Possessed by You (The Consumed Series, #3)

Excerpt from Possessed By You

Possessed by You - the third and final installment of The Consumed Series - will be available for pre-order on JUNE 15TH, 2019!

Release Date: June 25th, 2019 (e-book & paperback)

Guys! This has been absolutely insane. This series started on Wattpad and now here we are! I couldn't have done any of this without your support! I am so grateful!

Thank you, loves xx

Alicia

Excerpt from Possessed by You:

Surrounded by loud jetting vibrations, which make it near impossible to sleep, I slide my leg around Benjamin's calf while we remain in silence, thousands of feet in the air, headed toward someplace unknown to me. Our skin simmers at our initial touch; our nerves nestled just under in tight, jumbled sections.

They are ignited by a mere graze or caress, and I find contentment in our intimacy. Although it's been weeks since we've rekindled, and months now since I was released from my sentence, he and I have remained firmly in politeness.

We have never been so polite.

Whether we're meeting for dinner, or spending the night at one of our apartments, we don't allow arguments. We don't even have to catch ourselves. We talk of everything, everything but what matters.

We haven't spoken of the year apart, what occurred between those months—to the both of us. I wasn't the only person who had to become someone else. Benjamin didn't waste his time alone. He tackled work, his dominating empire, something he had placed on the backburner during the chaos of the trial.

As much as I like politeness, I enjoy truth far better.

"Do you have anything you want to ask me?" I blurt out no louder than a whisper, my cheek burning against his chest. I expect deterring jokes or indifference, or even feigned cluelessness, but Benjamin seems almost armed with an answer, as if he'd had it stored for the right moment.

"Who visited you? Did you make any friends, anyone you could trust there? Was it what you were expecting? The list could go on."

With a pause at the realization that he's been waiting as impatiently as I have, I'm struck with the perfectly unsettling urge to tell him everything, in hopes that barriers will be broken.

"Doris was the only person I allowed to visit."

"Not Kevin?"

"Almost everyone there really liked seeing their family. It makes sense, if you don't think about it too much, to be excited to see your relatives, your friends. That was weird for me. It was hard enough to come out and see Doris, let alone imagine anyone else. In that situation, I liked being alone."

"So, that probably answers my other question."

My eyes rest in the dark on my nails, manicured and crimson red. It's easy to remember when they were broken and surrounded by bruised knuckles.

"I didn't trust anyone. I couldn't there."

"Why not?"

"Because they knew who I was. They knew about the trial, or about you and me. In there, I was famous and privileged in their eyes."

"Didn't you tell them otherwise?"

"That's not how things work in there, Ben."

He scoots off the pillows to meet me eye-level, and I settle my temple into the crook of his shoulder and arm. His hand leaves my hip, and drifts along the scar, now a dull pink color beside my ear.

"Is that why this happened?"

"I'm not sure."

His gaze doesn't falter, but those green eyes do soften, holding an unhealthy amount of misplaced guilt. My head shakes just enough for him to sigh, and cover my hip again.

"Tell me about you," I whisper, wishing to relieve some of the heaviness that has showed.

"What do you want to know?"

"Everything. Tell me about Dimitri, and your family. Tell me about the mergers and crazy contracts."

"You're really interested in hearing about work? Really?"

"I've always enjoyed it, you know that."

"I thought you were pretending because you liked me."

"Is that so?"

He chuckles, offering the widest smile. He's reaching.

"You know, if you hadn't been so stubborn and impulsive, I wouldn't even have to ask you about those mergers. I'd be helping you with them, you know, like when I was your assistant? Before you fired me—"

"Okay, okay, we don't talk of that," he muses, holding me tighter. "Besides, if you were still my assistant, you wouldn't be the up and coming editor you are now."

"True."

He smiles at my lack of modesty, appearing to enjoy it. "Man, it seems so easy to fall back into this...but hard too."

He doesn't have to elaborate. "This" means our relationship, which at the time of the trial, was stronger than steel. We'd conquered the holidays, and made it out with a glow that even newlyweds would envy. Over the course of a year apart, the love didn't diminish, but became draped in anger and distance. It's both hard...and easy to drop that protective layer.

"I hoped it would have been easier...my way. I never set out to hurt you."

"I know you didn't."

A piece of information he told me in his anger drifts into my brain and holds, so hard I can't help but voice it.

"You told me that you didn't work for a month."

For the first time, his eyes leave mine, settling on my throat. They close when my fingers travel over the sharpness of his jaw onto freshly shaved skin. It feels good to hold him beneath my hand, powerful.

"Everything you're thinking I felt, I did."

"We're together now," I tell him.

"I know," he says, and looks at me, finally.

"What made you want to go back?"

"My sister. She showed up, kicked me into shape. My assistant voiced her concerns to Rebecca, who flew over and eased my wounded ego enough to put on a suit and leave the apartment."

"I really like her."

"She's always liked you."

"Even now?"

"Especially now."

"Why?"

"Because only you can evoke those kinds of emotions from me. I'd never been in love...and she knew that."

Despite the countless times he's told me of his love, I'm somehow still caught off guard. For most of our relationship, my love for him was at the forefront of every action between us, every conversation. And after he admitted it, we began to slowly accept the verbalization of it. He makes it look easy now.

"We can get back there, Ben. I know we can. We aren't beyond repair."

"We will get back there. I intend to do everything in my damn power to get us there."

He snakes his arm around my hip, bringing me closer. We both sigh, and I watch his eyes close before I allow mine to do the same.

"Is that what this is all about? This trip?"

"That's exactly what this is about."

I hide my smile. "Where are we going?"

"Bali."