Love Me Forever by Ari Thatcher Read Free Book Online Page A

before dawn. The sheet wrapped low around her hips and a thick, muscular arm held her tightly against Matt’s body. She closed her eyes again and inhaled deeply the scent of him. This was so much better than an alarm clock commanding she rise and shower.
    Something had been lifted from her shoulders since she came to Maui. She couldn’t even name what it was that changed, but she felt a lot more like the girl she’d once been.
    How had growing up changed her so? She’d only been married for eight years but had aged thirty years in her mind. She became proper, organized, and respectable. Well, she might have always been that way. Matt used to tease her about being the good girl. But she’d carried it so much further while married to Ted. She’d become a Stepford wife, a robotic version of the real thing.
    Even once she’d left Ted and pursued the career she’d set aside for him, she hadn’t broken the shell of the woman she’d created. It’d become so much a part of her, she hadn’t realized she was keeping anything trapped inside.
    Seeing Matt had awakened the wonderfully spirited woman-child who’d returned to college ten years ago. The carefree woman who enjoyed sex for the sake of sex, who didn’t need the demands of commitment and strings.
    Not that she’d been a whore. Or careless. She’d chosen her lovers wisely and used protection. And she hadn’t played the field all that broadly. But for a year or two she’d been confident enough in who she was, she hadn’t needed to cling to false promises or hope.
    Then Ted had come along and swept her off her, well, off her carousel of lovemaking. Charmed her. Seduced her heart before her hormones. He had goals and aspirations and could see her beside him throughout the journey he planned. It didn’t take long for her to fall in love with the image of herself that he created.
    How had she not been able to see it was nothing more than an image? She lost her substance, her inner being. Quite cheerfully set them aside to be Mrs. Theodore Grimes. And played the role until there was nothing left that resembled Jen Pearson.
    All of that was behind her now.
    She’d left Jen Grimes in the courtroom, Petitioner on the divorce papers, ghost of marriage past. She’s taken back her name, her pride, her self-worth.
    Now was the time to renew her spirit. Find her inner child. No, not child. The sensual, sentient being she once was. Laugh. Flirt. With Matt, with life. Taste a nibble of everything in front of her.
    Starting with the man behind her.
    Smiling, she drew in a deep breath and rolled under his arm, coming face to chest with her man. The rich chocolate - colored skin lay relaxed as he slept, the muscle beneath still sculpted, but not chiseled. Leaning in even closer she inhaled the fragrance that once brought her to a dripping point of need, the scent of Matt. She lapped his skin, tasting the dried sweat she’d worked out of him, and suckled the warmth she found there.
    Matt stirred, his arm tightening around her. “Morning.”
    She purred against him. “Morning. Did I wake you? I’m sorry if I did. I’m still on Missouri time.”
    “Any time you want to lick me awake, be my guest.”
    Leaning back to watch his face, she warned, “I might have to take you up on that.”
    His shaft stirred against her pelvis and she rocked into it. “Interesting. I lick you here…” she tongued the depression between his pecs, “and you harden here.” Her hand slipped between them to wrap around his swelling rod.
    “Honey, you lick me like that anywhere on my body and you’ll get me hard.”
    “You don’t say.” Jen pushed on his shoulder and rolled onto one arm to look down at him. With her free hand, she traced down his abdomen, taking the sheet with her. His shaft jumped when uncovered.
    She continued to tease and explore, stroking his hip, his thigh, as far down as she could reach. His muscles tensed beneath her fingers, much the way she sucked in her gut when