“Color?” I ask.
“Feckin’ hell,” he whispers.
“Last time I checked, that wasn’t a color—”
“Green, fuck. Green.”
I flip my wet hair from my eyes and keep my gaze on the sight before me as I push the toy deeper into Lachlan’s ass. My back arches as I keep the pressure on, steadily moving forward until I’m stretching and filling him, my powerful, lethal husband reduced to shuddering, unraveling, animalistic need.
“Don’t forget the part about you screaming my name as you spray your cum on these bullshit papers,” I whisper.
And then I pick up a rhythm of thrusts.
Slow and steady at first. Long strokes. I pull out all the way to the tip of the dildo, then push back in until I fill him completely. Lachlan growls with pleasure. Moans as I pick up a faster cadence. Shudders when I scrape my nails down his back and slap his ass. And just watching what I do to him stokes an ache deep in my belly. I seize the power of every rocking motion and I know that I’m the one pushing him to the brink of madness. That there are billions of people in the world but I am the only person he trusts to throw him off that cliff and still give him a safe place to land. I know it in every thrust of my hips. Every tremble in his arms. Every curse and unsteady exhalation. I revel in every moment of pulling Lachlan Kane apart.
Sweat coats Lachlan’s skin in a glistening film. He grips the sheets with bleached knuckles. Torn papers rustle on the bed as I thrust with a quickening pace.
I drape my body over Lachlan’s back and reach around his hip to grip his cock. He hisses with pleasure as I coat my palm with the pre-cum gathered at the tip and stroke his length.
“Come for me, baby,” I whisper in his ear. “Say my name loud enough that the whole damn island knows whose whore you are.”
A gravelly moan escapes Lachlan’s lips as I ramp up the pace of my thrusts and pump his erection. “Christ, Lark. Lark,” he grits out. And he says it again. And again. And again. My pace is unrelenting. I’m merciless. I want him mindless with pleasure. I want him to be ruined. To know my name is the only word he can remember.
And my name is the only thing Lachlan says as he comes.
His spine locks. His cock pulses in my hand. Ropes of cum spray across the bedding. Across ripped paper. Across words like divorce, and irreconcilable, and final decree. They’re all stained with the proof that we are unbroken. My husband and I chose a different path. We choose it every day.
I wrap my arm around Lachlan’s waist and press my cheek to his back where I can hear his heartbeat riot through muscle and bone. And he lays a hand on mine, holding me close. It’s a long moment before I start to slide my touch away and pull out. I take my time, reveling in every shudder and shiver he makes as I slip free.
The second the dildo leaves his ass, Lachlan flips me over and I laugh as he pins me beneath his knees. He fumbles with the buckle for the harness as though he’s desperate for a taste of my pussy. When it’s finally undone, he tosses it to the floor and then pulls the lace panties aside as he settles between my legs.
“Your turn,” he whispers, and with a devious grin and a dark wink, he feasts.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
First and foremost, to YOU, dear reader, for spending some of your time with Lachlan and Lark, and their friends and family, and curmudgeonly Bentley (I promise he’s living his BEST fictional dog life!). I hope you enjoyed the crazy journey. The experience of writing Leather & Lark was unlike any book I’ve written so far. Much like Lark and Lachlan’s story, life is full of joy and heartbreak and love and perseverance. This book was both incredibly challenging and rewarding in equal measure, and I hope you love it.
Huge, enormous, endless thanks to Kim Whalen from the Whalen Agency. You’ve changed my life in ways that are still difficult for me to fathom. I absolutely love working with you and I’m so grateful for everything you have done and continue to do for me. Thank you also to Mary Pender and Orly Greenberg at UTA; I’m so excited to see what comes next for these stories! Thank you for helping to open these characters to a whole new world.
To Molly Stern, Sierra Stovall, Hayley Wagreich, Andrew Rein, and the entire team at Zando, thank you for taking a chance on my work and not only asking me to jump on the pirate ship, but then making the pirate ship into a superyacht, and now we’re zooming around the seven seas! Next stop: SPACE.
In the UK, huge thanks to the team at Little, Brown UK, particularly Ellie Russell and Becky West, who have been so wonderful to work with and who were some of the very first folks in the publishing industry to rally behind the Ruinous Love series. Thank you also to Glenn Tavennec from Éditions du Seuil for being such a huge supporter of me and these characters. And I will always be so grateful to András Kepets in Hungary, who set in place the first domino that brought these partnerships to life.
Big thanks to Najla and the team at Qamber Designs, who created the stunning covers for all three books in this series. It has been an absolute pleasure to work with everyone on that team—they did an amazing job bringing the essence of these stories to life! To my lifesaver PA and graphics wizard, Val Downs. Thank you for keeping me afloat whenever I fall off the pirate ship, HAHA. You keep the sails up and I’m so thankful to work with you.
I am enormously grateful to the amazing ARC readers and social media supporters of Butcher & Blackbird for taking time out of their day to read, promote, and talk about these stories, and their willingness to come on these crazy journeys with me. It means the world to me that you love the characters as much as I do, and that you take the time to let me know. I absolutely love your drawings, edits, videos, messages, and comments. Being on this adventure with you makes the carpal tunnel worthwhile, AHAHA.
Super special thanks to Arley and Jess, who so kindly vibe-check things for me when I’m in the “I want to BURN THIS” phase of writing. You save my sanity and for that I’m enormously grateful. I love you ladies. And to Kristie, huge thanks for the gift of “multiple deleter,” but most of all, thank you for your love and support.
To T. Thomason, who when I said, “I have a crazy idea,” was like, “Sign me the fuck up!” As I write this, our wild little plan is still under construction. Please know that I am so thankful for your friendship and your willingness to entertain such a weird and fun idea out of the blue!
I have been so lucky to become friends with some incredibly talented authors on this writing journey, and their help and guidance has been so critical for me, particularly during this series. To Avina St. Graves, thank you for letting me include a little snippet of Death’s Obsession. Lachlan loved it, haha! And thank you for being my deadline buddy. I could not have survived without you (for reals). “I’m going to wax my legs to feel something other than stress” should be on a shirt. To Abby Jimenez, thank you for your sage advice (and the bottle of moonshine in the sketchy alley, it went down a treat). And Lauren Biel, who is always up for a batshit-crazy brainstorming session, I’ll get that boxcar romance out of you yet!
Last but certainly not least, to my amazing boys: my husband, Daniel, and son, Hayden. Daniel, thank you for always taking the time to help me make sense of the glittery brain soup, and for your patience, love, and support. Definitely also the wine and the olive and cheese plates—those really saved my soul. I love you, my boys. (Hayden, when you asked how old you’d need to be before you could read this, the answer is 245.)
