Chapter 194: Part of Your World
** Eli **
Having spent almost an hour teasing the girl to hell and back, Eli wasn’t planning on being gentle once he finally got to finish his feast. He had every intention to ravish her savagely ... until her unintentional joke reminded him of their conversation on that drunken night.
Those dreamlike words she said to him at the time hadn’t left his mind since then, and the memory of her tender promises touched a soft spot within him. It changed the molten heat sizzling in his blood, turned the surging and hissing flames into something else. Something no less fierce in its intensity, but not at all primal. Deeper, calmer.
So much so that as the tension wound tighter and tighter in his body, as the final moment struck and they both gasped into each other’s mouth, what occupied his thoughts was no longer the burning desire that got them to where they were. Instead, it was a different desire ... one to make her a true part of himself in more ways than what they already had. To prove to her that he meant what he said, that he wanted to show her everything in his life and share the entirety of it with her.
It wasn’t the first time he had come across similar thoughts. But unlike the usual, it was clearer and sharper tonight, no longer clouded by unmet longings or unsatiated lust. Even as his body was still shuddering from the most incredible high, he knew what he was feeling, what he was doing, and for the first time, the realization came gradually and naturally —
He didn’t want to ever go back to a life without her in it anymore.
It was an astounding thought. But at the same time, it seemed like an inevitable one that was bound to come sooner or later, and its final arrival only made the release that tore out of him so much more intense, to the point that he thought he felt it echo in his soul.
He was clutching the sofa cushion beneath them, reeling to catch up with how his body had processed that revelation, when a matching sigh of satisfaction escaped Harper’s lips.
"That was ... two hundred percent better than what I expected." The arms draped over his shoulder tightened, although the tiny tremors pulsing through them made the embrace feel more like a gentle caress. "I guess you really were ... hungry, even after all that."
Eli laughed softly at her assessment. But with his mind still in a daze on an entirely different thought, he failed to come up with a clever response. Gently, he pressed one more kiss to her lips, before rolling them to their sides so that he could lie down next to her.