Axel (Carolina Reapers 1)

I rubbed Slytherin’s head before taking Langley’s cheek in my hand. “Marriage is about putting your effort into making your partner happy, Langley. My father told me once that if you both take genuine pleasure in making the other happy, then you’re always happy. You love cats. I love you. Therefore, we now have Slytherin. Besides, Hufflepuff is growing on me.”

Hufflepuff raised her lip at her sister.

“Just don’t expect Slytherin to grow on her for a while.”

I was still smiling when Langley pounced on me, capturing my mouth for a kiss. I sank into her kiss the way I always did—with my whole heart.

12

Langley

“I love you.”

Those three words echoed in the depths of my soul, over and over again, as I continued to kiss and explore his beautiful mouth.

Axel.

My friend.

My husband.

My heart swelled and raced, and my throat tightened around the words I knew I should say back.

But I couldn’t…couldn’t say them.

So, I did the only thing I could think of.

I listened to my heart, and to my body.

I carefully took Hufflepuff from his arms, deposited her onto the floor, and tugged on Axel until he was standing.

Then I leaped for him.

He caught me so damn easily, and I locked my ankles around his hips, crushing my lips on his. I parted his lips with my tongue, and he opened for me, sighing against my mouth as I claimed him with mine. I rolled my hips, a silent motion for him to take us to our bedroom. He listened, having learned the language of my body months ago.

“Guessing this means you like your present,” he teased as he walked us into our bedroom.

We crashed onto the bed in a tangle of tongues and teeth, shedding clothes along the way until there was nothing but me and him and the words he’d said between us.

Axel moved to slide between my thighs, but I gripped his long hair and tore my mouth from his, needing to look at him. Those eyes—those damn eyes that could read me better than anyone. Could he see the terror coursing through my veins? Could he see the old hollowness pulsing in my chest, threatening to take everything I wanted away?

I held his gaze and wiggled out from underneath him. He let me roll him onto his back, patient as I took the reins. As I took the control I desperately needed. If I couldn’t make words work, I’d show him how much he meant to me.

“Axel,” I sighed his name, drinking in the brutal beauty of this man. The ink that swirled over his skin, stretched tight over eons of corded muscle. The complexity of his eyes—both primal and gentle, loving and claiming. “Axel,” I said again because it was the only word I was capable of saying as I raked my nails lightly over his hard abdomen.

I replaced my nails with my lips, kissing my way across his broad chest and lower, over the ripples of muscle and downward until I reached his gloriously hard cock. I stroked the silken skin, marveling at the feel of him in my hands. I held his gaze as I lowered my head and wrapped my lips around the swollen head, swirling my tongue around the tip.

A low growl rumbled from his chest, the sound shooting sparks across my skin. His fingers wound in my hair as I bobbed up and down, sucking and licking, the taste of him feeding the flames that licked every inch of my body. I moaned with him in my mouth, consumed by the enormous man beneath me. In my hands, between my lips, this giant, powerful man was mine. It didn’t matter how many times we’d been together like this, it always felt like the first time—exhilarating, electric, consuming. And even if I couldn’t find the courage to say the words, I had enough courage to claim him.

So I did.

I sucked and bobbed and worshiped him until his hard length sprang free of my mouth with a little pop. He wasn’t finished growling before I straddled him, positioning him—slick with me—right at my center, and slowly, agonizingly sank on top of him.

He arched his head back as I settled myself until he was seated to the hilt. I had to give myself a few breaths to adjust to the sheer size of him. This position made the angle so much deeper, as if Axel could fill every inch of me—body, heart, mind, and soul.

“Look at you,” he said, his voice low, primal. “Fucking beautiful. Perfect.”

“You are,” I said, grateful for at least some truth, some words returning to me. “You are, Axel.”

After a few shuddered breaths, I moved on him, slow and steady, long and hard. Rolling and rocking, him meeting me with thrusts of his own until I hung on the edge of the deepest torture and sweetest release.