Deep River Promise Jackie Ashenden (best life changing books .txt) 📖

own. She’d had no one to talk to and no one to care, and she knew how lonely that could be.

It broke her heart that the same thing could happen to such a caring, protective man as him, and she didn’t want to ask herself why that hurt so much; it just did.

He shouldn’t have had to be alone. He should have had someone.

And now he did.

He didn’t look away, his gaze burning with a fire that found an echo in the powerful intensity currently flooding through her. And it wasn’t only desire she saw there, but something that went deeper. A longing and a hunger, as if she was the treasure he’d been searching his whole life for.

“Why?” His voice was stripped right back to bare rock and gravel. “You barely know me, Astrid. Why should it matter to you so much that I have someone to talk to?”

“Because I’ve been there, Damon. Yes, I did have Connor, but not at the beginning. When he was first born, it was just me in a crappy apartment that I shared with four other people because I couldn’t afford to have my own place. Everyone would complain when Connor cried, so I had to make sure he didn’t. No one wanted to hear me talk about him, and they certainly didn’t want to hear me talk about how lonely I was, or how frightened.”

His gaze was shadowed, his hands coming up all of a sudden and cupping her face between them. “Oh, honey…”

But this wasn’t about her. This was about him.

“Like you, I got through it. I survived.” She wrapped her fingers around his strong wrists. “But I don’t ever want to go through anything like that alone again, and neither should you. And it matters to me because you matter to me.”

She hadn’t realized it until the moment he’d walked into the room. Hadn’t fully understood her own feelings, though after the night before, maybe she should have.

He’d seen her sitting there and heat had flared in his eyes. Then he’d shut it down, tension in every line of him.

He seemed to be a man at war with himself, a man in pain even though he possibly didn’t realize it himself. And she wanted to help him so badly. Put her hands on him and make it better, because under those easy smiles and charm burned something intense and fierce. He felt things so deeply, and he should have had someone to hold him, ease his grief and his pain. Someone to listen to him talk about his daughter.

He should have had someone to love him when he’d needed it and it was clear he had needed it.

But there had been no one, not even his mother, and that was so unfair.

He’d had his trust broken as badly as she had. The people who should have helped him had abandoned him, leaving him to deal with his grief alone.

“Astrid.” His voice was still gravelly and raw. “You shouldn’t let me matter. I’m not staying. I can’t.”

Too late, too late…

Oh, she knew that. She was fully aware.

“I know that.” Her voice was as raw as his. “But you gave me a moment, so now I’m giving you one. You can let yourself matter to me, Damon. Right now, here in this room, you can let yourself be important to me.”

He’ll be important to you long after this moment.

Yes, she knew that too. But if a moment, a night, was all he’d let himself have, then that’s what she’d give. He’d done it for her, after all.

Damon stared at her but didn’t speak, and she wondered if he’d do it. If he’d really allow himself to have it. She wanted him to so much, because he deserved it. But it all came down to trust, didn’t it? He had to trust her that she meant what she said.

She held his gaze, let him see the truth in her eyes.

He slid one hand to her nape and then up to the back of her head, his fingers curling in her hair, drawing her head back.

Then his mouth was on hers.

The kiss was fierce and raw, hungry and hot. And it went on and on for endless minutes of heat and fire. Until he let go of her hair, his arms coming around her, strong as iron bands, pulling her up against him.

She didn’t fight, didn’t resist. She could feel the need in him, that longing for a connection and so she gave it to him. He’d given her what she needed the night before and so she’d hold nothing back from him now.

And she deliberately didn’t think about the small voice in her head that kept nagging at her, that kept reminding her about how important he’d become to her when this was only supposed to be about sex. When he’d be leaving anyway.

She didn’t listen to it. And when he picked her up and carried her to bed, putting her down, then stripping their clothes away before dealing with protection, she ceased to hear it at all.

She wanted to touch him, to run her hands all over him, but this wasn’t for her—not now. This was for him. So all she did when he came down onto the mattress with her, pushing her onto her back and spreading her thighs, was slide her arms around his neck and hold him.

He didn’t wait, pushing inside her hard and deep without any preliminaries. She wrapped herself around him, pulling him close, and when he leaned down to kiss her, hungrily, desperately, she held him tight, her legs wrapped around his waist, her arms wrapped around his neck.

It was more than a meeting of bodies and more than simply a pursuit of pleasure. He needed contact, a connection, and so she gave it to him without restraint or reservation, wrapping not just her body around him but her heart as well. Because he was as vulnerable as she was, and he deserved to be kept