Fable of Happiness (Fable #2) by Pepper Winters

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I dreamed of softness and sensuality.

Two things that’d been missing in my life for far longer than when I’d first found this valley. I dreamed of my lovely lavender house. I strolled through my living room and ran my fingers over the back of my tan suede couch. I smiled at the TV as some cheesy rom-com played and inhaled with the utmost gratitude the scents of a vanilla cake baking in the oven.

Domesticated perfection.

I’d returned to my home that sheltered and protected me.

But it wasn’t lonely like before.

On the mantel, photo frames of a life shared with another replaced emptiness. In the fridge, beer rested beside my choice of white wine. In the bathroom, two toothbrushes existed instead of one.

I hugged myself in joy.

There was another person inside my perfect little home—a man who cherished and desired me. A man who came up behind me, spun me around in his arms, and settled his mouth over mine before I could see who my dream lover was.

I melted into his touch.

I gave him everything because he’d done the same for me.

He loved me to the tips of his toes.

And I loved him to the highest cliff I could climb.

The kiss started exquisitely sweet. A barely-there caress, a nip, a smile, a brush of promises. I moaned as he teased me, his hands worshiping as he gripped my waist and pulled me against his muscular body.

We both shivered as his obvious arousal dug into my stomach.

I laughed into his mouth.

He groaned into mine.

We didn’t need to speak to know just how much we needed each other and just how effortless it was between us. He knew what I was thinking before I did. I knew what he wanted before he could tell me. Everything between our hearts and minds was linked on a level that couldn’t be labeled.

Marriage couldn’t explain this. Friendship couldn’t describe this.

The only explanation could be fate.

My hands slinked into his hair, tugging a little as desire pooled in my belly. The soft kiss was now a tease. I wanted more.

He opened wider and took me harder, his lips firm and possessive. The first lash of his tongue hunting mine made my knees buckle. He wedged me against the couch and his hard body.

His hands roamed as he kissed me deeper. He palmed my breasts and pinched my nipples. He dragged his fingers down and down, dousing me in flames. With one hand he kneaded my hip while the other rocked against my clit.

I cried out, my moan swallowed by his deepening kiss.

He was everywhere. In my mouth, my mind, my heart. I couldn’t get a clear thought. I didn’t want a clear thought. All I wanted was him. Inside me. Taking me. Granting the release rapidly coiling in my core.

“Please...” I murmured into his mouth. “I need you.”

He reared back, his eyes burning with endless passion. His lips were kiss-swollen, and his scruff bristled like a caveman...but something was wrong.

Those eyes.

Neither black nor blue, undecipherable from green or hazel.

There were too many shadows in them. Too many horrors. Too much pain.

It broke my heart.

I cried for the splintered soul within.

And then, he kissed me viciously.

Slamming into me, he poured every shred of himself into me, feeding me every splintered piece, begging me to mend him, to stitch every tear and glue every fragment so one day he might have eyes that looked back with vibrant color instead of dead with despair.

But as he kissed me harder, as his touch turned desperate and the connection between us flared with fire, I began to fight.

It was too much.

Too hard.

I wasn’t enough.

I would never be enough to fix this man.

He would drown.

And I would drown with him.

Water babbled.

Air vanished.

No!

He didn’t stop.

Didn’t let me go.

He just kissed me harder, deeper, killing me with his unhappiness.





CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

THE GENERATOR TURNED OUT to be an easier fix than I’d thought. Which was a good thing, seeing as I hadn’t brought any tools with me. I should’ve. I would’ve if I had half a working brain and not this mush of concussion. How was I supposed to fix anything without the necessary tools?

Idiot.

At least nature had taken pity on me and the issue turned out just to be debris. The turbine was buried beneath a pile of muck. I’d been right that the storm, when Gemma climbed up the cliff and tried to drive herself away, was the reason for the unworking machine. Mulched grass, twigs, and rotting bracken had wedged around the blades, tangling into a nest that wouldn’t allow water to spin the turbine.

After a few minutes of pulling, yanking, and struggling to hold my balance as I stooped over and worked, the first groan of the ancient propeller twisted and water coaxed it to move quicker. I cleared the rest and waited for a little while, partly to get my nausea under control and partly to check that no other debris arrived from upstream to clog it again.

The steady whirr of power being conjured from the water, and stored in the bank of batteries that would one day likely cease working, filled me with relief. For now at least, we had power. Electricity that meant we could continue living in a mansion with privileges such as an oven, fridge, and pressurized water to flush toilets and grant showers. Cold showers, mind you. And fucking icy in winter, but the electricity quantity only stretched so far.