"Rania..." I gasp her name.
It's the only word I know, in that moment. All I know is her. Her name. Her body, her love. Nothing else has ever existed.
The war, the goddamned awful memories, the death, Lani's betrayal...it all is vanished, gone, subsumed in the river of Rania's love.
She's still holding tight to me, clinging to me like I'm a spar and she's shipwrecked, her breath coming in long, deep, ragged gasps, breasts heaving against my side. Her palm rests low on my belly, inches away from my cock. Her leg is thrown over mine, and she traces circles on my skin with her finger, then reaches down to touch my cock, rubbing her palm along its length, toying with the tip.
We don't speak, and she plays with me, and then I'm hard and she's climbing astride me and riding me. She spears herself onto me and sits with me deep inside her gorgeous body, and she rises up and falls down and her long bottle-blonde hair is in her face and across her shoulders and brushing her nipples. I take her hips in my hands and lift her up, crush her down. I kiss her belly. I kiss her breasts.
I hold back, tensing, until she comes for the first time, and then I sit up and guide her legs around my back and move with her, sitting up, face to face, kissing, making out as we glide into each other, and I feel the river widen, deepen, her love filling me and making me love her yet more.
EPILOGUE.
DYEING.
DES MOINES, IOWA, 2005.
A woman stands in front of a mirror fogged with steam. She has a robin's-egg-blue towel wrapped around her chest. She wipes a streak across the mirror with a slim palm, cleaning a swath in which to see her reflection. She smiles, a sweet curving of red lips. She unwraps the towel and cleans the mirror the rest of the way.
She smiles at her reflection again, her expression surprised, almost as if seeing someone familiar, someone not seen in many years. She drags her fingers through her hair, cut to brush the tops of her shoulders.
A man enters the bathroom, murmuring in appreciation of her naked body. He slides his hands down her sides to her hips, then over her slightly rounded belly and up to her breasts, which he cups in tender hands.
He rests his chin on her shoulder and takes in her reflection with her. He lifts a hand to run a tendril of her freshly dyed ink-black hair through his fingers. "I love it, Rania," he says.
"You do?" She turns to look at him, kisses his nose.
"Yes, I do. I really, really love it. It looks so perfect. So you."
"So I didn't look like me, before I dyed my hair?" Her voice holds a note of teasing.
The man just snorts. "You know what I meant."
She laughs. "Yes, my love. I just enjoy teasing you."
He chuckles with her, then moves his hand from her breast down between her thighs.
She smacks his hand away. "We don't have time for that, Hunter. We have to be at the doctor in half an hour. Or don't you wish to know if our baby is a boy or girl?"
He backs away, but not before giving her backside a playful smack. "Well, then, you'd best get moving, shouldn't you?"
She snorts, turning to slap his arm as he dances out of the way. When he is gone, she turns to look at herself again, running her fingers through her hair. Her expression is distant, as if seeing a young girl in the mirror, young and innocent.
The woman shakes her head, and the girl is gone, replaced by her own face once more.
But for weeks afterward, she sometimes sees that little girl in the mirror, sees her in the flash of hair so black it is almost blue, in the wide, dark brown eyes that now hold love, happiness, and completion.
THE END.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR.
Jasinda Wilder is a Michigan native with a penchant for titillating tales about sexy men and strong women. When she's not writing, she's probably shopping, baking, or reading.
You can often find Jasinda drinking sweet red wine with frozen berries and eating a cupcake.
Website: www.jasindawilder.com.
TO DIE FOR.
Eight complete novels in one volume.
Jana DeLeon.
Tina Folsom.
Colleen Gleason Denise Grover Swank.
Liliana Hart Debra Holland.
Theresa Ragan.
Jasinda Wilder.
Unlucky.
Copyright 2010, Jana DeLeon.
Cover Art by Kat Baldwin Zane's Redemption Copyright 2011, Tina Folsom.
Cover Art by For The Muse Design The Shop of Shades and Secrets Copyright 2011, Colleen Gleason.
Cover Art by Kim Killion Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes Copyright 2011, Denise Grover Swank Cover Art by Janet Holmes.
Catch Me If You Can Copyright 2011, Liliana Hart Cover Art by Lyndsey Lewellen Stormy Montana Sky.
Copyright 2012, Debra Holland Cover Art by Delle Jacobs Finding Kate Huntley Copyright 2011, Theresa Ragan Cover Art by LFD Designs.
Wounded.
Copyright 2012, Jasinda Wilder.
Cover Art by Phatpuppy Creations.
end.