22. RAVEN

22

RAVEN

The moon sheds a faint light into my bedroom as I lie staring at the ceiling. Maddy cuddles up to me.

This place smells like her—her cooking, perfume, soaps. It smells like Sonny and his sweaty clothes and damp hair and ocean water. Before, my bungalow was just a house. To sleep in, to eat, to find solace. Now, it feels like home, and I’m wondering, just like every night when I fall asleep next to Maddy, “How is this my life?”

She kicked off the sheet and has her leg over my thighs, her body flawless next to my battered and scarred one.

I study her nakedness, the way the sheet is jammed between her legs, up between her thighs, so close to the split of her buttocks.

She murmurs in her sleep and moves her knee up, bumping into my cock and over it to my abdomen.

I feel myself growing hard.

Dammit.

We just fucked an hour ago, and my dick is already wanting more. There's no way to change this situation. Her palm is on my heart, her cheek on my shoulder, her hair splayed on my chest. She shifts again, getting comfortable, setting my cock into a less-than-comfortable situation. It’s hard as a rock, jutting from under her delicious thigh. I've never slept naked, not with any girl. Maddy is a different story. This girl is my undoing.

She rubs her cheek against my shoulder and shifts again. I slide my hand down her back and to her butt, cupping it. Her skin against my palm feels smooth as silk. The thought that this woman wants to be in my bed every night and wake up to me every single day is overwhelming. I kiss her hair, close my eyes, and enjoy the feeling of my hand sliding up her back and then down in casual strokes.

"Rave, baby,” she whispers sleepily and shifts again, pushing her butt out against my hand as her thigh shifts down against my erection. "You are hard."

My sweet vixen is not sleeping at all.

"Hey, Mayflower," I whisper, catching a little smile on her lips.

My hand on her ass slides a little lower, inward, between her thighs that shift an inch wider to let my fingers in, and my fingertips meet her wetness. She's slick with want. Was she dreaming about me?

I tease her with my fingertips, not probing but barely touching, brushing against the center of her junction.

She mewls against my skin. “Don’t stop,” she hums.

Stop what? Touching? Wanting? Loving? I won’t. And I’ll never stop feeling that she is everything to me. And feeling this insane want, constantly, at every contact. It’s not a basic instinct. I’m not an adolescent to be driven by hormones. This want is thick like melted chocolate, sweet and addictive. Not that kind you want to shoot into a person and be done in seconds. No. It’s the kind you want to drown in.

I cup her butt with both hands and shift her a little bit up, aligning her entrance with the tip of my cock, and start slowly thrusting into her, inch by thick inch, with almost torturous slowness.

She sighs against my skin and adjusts herself, pushing into my cock. Her hand on my heart starts moving, brushing against my nipple.

Fuck, she feels good. Being naked with someone never felt so delicious.

The need building up inside me laces with feelings. I don’t know how to translate them into words. So I touch her and kiss her. I play with her hair as I slowly fuck her. I whisper, “Mayflower,” “Feels good?”, “You are delicious,” and I study the way she reacts. Her quick smiles when I get it right. Her eyes fluttering closed when I fuck her into a climax. Her moan when she starts coming around my cock.

She doesn’t run away to wash up when we are finished. We don’t move an inch. I stroke her hair, feeling my dick leaking into her, slipping out of her. Her fingers draw some invisible patterns on my chest. The ceiling fan hums above us. The birds outside sound like an aviary full of world species, unusual for nighttime. They sound almost disturbed, though I push the strange thought away. Everything lately feels like an ominous sign. It’s my brain used to danger, that’s all. At least, that’s what I tell myself.

This is happiness, I think, but I have nothing to compare to. This is a fucked-up scenario when you’ve lived twenty-seven years and never known what happy is.

Maddy lifts her head, sets her chin on my chest and studies my face. Hers is right in front of me. I stroke it with the back of my fingers, my missing phalanges too. Even the crippled ones deserve a soft touch.

“You are kind and strong and beautiful, Maddy. I never told you that. But I should’ve,” I say softly, feeling like letting some feelings out. While we are naked. While she’s half-asleep after an orgasm. Before I change my mind. I’m practicing to do this more often. She deserves to hear it. “I tried to coax the Milena out of you, thinking that I would find something of myself in you. But I was wrong. You used to be bashful, fun, a bit reckless, but there was never darkness in you. You always strive for the best. I admire that about you.” I kiss the top of her head. “Not just me. People feel cared for around you. Kai told me that. Archer, too. Everyone always told me how good you are. And the shitty part of me wanted to find your cracks, see what you hide inside. Because no one can be that good. And I was so wrong. It took me a while to understand that despite hiding, you never hid yourself. You are brave and kind and amazing. That’s what made me fall in love with you.”

She presses her lips to my skin in a kiss but doesn’t let go, stays like this.

“You were Milena to some, Maddy to many here, on the island. But I’ve always hoped that one day, I could call you my Maddy.”

She raises her head to look at me and runs her finger along my brow, then down the side of my face, tracing the contour.

“You don’t know how many things about you other people admire, Rave. They respect you. They look up to you, though they hardly talk about it because they don’t understand why they feel that way.”

I puff out a chuckle. “Yeah, right. Tell me something you like about me.”

“I like that you are humble. Very humble.”

She goes quiet, seemingly done with her answer. That’s a short one.

“Not much, huh?”

She shrugs. “But there are a dozen things I love about you. I love your gentle side. You have that one—yes, you do, don’t roll your eyes. I love the sound of your voice and the way you say my name. Milena or Maddy. I love when you call me Maddy-baby. I love Mayflower.” She chuckles. “I love that you don’t care about others’ opinions but rather use your intuition. I love that you can see the worst in people and still give them a chance. I love that you smell of tobacco and cologne. I love that you are nothing like me, making us like yin and yang. I love your eyes. I love when you tell me to touch you. I love watching you with Sonny doing just about anything you two do together. I love how protective you are of him. When you forget to be annoyed, you get carried away with him because that’s who you are, a caring and loving person, but you never let anyone close, so you are shy about it. I love that you think you have a great poker face but you actually get flustered when I say things like this. Just like you are right now.”

Maddy’s smile grows into a grin then bursts into an easy laughter.

“I love all these things about you, Rave. And many many more. And I love that I can call you my Raven.”

I kiss her madly for a few seconds.

“I love this too,” she blurts on a pant when I let go.

We gaze at each other in silence.

She shines. There’s a glow about her. The light in her beautiful hazel eyes drowns the dangerous spark in me, melts the coldness.

Sonny once asked me what superpower I’d like to have. I know the answer now—kindness. Not wishful kindness, but the sort that makes you stop in your tracks, the kind that can withstand hate and vengeance, halt wars, the sort that mothers have toward children.

There’s that word again. Mother. I want Maddy to be the mother of my children. I’ve never thought of family or kids until her. The thought is invasive and almost obsessive lately, but the possibility she doesn’t feel the same actually terrifies me.

“Why do you think your dad was so adamant about finding you?” I ask. “You said he is selfish. But he must love you a lot, obviously.”

“I am his only child.”

“Yes, but he had other women, you said. He could have many children. Still can.”

She looks at me with that intriguing sparkle in her eyes. “My mom was the love of his life.”

“You said that, yes. Still, he is young.”

“He had many women, yes. I’m sure he tried to impregnate every single one of them. One claimed that she was pregnant with his child, but then it turned out she lied. Don’t ask me what happened to her. But… Anyway… He found out he can’t have any.”

I cock a brow. “But he has you.”

She raises her eyes at me, and her stare is so sharp that my insides twist. A bizarre thought dawns on me. “Oh, shit…” I whisper, not believing what this means. Wait-wait-wait… “You are not?—”

I don’t continue. This can’t be.

Her expression hardens. “That’s exactly what he thought when he got tested and found out he had zero chance of conceiving. You should’ve seen his face when he first talked to me about it. He looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘I need to know for sure. We are doing a paternity test.’ See? That’s my father. He is not concerned about anyone’s feelings. He’s narcissistic enough to be that straightforward and do the testing despite raising me with the woman he loved.”

Her lips curve into a little smirk.

“‘You’ll still get everything I have, Mila,’” he said then. “‘You are my girl. But facts are facts, and I need to know.’ So, we went to the clinic. Got the results the same day. And he—believe me when I tell you—brushed away a tear when he looked at the results. I was his. He hugged me like I was a miracle. He got tested later and found out that he has a degenerative disease that killed his sperm count.”

“Why do the paternity test at all?”

“You don’t know my father. You are not looking far enough into the future, that arranged marriage thing.”

She cocks her brow and tilts her head, studying my face, waiting for the realization to dawn on me.

“Heirs,” I say.

She nods slowly. “Yeah. That.”

We stay quiet for some time. I hope she doesn’t think I’m trying to buy her father’s good graces. That’s not it. But perhaps this is a good time to actually talk about my obsession.

“We have the same blood type,” I say. “A-negative. That’s rare.” I saw that in her file.

“I know,” she says quietly, her eyes never leaving mine.

“You know what that means?” I smile at her. “That our children would be perfect. Minus to minus, you know?”

I brush my finger against her underarm where her birth control implant is.

She chuckles nervously. “That’s a big thought, Mr. Levi.”

The sound of my name makes me tense up.

But she knows it. “One day, it’ll be your children’s name,” she says. “Better get used to it. Sonny is your oldest.” She laughs through her nose, then adds dreamily, “Sonny Levi.”

For the first time, I’m so fucking proud hearing that last name attached to the little guy who stole my heart. Him and this beautiful girl. Children and women are the biggest thieves. They steal hearts. They steal thoughts. They steal sanity. But they have the power to fill your heart with so much happiness.

It’s a wild thought—my last name I’ve always hated attached to someone else. Someone I love.

My phone rings, and I let it go unanswered until it rings again.

Maddy’s smile fades. With all that’s going on, a phone call this late at night is like a warning siren.

I check my phone.

“Rave?” Maddy says like she needs me to tell her everything will be fine.

It’s Bishop. I answer. “What is it?”

“We have a situation, Raven,” Bishop says in an unusually gruff voice that makes my brain instantly switch to an alert mode. “We need you at the Center. Now .”

Maddy meets my eyes, and the color drains from her face.

“I’m coming with you,” she blurts out.

I cup her face and kiss her on the forehead. “Stay. You’ll be fine. Stay with Sonny.”

She shakes her head, brushing me off and hurrying out of bed. “We are coming,” she says, determined.

And that’s when we hear the first explosion at Ayana, shaking the ground and the bungalow.

It’s the sound of war starting.

Maddy’s panicked eyes lock with mine.

Ayana emergency sirens go off.