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I really was, but there was nothing on earth that would have stopped me from taking her. “Ask me if I care.”
She rolled her eyes. “At least take me to bed. I’ll do all the work, and you can lie back and think of the queen.” The joke fell flat, but I loved her all the more for it.
Christ, I loved her.
Urgency quickened my steps out of the bathroom, where I completely ignored the idea of a towel as I threw her soaking wet onto the bed.
Words weren’t my strong suit, especially not when change was so close, but I needed her to know where we stood. I needed her to know that I loved her before everything went to hell.
I told her every thought in my head as I kissed her, licked her, slid my fingers inside her.
You’re beautiful. You’re perfect. You’re everything to me.
When I notched myself inside her for real, I gave her the most honest thing I could. “You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, angel. You feel like home.”
Because she was.
From the very first moment she’d smiled at me, she’d been my home.
At first, she said nothing, letting the pleasure roll over her. Then I saw the look in her eyes—the love—and I silently begged her not to say it.
Don’t. Please god, don’t.
“I love you.” She whispered it like she couldn’t hold back, and I shoved my head into her neck so she couldn’t see my face.
I didn’t want the words. I didn’t deserve them.
They ached. They killed. They burrowed inside me like poison.
I didn’t deserve them, but Mari did.
She deserved to know everything, but she’d have to settle for what I could give her.
“I love you.” Three words that changed my life this time. Three words pulled from the very depths of my soul.
I didn’t know a lot about life or love, but I knew Mari was so deep inside me, there was no getting her out.
I knew soulmates were real because she was mine.
My Mari. My angel. My heaven.
“I love you,” I said again. “I’ll never stop loving you.”
Now that the words were out, it was like I couldn’t stop saying them. I whispered them against her skin, breathing them into her mouth, her hair, her fucking fingertips as we writhed together.
I didn’t have a real plan for the future, just a promise I couldn’t help but make. Every inch of her would know how much I cared. How real we were. How deep this love ran.
If I could change nothing about tomorrow, at least I could do that much.
Because after tomorrow, I could never go home again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Mari
The invitation came sometime after Nate fell into a fitful sleep. We’d stayed locked together long after morning arrived. He’d only crashed because I’d fed him a pain pill by hand, lavishing him with praise and kisses until he passed out in my arms.
We had a few hours of blissful sleep before Amara knocked on the door, envelope in hand. I knew what it was before I’d even opened it.
