Bloody Heart (Brutal Birthright #4) - Sophie Lark Page 0,117
of questions that make it clear they don’t believe Raylan’s story of being shot in a hunting accident.
They let me use the shower at least. I stand under the hot spray for forty minutes, watching dirt, twigs, leaves, and blood swirl down the drain. I start crying again, seeing the cuts and welts all over my body. Remembering the feeling of fleeing for my life.
But I also remember what it felt like to have Dante’s arms wrap around me as he lifted me into the air, pressed safely against his chest. I’ve never felt a more powerful sensation of relief, gratitude, and safety.
Dante’s arms are the safest place in the world. The only place I’ve truly felt secure.
I would face any danger, as long as he was with me.
Once I’m clean, and the doctor has stitched up the worst of the cuts on my feet and legs, the hospital lends me a pair of scrubs to wear. They’re soft and faded from a hundred washings, and quite honestly, they’re the most comfortable thing I’ve ever worn.
It takes longer for them to sew up the wound in Raylan’s side. They have to put a couple pints of blood in his arm, and Dante and I check into the only motel in the town, so Raylan can rest and recover overnight.
The motel room is tiny, last decorated in 1982 most likely, with wood-paneled walls, mustard-yellow drapes, and a scratchy wool blanket.
To me, it’s the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in, because I’m staying there with Dante. We eat at the kitschy little family restaurant next door, both of us ordering double stacks of pancakes and bacon, which turn out to be surprisingly delicious.
Then we go back to our room, and Dante throws me down on the creaky, lumpy bed that groans alarmingly under our combined weight.
I look up into Dante’s face—into his fierce black eyes.
“I’m sorry,” I tell him, again. “I should have told you about Henry.”
“I should have to come to London,” Dante says, seriously. “I should have never let you go so easily. I should have tracked you down that year, or the one after, or the one after that. I was prideful and bitter. I was a fool.”
“I’ll never lie to you again,” I promise him.
“I’ll never fail to find you.”
He kisses me. His lips are rough and warm. His huge, heavy arms envelop me completely.
He moves his hands down my body, gently squeezing and massaging the aching muscles of my neck, shoulders, chest, and back. He finds every tight and knotted place, and he presses out the stress and pain of the last twenty-four hours. His hands are so warm and strong that they force out trauma from my flesh, leaving a deep, contented pleasure in its place.
My body has been in so much pain that it seems impossible that I could become aroused again. But as his palms brush over my breasts, I feel my nipples responding to his touch. A warm flush spreads from my breasts down to my belly.
Dante takes my breast in his mouth. He sucks gently on the nipple, lapping it with his tongue. He trails his tongue all the way down my navel, to the little patch of skin right below my belly button.
The skin is tight, but if you look closely, there’s few silvery lines, the last ghostly remnants of the stretch marks I got in the final month of my pregnancy.
“I never noticed those before,” Dante says. His voice is soft, with a tone of wonder, not anger. “I bet you were the most beautiful pregnant woman.”
“If you wanted . . .” I say, my voice catching in my throat. “Maybe I could be again . . .”
Dante looks up at me, his hand tightening around mine.
“Do you mean that?” he says, huskily.
I nod, tears pricking at my eyes.
“I’m not on the pill,” I tell him. “In fact . . .” mentally I count back through the days since my last period. “Now could be a good time.”
Dante presses his face against my pussy and inhales my scent. Even with his dark, dark irises, I can see his pupils dilate with lust.
“You do smell fucking phenomenal,” he growls.
He runs his thumb down the slit between my pussy lips, feeling my slick wetness. My pussy is thrumming with anticipation, my clit already swollen and sensitive, even though he’s barely touched me yet. My heart is thumping, and I feel that anxious anticipation, the desire coiled inside me like a spring.