spot where my jaw meets my neck and I shiver.

My mind is mush and I sink into his embrace.

His fingers twine with mine before resting on my stomach.

“I love you, Ethan. So, so much. My heart remembers you.”

He clutches me tighter, and just when I think he won’t reply, I hear his fervent response.

“Not as much as I love you. Never as much as I love you.”