Marked by My Ex's Biggest Rival novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: Chosen

Nobody at the table moved.

The oldest elder looked at Roark for a long moment.

Then he looked at me, like he was waiting for me to fix it.

I didn't.

"On your head, then, Alpha," he said.

The four of them went out the way they'd come in.

The front door shut.

Addison finally put the lasagna in her mouth.

"Well," she said, chewing. "I think that went great."

Somebody laughed, and the table came back to life, but I couldn't hear any of it.

Roark had already gone out the back door.

I found him at the bottom of the yard, on the little dock over the river, with his hands in his pockets.

The water was black and fast under the boards.

Across it, the lights of town.

He heard me coming and didn't turn around.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should've let you answer for yourself."

"You did answer for me."

"I know."

"You said exactly what I'd have said." I came and stood beside him. "Only you didn't swear, so it was better."

He huffed a breath.

We stood there a while.

The bond sat quiet between us, warm.

"I went to see her again," I said. "The old woman. Yesterday, by myself."

He turned his head.

"I asked her if I'd have to pretend. If I'd have to say yes to you just to make the ink work."

"What did she say?"

"She laughed at me." I smiled at the water. "She said you can't fake it. The silver knows. Gran tried to ink a girl once when she was furious at my grandfather, and it burned them both."

Roark was quiet.

"So I'm not asking for the ink," I said. "If it never works, I'm still asking."

"Asking what?"

I turned to face him.

"You built me a barn," I said. "You told four old men I'm not a treaty, in front of a table full of garlic bread."

"Danica."

"I've waited my whole life for somebody to decide what I was. I'm done with that." I put my hand flat on his chest, over his heart, where I'd put it in the cellar. "So I'm deciding. It's you. Not for protection. Not for the shop. Not for Addison. Because I want you."

His heart was going hard under my palm.

"You're sure."

"I've never been surer of anything. Yes."

He didn't kiss me right away.

He looked at me for so long that I started to laugh.

"What?"

"Nothing," he said. "I just wanted to see it."

Then he kissed me, and I stopped laughing.

We went up the yard holding hands.

Krista was on the back porch with a beer.

She took one look at us and stood up.

"I'm sleeping on Addison's floor tonight," she announced. "Loudly. On the far side of the house. With earplugs. Goodnight."

I climbed the ladder first, like I'd said I would.

He came up after me, slow, and I heard the planks creak under his boots.

The loft was one room with a mattress on the floor and a quilt and the round window full of black river.

I turned to face him.

"Take off your boots," I said.

He did.

Then I reached for the hem of his T-shirt and pulled.

He lifted his arms and let me.

Sawdust shook out of his hair onto the floor.

I put my palms flat on his chest and pushed him back a step.

"I waited four years to be somebody's second choice," I said. "I want you to show me what first feels like."

His hands stayed at his sides.

"Danica."

"Don't stop."

"I'm not going to stop." He watched me. "I'm letting you drive."

I unbuckled his belt.

The leather slid out of the loops and I dropped it.

My hands were shaking, but I got the button and the zipper and he stepped out of the jeans.

He stood there in the dark in his boxer briefs and let me look at him.

The scar through his eyebrow.

The mess of dark hair.

The way his chest moved too fast for a man so still.

I pulled my tank top over my head.

Then my bra.

Then I pushed my jeans down and kicked them off.

The necklace stayed on.

The sapphire sat cold in the hollow of my collarbone.

He watched me strip like it was something he'd earned.

"You saw this coming," I said.

"I saw you walking into my river." His voice was low. "I saw you say yes on the bank. I haven't stopped seeing it."

"Good." I stepped into him and put my hand flat on his chest again, over his heart. "Because I want you on that mattress. On your back. Now."

He got on the mattress.

I followed.

I straddled his hips, still in my underwear, and his cock was hard through the cotton.

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