Page 109 of Promise

He arches a brow, glancing at me like he’s on the edge of suspense about what the woman must say in order to earn Dennis’s dick.

“I love you,” she blurts.” Dart gasps in false shock. “Despite how much she hated him, she still loved him.”

“Finally,” he continues, now in the role of Dennis. Then Dennis surged forward, filling her channel with his firm length.

Dart glances back at me, snapping the book shut around his finger.

“Wow, that Dennis is a ballbuster. Holding out until she says I love you before he fucks her.” He blows out a breath, like he’s just read the most profound literature. He tosses the book to the side and shifts to mirror my position. Elbow on top of the pillow. Head propped against his hand.

“Is that the kind of romantic hero you want?” he asks. “Where the husband is one big tease.” He runs his fingertip down my nose and around my mouth, then under my chin. He continues his trail along the side of my neck, and I tip my head, lowering my arm to rest my head on the edge of the pillows.

“Was he teasing? He sounded kind of serious,” I mock of his reading.

Dart lowers to the pillows as well, running his fingertip along my shoulder, brushing aside the thin strap of my tank top.

“All the guys in those books have big cocks and hard lines in the sand, don’t they?”

I shrug. “You watched Bridgerton.”

He hums, remembering, and I close my eyes as his finger continues to trail down my arm. When he gets to my hand, he takes my fingers, tugging gently at each one of them, massaging them in a sense. He flips my hand, digging his thumb into my palm before bringing my hand to his mouth.

“Let me be your romantic hero again.”

A soft laugh rumbles from me. “How?”

He turns my arm and peppers my inner wrist with kisses, moving up to the crease of my elbow. Then he moves to the outside of my arm, working up to my shoulder before nipping me softly in that sweet spot he knows sends wicked tingles through my body.

“For one, I won’t hold out on you,” he says.

I laugh a little harder, my eyes closing again. He pinches my chin, and my eyes flare wide.

“I’ll give you anything you want.”

We’ve already made those kinds of promises to one another, knowing they can’t always be upheld.

“The only thing I want is you,” I whisper. I want him to stay, but it’s still something I can’t ask and don’t want to assume will happen.

He hums again and moves to my chest, stamping kisses on my skin as he moves toward my breasts.

I fall to my back, scooting lower on the pillows.

Dart pauses over my heart, holding his lips there, as if speaking directly to the engine in my body.

“I’ll love you like no other,” he whispers. “I’ve never not loved you, Trinity.”

I gasp at his words and cup the back of his head, tugging at his hair, but Dart charges up my body and captures my lips, preventing me from responding. As if he’s afraid I can’t say the words back to him.

But the truth is, I’ve always loved him. Never stopped.

I hated him while I still loved him, like that poor wife in the romance novel.

And I want him.

Thankfully, the kiss distracts us both, and his hand moves up my middle, lifting the hem of my tank. He glides higher, toward my breast, slipping his hand beneath the material to massage the heavy swell. Then plucks at my nipple.

He shifts and removes my shirt, then falls back into position beside me, running his fingers around one breast and over my nipple before skating around the other breast to the tip of my sharp nub. Quietly, he strokes around and over and back, until I realize he’s making an infinity symbol on my chest. The entire time he watches his fingers move, and I melt beneath the gesture.

He’s marking me as his. Forever.