Breathe You In
BREATHE YOU IN
BY LILY HARLEM
Text
copyright © Lily Harlem 2013
All Rights Reserved
With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be
reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written
permission from Lily Harlem.
Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this
copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or
distributed via the Internet or any other means, electronic or print, without
the author’s written permission.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons,
living or dead is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the
author’s imagination and used fictitiously.
Cover art by Posh Gosh
BREATHE YOU IN
Back cover
information
Blurb
Soul-aching desire was just the beginning!
If the road to Heaven starts in
Hell then I was ready to start climbing my way out and Ruben Strong was the man
to accompany me. With his devastating good looks, seductively sexy charm and
lust for adrenaline he was sure to make it a sensual and erotic experience as
well as one to re-awake the passionate, throw-caution-to-the-wind woman I’d
once been.
I’d given Ruben something,
though, without him realizing, and that gift had come from the man I’d loved
before. But I couldn’t tell Ruben. I had to keep that a tight secret even as
our naked bodies wound together, sought out pleasure and hit the dizzy heights
of ecstasy as one. Because Ruben had my husband’s heart, literally, and that
heart was still in love with me, so it seemed, and now I was in love with
Ruben.
Emotions tangled with bliss, and
fears were locked away as I surrendered to the touch of Ruben’s hands, the
taste of his skin and the sounds of his pleasure. I couldn’t deny that Ruben
had brought me back to life the same way I had him and there was no way I was
giving up that feeling, not for anyone.
Reader Advisory – At the end of Breathe You In (approx. 80% on
your e-reader) there are three chapters from Lily Harlem’s other erotic romance
novels for you to enjoy
.
Dedicated
to the
Brit Babes
–
an amazing group of friends who I couldn’t imagine traveling on this crazy
journey without.
The
Glass Knot – bonus chapters
Kisses as soft as kitten’s whiskers
tickled down my back, fluttering, floating, spreading into the dip of my spine
and onto the rise of my buttocks. I sighed and squirmed, just a little,
inviting more of the blissful sensations I was being woken with.
Matt ran his finger down my side, from
just below my breast into the hollow of my waist. So light it was barely a
caress, so gentle it was hardly there. It tickled but in a good way, and I
smiled, my cheek bunching on the pillow.
I could picture him hovering over me, ruggedly
handsome with his morning stubble heaviest on the indent of his chin. His broad
shoulders and thick biceps would be tensing as he took his weight through his
arms.
“
Mmm
, that’s
nice,” I murmured, shifting my legs and wondering where his touch would travel
next.
The duvet twisted around my ankles. I was naked,
but my skin was warm; the nighttime had done nothing to ease the English
heatwave
.
More sweet kisses, down my left leg this
time and onto the back of my knee. I nibbled my bottom lip and forced my body
still. I didn’t know how much longer I’d be able to just lay here. My need for
my husband was so big it was an energy that could give birth to stars. He was
my everything, my world, my reason for breathing, the man I got out of bed for every
morning.
I turned but kept my eyes closed, enjoying
the remnants of sleep and the waft of his breath on my stomach, my breasts and
my neck. I stretched my arms above my head, arched my back and pointed my toes,
waiting to see where he would adore me next.
Was it Sunday? I hoped so, that way we
could stay in bed all morning, worshipping each other’s bodies, connecting our
souls, feeling whole.
“Kiss me,” I mumbled, tilting my chin and expecting
to feel him pressing his lips to mine. “Matt, I want you.” I smiled as I spoke
and reached for him.
Birdsong filtered into my consciousness.
The treetops outside my bedroom window were home to a family of doves, their
coos a near constant melody. I pictured them, fat breasts, pale feathers, their
devotion to each other endearing.
“Matt,” I said again, flailing my arms.
As I’d spoken his name, the ‘a’ had caught
in my throat. A strangled feeling clawed at my neck, and a rush of agony
tumbled into my chest. I let my hands drop heavily onto the mattress.
My favorite part of the day was over. That
empty moment between sleep and awake, horizontal and upright, before reality
kicked in and dreams held court
—
when my
memory hadn’t remembered.
I shivered as kisses turned into a light
breeze weaving through the open window. I kept my eyes tight shut hoping that
might stop the usual tears from forming. But one persistent drip grew and
seeped out anyway, its journey down my face unhindered by me. What difference
did one more salty addition make when there’d been so many?
The usual leaden anvil of grief grew fat
and ugly in my belly. All day and all night it would sit there generating
nausea, hopelessness and depression. I hated it, that damn grief. Why couldn’t
it let up, just for a few minutes? Why did it tail me like a ball and chain?
I tried to shift my thoughts back to a few
minutes ago, when Matt had been with me, kissing me, touching me. So many times
he had, more than I could count. What I wouldn’t do to be with him again, just
once
—
just one night to say goodbye.
Was that too much to ask?
Of course it was.
A sudden rattle and the rev of an engine
made me jump
—
the neighbors
cutting their lawn at some ridiculous hour. I glanced at the clock. Well, it
was gone ten, so I couldn’t really complain. For a moment I thought I’d had a
good, long sleep, but who was I kidding? The sun had been washing the eastern
sky pink before I’d even lain down.
Bracing myself, I sat. This was the first
hurdle of the day, getting out of bed. Most people rose, put their feet on the
floor and that was it, they were off. But that chunk of lead in my stomach, it
made this bit especially hard. For a while it had been impossible, it was just
too damn heavy, and I’d stayed in bed for days, weeks, waiting for it to
lighten.
It hadn’t, not in the least, but I’d
learned how to get up again. It had to be in careful stages. First I let the
pain hit
—
I had to brace
for that bit
—
and then wait for
it to settle. Once it had seeped into every pore and my brain had
compartmentalized my reality into bite-sized snippets
—yes,
I’d be eating breakfast alone; no, he wouldn’t be meeting me for lunch; yes,
the bed would still be empty tonight—then I sat and placed my hands
behind myself with my elbows locked, kind of like a prop for my torso.
When I sat, that was when I saw him. The picture
of us on our wedding day still had pride of place on my dressing table. I’d
wondered about moving it, putting it on the windowsill or even downstairs, but
I couldn’t bring myself to. Perhaps it was torturous to have him smiling at me
from a photograph when he never would again in real life. Maybe it was
detrimental to the ‘healing process’. But I couldn’t help it; looking at him in
the morning was a compulsion. He’d been the start and end of my day for so many
years, why should I suddenly change that? How could I just ‘put him away’?
I liked his eyes in that particular picture.
We’d been lucky on our wedding day. It had been beautifully sunny, not a cloud
in the sky. After our vows we’d had photographs with family members and then,
sneakily, before the reception, the photographer had taken us around the back
of the church to stand beneath an archway made up of delicate pink roses. It
had matched the flowers in my bouquet and hair perfectly. Matt had hugged me
close and told me I even smelled of roses.
I’d laughed and asked him if he could cope with
thorns. He’d replied, “No marriage is without a few thorns, Katie, but for
better or for worse, good times or bad, we’re together now until death do us
part.”
He’d kissed me on my right temple, and the close-up
shot had been taken. His eyes had been dreamy, soft, their dark depths mellow
and his lashes casting shadows on his cheeks.
I recalled his smooth, clean-shaven chin against
my face as clear as I remembered my next words, spoken through a smile. “We’ll
still be together when were old and gray and one hundred and ten.”
How wrong I’d been.
I swung my feet to the floor and stared at
my toenails
—
the dark pink
nail varnish was hideously chipped
—
and
forced myself to stand. There, that was it. I’d made it through the first
painful moment of the day
—
only a
million more to go.
I wandered into the bathroom, flicked on
the shower and drowned out the sound of the mower. It was Saturday and I had
the day off for a change so I didn’t have to worry about getting into work and
finding a smile to wear.
To start with it had been okay for me to
be sad, quiet, closed in on myself. But since the first anniversary of Matt’s
accident had gone by ten months ago, I kind of got the feeling people expected
me to be ‘getting on with my life’, ‘pulling myself together’. Really? A year
and ten months to get over losing the man I’d spent over half a decade in love
with, whose babies I’d wanted to carry, and who I’d seen myself with for all
eternity? It seemed it was. But I didn’t have the energy to argue, or try to
justify the loss that still followed me everywhere, so I slapped on a smile,
put a chirp in my voice and acted like I cared about the goings-on in the shop.
The shower water was only just warm, but
that was okay, the forecast had been for another scorcher, so starting off cool
was a good plan. That’s what Matt and I had done on our honeymoon in Thailand.
We’d had cooling showers several times a day to lower our body temperatures,
although sometimes, if he’d sneaked in beside me, it had got pretty damn steamy
in the bathroom even with the faucet turned to cold.
I smiled at the delicious memory and
stepped out, dried then pulled on knickers and a thin sundress that had a built-in
bra. The lemon-colored cotton was soft on my skin, and I recalled wearing it to
a candlelit, seafood dinner on the beach in
Koh
Samui
. It’d fit a bit nicer back then, I’d filled it out
properly. Now the material at the chest gaped slightly and it drowned the thin
flare of my hips. But Matt had liked it, so I still wore it.
