The Marriage (Darkest Lies Trilogy Book 3), Bethany-Kris [books for 8th graders txt] 📗

content. His blissed gaze was half-lidded, but still locked on her.

“I don’t think you know how beautiful you are,” he said.

She clenched around him.

“I never felt beautiful like this before,” she replied, touching the necklace again.

He shook his head. “You don’t need diamonds to make you beautiful, Karine.”

“But you’ve still bought them for me.”

“Because I want you to have everything I can give you.”

Karine wanted to ask him if he wanted a family— or a house of their own to fill? Would that make their marriage complete? She thought about the fact that she could feel him inside her now, his cum thick and mingled with hers.

Instead, she laid her head down on his chest where she could hear his heartbeat. He stroked her damp hair, and she kissed his skin, tasting salt and man while he was still thick between her aching thighs.

“I just want you,” she said in a sigh.

Roman said nothing, only took a deep breath that lifted and lowered her with his chest.

Hot water and bubbles surrounded them like a soft bed. Karine could lay like that with him forever, if the world would let her.

But how long would their forever last?

Even though she tried not to let her mind go there, she knew her past was going to catch up with her soon. Roman had to know it, too. Unless they kept running ... was that the plan?

Would they use her new, forged identity to escape somewhere? Leave the country, maybe?

Something told her—Roman wasn’t the kind of man to run away. He wouldn’t leave his family behind. Not even for her.

FOUR

It was five days of bliss.

That’s what he gave her.

Five days of him—of life without restraint or worry. She didn’t have to do or be anything but exactly what she wanted and who she was.

Paradise, really.

No doubt, it wasn’t the honeymoon she had been expecting. Instead, she was handed a dream, one she’d never forget.

It was like Roman had somehow peeked into her mind and figured out those fears and insecurities that sometimes kept her up at night. All she really wanted was to be alone with him—just because she loved him didn’t mean she knew him. Parts of him, yes. And the peeks of the man under his exterior had kept her close for this long.

It just wasn’t enough.

She wanted all of him.

That was exactly what he gave her, tucked away in a Vegas hotel suite with the heart of a city below acting as their nightlight in the midst of those conversations in tangled sheets.

To top it off—he’d showed her Vegas. A feverish dream of a city, bleeding life out of every bright light. Chaos in neon, just like her mind. The melting pot of people and culture welcomed her skittish oddness even when she walked down the street. She didn't want to miss a thing. For the first time in her life, she’d found somewhere that sort of felt like home. She’d never wanted to go back anywhere. And one couldn’t quite call their prisons home, right?

Here, Karine felt like nothing could go wrong.

She may not have had the wedding of other women’s dreams, but she certainly had the man they all fantasized about. Wrapped around her pinky finger, content to be warm in her bed, deathly gorgeous, and entirely hers.

It was all that mattered to Karine.

On the fifth day, she woke up in their hotel bed because the smell of delicious food was the only thing besides Roman between her thighs that could pull her from her dreams. Lately, anyway. Happiness seemed to bring calm to Karine’s otherwise chaotic mind. Finally, she was resting.

Her first instinct was to reach for Roman as she awoke. When she couldn’t find him in the soft sheets of empty space next to her—Karine’s eyelids fluttered open in an instant.

He wasn’t in bed, but the door to the bedroom opened just then. Roman, stark naked but for a sexy smirk and a white silk robe that he left open—walked into the room pushing a silver trolley of food.

“What’s all this?” Karine asked, smiling as she sat up in bed while he positioned the trolley on her side.

He uncovered the plates underneath the silver domes without a word. A pile of breakfast danishes, French toast, waffles and stacks of pancakes sat artfully displayed under the biggest. More fruit than she had ever seen or eaten, a big bowl of chocolate chips, a variety of different sweet syrups and cakes waited under the others.

“And don’t worry, I got the coffee,” he added with a chuckle.

There was a tall carafe of freshly brewed coffee and two mugs with flared bases that allowed someone’s hands to hug the cups from the bottom up. Karine shook her head in disbelief at Roman.

“Do you really think we’re going to eat all this between the two of us?”

Roman shrugged before slipping into bed beside her. “You don’t have to eat it all, just promise that you’ll take a bite out of everything. Try anything you haven’t before. Figure out what’s your favorite so I can make it for you on Sunday mornings, or something.”

That made her laugh.

Karine made two plates, filling them with most of the offerings on the trolley. She handed one to Roman, and tore into hers while taking the occasional bite he offered to her. Making sure to let her lips linger on the tips of his fingers every chance she could. Even better when she was able to lick some chocolate syrup from the side of his thumb.

The waffles were divinely sugary, topped with maple syrup and a mixed berry jam. She moaned with genuine pleasure at every bite.

Roman had a plate of food practically identical to hers, but he paid it very little mind. More interested in watching her. Eventually, his lingering attention had her blushing. No matter that she should have been used to it by now.

“Are you just going to sit and stare—what about your coffee?” she asked.

“I just—” Roman’s gaze darted to the