Page 60 of Fanged Secrets
With a mock huff, I sat up and straddled her, grabbing a pillow and playfully whacking her with it. “Say’s the one who was hungry for it all night long.”
She giggled, ducking out from under me, and I rolled the both of us over, my hands quickly finding their way to her hips and her hair, pulling her down into a kiss that wiped away any trace of her feigned coyness. She tilted into me, bare breasts brushing against my own as she kissed me back.
My lips trailed down her neck, pausing when I reached the bitemark I’d left behind. The mark of a sealed mating bond, a promise of uncompromising love. My thumb brushed over the scar, fierce affection tightening my chest.
Amara shivered at the touch, throwing her head back as I guided her hips with my hands, a knee between her legs as she grew wet and wanting with the slightest of caresses. The morning chill faded as our bodies moved together, the world outside the bedroom long forgotten.
When it was over, and we were gasping, and the bedsheets had been pushed to the floor, I collapsed against her, our breaths mingling as we struggled to recover. The intensity of what we shared still hummed in the air around us, but there was a softness now, a vulnerability that made my heart swell with something I could only describe as love.
Amara’s arms wrapped around me, her hands trailing up and down my back in soothing strokes. I closed my eyes, soaking in the warmth of her embrace, the steady thrum of her heartbeat against my ear.
“We should probably get up,” I murmured, though the last thing I wanted to do was leave this cocoon of warmth and comfort.
Realizing she hadn’t heard a word I said, I tilted my chin up and caught her eye. “You sure this is what you want? I’m not dragging you into something you’re not ready for, right?”
It was a question I had asked her often lately. Ever since the night at the revived arcade, when she told me she wanted to stay, marriage or no marriage. Even so, I had to be sure. That small, cynical part of me kept whispering that it was too good to be true. I wanted to give her an out, a chance to back away if she needed to.
But Amara only smiled and shook her head. She lifted her hands from my back to sign the words close to her face, “I’m sure. I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. You won’t be getting rid of me anytime soon.”
She tangled her fingers in my hair, and pulled me in for another kiss, this one slow and tender, sealing the promise between us.
We lay there for a while, wrapped up in each other, before I pulled back slightly, brushing a strand of hair away from her face.
“How are you feeling?” I asked, signing roughly with one hand. “About everything… your dad, the house…”
Amara’s expression shifted, the light in her eyes dimming slightly as she thought about the question. She was silent for a moment before she spoke, her voice quiet and contemplative.
“It feels...different. Like a weight I didn’t realize I was carrying has been lifted. I didn’t expect to feel this way, but...I don’t know. It’s like I can finally breathe again.”
I could only nod in solemn understanding. I had been there when Don’s life ended, I had seen the way Amara stood tall, unflinching in the face of the man who had caused her so much pain. I had seen her yank off the silver ring on her finger after we’d collapsed in the garden outside.
The way she’d thrown it down in the dirt.
“I’m glad,” I said softly, tracing patterns on her skin with my fingertips. “I know it wasn’t easy, but you did what you had to. And now...we move forward, together.”
Amara looked up at me, a small smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
“Together,” she echoed.
After a prolonged moment of comfortable silence, and turning that night over in my head, I caught her eye again.
“I still can’t believe you managed to find that egg at all.” I raised my brow. “And how did you cut the lights? I had no idea I was even capable of moving like that until you plunged us all into darkness.”
It had taken a while to deduce why my ability to blend in, to hide in peripherals, was amplified that night. It was Jordan who eventually spelled it out for me. It was my true power coming into place, unleashed by the sealing of the mating bond.
Amara blushed bright red and she pulled the blanket over her head. “It’s a ridiculous story, actually.”
Anything that had Amara embarrassed was enough to pique my curiosity, and I joined her under the blankets, signing and speaking. “What’s a ridiculous story?”
“I found the electrical box and cut the lights that way.” Amara spoke aloud, sounding out the words, and slung a hand over her eyes. “And I knew where to find it because of a certain childish prank Aliyah and I used to play on each other.”
She lowered her arm, a faraway look in her eyes, a small smile tugging at her lips. “We would flip the switch with the end of a broom and cut the lights at night to scare each other. Eventually, our mother was so fed up that she threw out the broom and bought a vacuum cleaner instead.”
She fell silent, but it was easy to tell where her head was at. Her mother, her sister. She had lost so much in such a short lifespan. I reached over and brushed a hand along her cheek.Amara turned toward me, skin pinkish and glowing where the sun shone through the covers.
I couldn’t give back what she’d lost. But I could offer her a future.
My thoughts turned to the rooftop garden. It was our place, a haven above the world. A solo sanctuary that had since become our shared retreat from the chaos of the world around us.
