Sophie Jordan

She would pretend last night never happened. After all, Graciela knew how to play the game of pretend. She was well versed in it. She had pretended for years to be happily married, and even now when her husband had passed away, she still pretended he was the good man he wasn’t—all for the sake of Clara and her stepchildren

He propped himself on an elbow and looked down at her. “I’m giving everything to the woman I love.”

She stilled.

Everything?

After a moment, she wet her lips and recovered her voice. “Wh-what?”

“I love you, Marian. I don’t want to hold any part of myself from you. Whatever happens . . . I won’t withhold my heart from you. If you want it . . . it’s yours. If you want children, I’ll do my best to give them to you. If you want me . . . you have me. I’m yours.”

She couldn’t speak, too overcome. Her chest constricted.

She could only stare.

“Say something, woman.” He laughed brokenly, his dark eyes a little desperate. “I’ve just bared my soul to you. Please, say something. Tell—”

“I love you, too,” she whispered, eagerly, hurriedly, as though all this might go away in the pop of a bubble. “I love you, and I’ll take everything you have to give. Greedy soul that I am.”

“No, not greedy.” He stroked her face with his hand. “You’re beautiful and more than I deserve.”

MacLarin. MacLarin. MacLarin.

Too bad she didn’t know his Christian name. That would feel much more intimate for all future fantasizing.

“Kindness,” he mused. “I’ve been guilty of many things. Never that.”

“Did you think you could push on my cock and I wouldn’t wake?”