#but only in private. they more than anyone understand who delicate OP's hold on the primacy truly is

[peace-hunter]

in the baby prime orion au during sentinel's reign the high guard got used to referring to optimus as 'little prime', half because they were paranoid of being spied on and didn't want to give anything away and half because that's just what he was to them. their little prime.

and even after they're banished from iacon half of the decepticons never stop calling optimus 'little prime', not even long after the war goes on for thousands and thousands of years. is it an endearment? an insult? a reminder of better long gone times? a way to tell him he will never quite be as great as his fallen siblings? just simple habit? no one knows but the truth is it quite depends on who you ask but also they're all lying so you can't trust any of them

[possibilistfanfiction]

where the days have no numbers (to slow among roses, or stay behind)

[yall were rly cute abt the fic where lexa needs to retire & they have hale so here’s a little continuation for u. lexa’s hip gets better n they go on VACAY! ao3.]

//

where the days have no numbers (to slow among roses, or stay behind)

.

if it’s harmed, it’s harmed me, it’ll harm, i let it in —bon iver, ‘00000 million’

//

lexa looks out of place, and uncomfortably so, in a hospital gown and the beds that on many warriors look tiny. but you’re struck again—as you are sometimes, when things are calm and the world smells like flowers, and lexa’s hair is loose from its braids and you are sure she has never loved anyone as much as she loves you—you are struck that your wife is small, and slight, and delicate. 

she is, also, incredibly stubborn and sort of ridiculous, which right now is helping the pang in your chest lessen, just a little bit. 

‘stop trying to take those off,’ you tell her, and try to be gentle about it, because you know she’s mostly just scared and not trying to be consistently obstinate. 

lexa lies back against the pillows, looking impossibly younger in the soft gown, without any armor or warpaint. she huffs. ‘this procedure is for my hip, clarke. i do not see the use for all of these.’

she looks toward the oximeter on her finger with absolute disdain, and you can’t help but laugh.

she glares.

‘they’re just so we can make sure that you’re healthy the whole time.’

‘i am healthy,’ she says, and without swords and daggers her annoyance looks a little like a pout. 

‘you are,’ you say, grant her that at least, kiss her cheek gently when she petulantly turns away. you smile against her skin, though, and you feel her resolve start to waver. ‘you’re very healthy, and once your hip is healed, i have all sorts of plans to increase your flexibility.’

she turns toward you. ‘yes?’

‘mhm, commander,’ you tell her, and her pupils grow in size immediately. you want to laugh because you have been having sex with her for almost fifteen years and still this never fails. ‘lots of range of motion exercises.’

it takes her a moment to laugh, but then she does, softly and with resignation. ‘i look forward to that, clarke of the sky people.’

you smile fully then, and tug her in for a kiss. her IV line gets caught in your hair and you have to carefully untangle yourselves, but she doesn’t seem nearly as frustrated as before. 

the hospital in polis is coming along—she’d given you and raven free reign, essentially, to build an equipped hospital in polis, to work with the healers to blend both your practices of medicine. raven had been able to salvage some ark tech, and replicate it as well, and so now you have x-ray machines in polis, and three surgical theaters that are almost up to your mother’s exacting standards. you’ve spent your years setting up clinics in most clans, educating their healers, traveling with—and without—lexa to the far reaches of all of the land you could’ve never dreamed of. you’ve delivered babies, and treated head wounds, and tried to chart every poison and antidote the grounders seemingly have an endless supply of; you have given yourself to leadership and education and healing.

your mother had grumbled when you’d insisted she travel to polis to do lexa’s surgery here, but when you’d pointed out that there was no good way to transport your wife after her surgery back to your home, you had seen your mother consider having to have a sore, stir-crazy commander in her pristine arkadia hospital, and she had agreed. 

you’re waiting for her to be ready, now, with lexa in this small sterile room that she hates, hooked up to all sorts of machines that she hates, and you can understand: she has been hurt before, but never electively. you think this sort of decision goes against her very nature: to give in to the way of grace, to let something heal her when the earth cannot.

but she loves you, more than you ever could’ve known, so she’s here, quiet and stubborn and grumpy, in this hospital bed. she’s nervous, fidgeting and stoic, and you adore everything about her.

you’re about to tell her this, or try to, when your mother walks in, brusque and professional, in her surgical scrubs. 

‘ready?’ she asks.

‘yes,’ lexa says, very seriously, and you squeeze her hand with a little smile when she looks to you.

‘she’s good to go,’ you tell your mom, and her eyes are soft and understanding when she sees the two of you. it had been difficult at first, because of the mountain, but your mother had grown to love lexa, because they both want to give you the world.

lexa swallows and turns to you, kisses you gently, chastely. your wife—the most powerful person in the world who comes with cities that have fallen under her hand, an army that looks at her like a god—is scared, and you kiss her forehead. ‘you’re going to be just fine.’

love is not weakness, you have learned, and she is the strongest thing you have ever known.

your mom smiles gently as you back up and she steps up next to the bed, explains the surgery quickly once more, as per procedure that she insists on sticking to, which is comforting in its own way. and then she puts her hand gently on the side of lexa’s face, cups her cheek, in the same way she’s done for you, in a gesture of incredible comfort, and fondness, and tenderness, your whole life, in the same way she does for hale, now.

‘you’re going to fall asleep, and you won’t feel anything, and the next thing you know, clarke will be right here again when you wake up. it’ll be just like a blink.’

lexa nods. ‘thank you, abby,’ she says, and then turns toward you.

‘see you soon, niron,’ you say, and she kisses your knuckles.

‘ai hod yu in,’ she tells you, and this surgery is, in the long run, not dangerous at all—not compared to every battle you have ever seen her off to fight, every tense meeting among generals in the tower, even. 

but still, you feel it, feel her and your life together, the very center of all you are.

‘i love you too.’

she smiles and your mom nods at you seriously and wheels her away.

you stay staring for a while at your hands, where hers had been.

//

she is just as obstinate when she’s out of surgery as before, trying to take the oxygen cannula out of her nose, generally just being a pain in the ass to the post-op staff as they usher you in the room with a sigh of relief.

‘my love,’ she breathes out when she sees you, stops her struggle against a lead stuck to her chest.

‘hi,’ you say, trying not to laugh, and sit down next to her bed, take her hands in yours—out of comfort but also stillness. ‘how are you feeling?’

she shrugs unevenly, a gesture so young and unlike her you wish you had one of raven’s cameras with you.

‘are you in any pain?’

‘pain is just,’ she says, then leans back her against her pillows like the words have taken a lot out of her. ‘pain is merely a state of mind, clarke.’

‘well, you just got a bunch of new nerves and twenty-one stitches after my mom reconstructed your bones, so—’

‘shhhhh,’ she tells you, and closes her eyes. ‘brevity.’

you laugh and kiss the top of her hand, which makes her smile lopsidedly. ‘get some sleep.’

‘i’m not tired,’ she insists, still with her eyes shut.

you can’t help but smile, because your mom told you with utmost confidence that everything went better than expected, and that your wife is, indeed, very healthy.

‘get some sleep, lexa.’

she’s still for a few moments before she nods minutely and then whispers, ‘stay?’ a little roughly.

you feel eighteen again, in love and blown away and aching. but now it’s easy— you have built a word full of peace together: ‘always.’

//

lexa is tired, you can tell, but the good kind of spent because you had hiked to the tidepools together, and she had told hale stories after stories about all of the small creatures you can find there. your daughter had been delighted, and you need to thank raven again for the camera she had managed to salvage, because now you have a picture of your wife holding your daughter while they peer in wonder at phosphorescent starfish, their hair wild in the wind, their eyes bright.

lexa had carried hale all the way back on her shoulders, telling you both about the different kinds of birds, and trees, and generally finding what you can tell is an immense amount of joy in sharing the ground with you.

it’s been months, and she’s regained almost full mobility, only feeling pain when it had gotten especially cold, and then it was mostly just stiffness. 

when she had been well enough to quietly pitch the idea of a vacation to you—six whole days with no duties to anyone—you had cried, because you still owe your lives to your people, and you always will, but there is a sort of breath now, the same sort of healing that came to her bones.

she had brought you to this grand, single story house on the beach, one that apparently she had been having built for three years now, before hale was even born, hoping for this day. it’s the most spectacular gesture: the big windows looking out over the ocean; the aisle in front of them; the big bed with soft, warm linens and a driftwood headboard—all of it for you; all of it for your love.

tonight lexa grills fish she caught this morning, somehow managed to have something called a lemon to squeeze over them, and herbs she apparently planted herself, over a year ago, in a small garden on the side of the house. 

so much of her love is unspoken, and tender, and grander than you know how to give sometimes. but you tuck hale in together and you take a blanket and some wine out to the beach with her hand tucked in yours, the air salt and warm, the waves of her hair loose and long—and you try.

this is your private beach, and you take your clothes off together and touch each other, like have for fifteen years, like you do with more care and attention every day.

she traces a tiny scar under your eye and you pay careful attention to the one down her hip, but then you don’t think about harm so much anymore. you touch her and she arches into you, and she kisses you—down your skin and into your core—and you look up to see the stars; you close your eyes and see them all the same.

afterward you laugh into her neck about the sand somehow stuck to the side of her face, and she wraps her strong arms around you and spells out words on your skin that you can’t follow.

you lie like that for minutes together, listening to the sea and looking at her under the moonlight, washed out and stunning; you are incredibly in love.

‘what are you thinking about?’ you ask her, after a while.

she hums. ‘your medical procedures are so odd.’

your lips quirk up.

‘i had to choose to let your mother harm me so that i could heal, in the long term.’

the way she says it, full of softness, makes you remember her all those years ago, when you’d first met, the way she wanted more than just survival, her trust in you, the way she knelt before you in reverence.

‘i am going to grow old with you, clarke of the sky people,’ she says, with the same conviction she does when she gives speeches as the savior of her people.

you kiss her, deeply, and when it grows too heavy you tickle her side and she laughs with a yelp into your mouth, kisses you softly afterward.

you say, ‘i don’t plan on anything else.’

// 

hale wakes you both up in the morning, crawling over lexa with an oomph to plant herself in the middle of the bed. lexa groans and rolls over, throwing an arm over both of you.

‘rest, strikon,’ she says, her morning voice rough and only one eye peeking open. you kiss hale’s forehead with a little laugh when she huffs but snuggles up against your chest and sighs into it.

she’s quiet for a few minutes but then wrinkles her nose and sits up, her little fist held high.

‘why is there san, mama?’

‘sand,’ you say, and you can feel yourself blushing, even though lexa glares at you both and hale has no idea what’s going on. ‘and, um, we were playing in it last night before bed.’

lexa snorts from below her pillow and that’s all it takes for hale to squeal in delight and pile on top of her, mixed english and trigedesleng about playing in the sand almost in full sentences, and lexa laughs and turns over and hugs hale to her chest, blowing a raspberry against her cheek. 

your heart is full, and whole, and hale reaches for you and pulls you toward both of them, into a clumsy embrace where you knock limbs and feel the summer sweat already beginning. your chest aches, and the air is warm; you are at peace and your wife is looking at you like you are the first person any sort of gods ever found holy: you are so far from harm.

[joyffree]

RELEASE BLITZ Title: A Shameless Little Lie Series: The Shameless Series #2 Author: Meli Raine Genre: Romantic Suspense Release Date: March 27, 2018

BLURB

I did it. I admit it.

I fell in love with Silas. My bodyguard. My protector.

My new informant.

We’re playing a cat-and-mouse game. I’m not sure whether I’m the cat or the mouse, but I can definitely tell I’m in a trap.

A trap with no way out.

I’m not who everyone thought I was. The truth is out there, finally turning the lie about me inside out. I am the shameless little lie. It’s finally been revealed, and now even more people want to kill me.

As a presidential campaign hangs in the balance, a delicate web of international relations and economic stability at risk, power becomes more important than anything else.

Even my life.

Especially my life. I’m a nothing. A no one. Just a tool, remember?

But tools can be used to open locks. Cracking open the truth and exposing it could change the balance of power. Tip the scales. Make a presidential campaign turn on a dime.

Too bad Silas doesn’t believe me when I tell the truth.

And that may make him the biggest tool of all.

A Shameless Little Lie is book two in the Shameless trilogy by USA Today bestselling author Meli Raine

Read the whole series:

Book 1: A Shameless Little CON Book 2: A Shameless Little LIE Book 3: A Shameless Little BET

GOODREADS LINK: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/37714994-a-shameless-little-lie

PURCHASE LINKS

US: http://amzn.to/2ry9nOy UK: http://amzn.to/2DBooE2 CA: http://amzn.to/2BqvgiA AU: http://amzn.to/2BqvWo8 B&N: http://bit.ly/2DxwcHy Kobo: http://bit.ly/2F8ZokJ iBooks: http://apple.co/2j1BthB Google Play: http://bit.ly/2BmCYdz

EXCERPTS

#1

Monica Bosworth has eyes that could cut gemstones.

I’ve known this since I was a little girl. When no one else is looking, she gives me glares and once-overs, the skin around her orbs tight and contemplative. She evaluates me like I’m a specimen she’s trying to understand.

Or eradicate.

And right now?

Definitely eradicate.

Lindsay makes a gasping choke, the kind of sound you hear when someone expires. It’s the sound of everything she knows about herself dying. She’s alive, though. More than alive. I can tell from the different expressions that migrate across her face in real time that she’s processing all of it second by second, realization by realization.

I am just there, frozen and silent, unable to find a single, solitary way to connect with anyone in the room.

Even Silas.

Monica turns to Marshall, her voice so flat and even. It’s like a steamroller is ironing out her words. “We have a situation now, Marshall. We need to control the information. Who else knows this?”

Silas won’t stop looking at me.

Drew wraps his arm around Lindsay’s shoulders and stares straight ahead. His neutral demeanor is one that comes from exquisite control. Underneath the surface, it’s very clear that he would rather have his hands around his mother-in-law’s throat right now, squeezing every spare drop of oxygen from her lifeless body.

“I don’t know, Monica,” Marshall says, drawing out his words deliberately. “You tell me. Who else knows this?”

Flinching but recovering quickly, she looks at Lindsay. “I would prefer to answer questions privately.”

“What you prefer doesn’t matter, Mother,” Lindsay slings back. “What you prefer has been the dictate of my entire life. I’m done. I’ve been done for a very, very long time, but this? This takes the cake. You slept with someone else? Daddy isn’t my father? You lied to me all these years?”

I stand, my chair falling over behind me, one of the rolling wheels scraping hard along my calf at a diagonal. It stings, so I know I’ll bleed. The pain is nice. I could sit with the pain. Make friends with it.

Pain can be a source of comfort when chaos is your only alternative.

Senator Harwell Bosworth, the man expected to be the next president of the United States, is my father. Hidden in plain sight. My entire life, I’ve been led to believe that my father killed himself when my mother was pregnant.

And now?

It turns out I’ve spent my entire life around him and didn’t know.

#2

My ear is stroking something so soft and smooth. It’s comforting and inviting, so I rub against the softness, reveling in sensation, sighing.

And then the something moves.

“Hey,” Silas says, his voice coming from above. “She’s awake.”

I open my eyes, then shut them quickly to make the spinning stop. The world is full of random objects that move in and out, forward and back, my depth perception put in a blender and puréed.

“What?” I whisper, his hand on my shoulder. I want him to stroke my hair, to bring me ginger ale, to keep me safe and let me relax.

“You fainted,” he says, voice somehow both taut with worry and gentle with concern. “Right into my arms.”

“You have good arms.”

“I like them.”

“So do I.”

I roll in his lap and look up into those bright eyes full of mirth and worry. “Can you sit up?” he asks.

“No.”

“That bad?”

“It feels so nice here. I could sleep here forever.”

Someone clears their throat in the distance. It’s a masculine sound.

“She okay?” the throat-clearer asks from another continent away. Or maybe the front seat. It’s hard to tell.

“I think so,” Silas responds, easing me up slowly.

“I did not consent to sitting up,” I murmur, snuggling in.

“And I didn’t consent to being your pillow.”

“But you’re a good pillow. The best pillow ever.”

“Jane?” Silas asks slowly. “Are you on something?”

“On something? I’m on you.” My muscles go slack, body in need of this all-too-short moment to enjoy being at rest in a place of sanctuary.

Rumbling makes my head move lightly as he–is he laughing? “No. I mean, did you take a drug, or a pill? You’re acting very weird.”

“Have we met? Come on. You try going through what I’ve been through these last few days, then faint, and come out of it perfectly sane,” I grouse.

As I come to a full upright position with my back against the upholstered seat, I realize it’s not just me, Silas, and–oh. The throat-clearer is Duff.

Drew is behind him, their heads huddled together as they speak through the window.

“I’m fine,” I lie. “Just tired and a little weary from having my entire life blitzed to smithereens.”

#3

The first conscious moment I’m aware he’s in bed with me comes as I slide my palm against his flat stomach, the layered grooves of his abs bringing me out of slumber. He’s so warm, the skin unlike mine, a line of hair in the middle of my hand thickening as I move my hand down. It’s warm, hotter as I hit a line of fabric, then brush against something hard and unyielding.

He makes a low sound in his throat. My nose grazes his shoulder. I sigh, the long sound of coming to, the luxurious, slow exhale of post-sleep awakening. My arm is around Silas’s waist. He’s on his side, turned away from me, and here I am, feeling his bare skin in my sleep.

“Oh!” I say and begin to retreat.

His hand clamps over my wrist. “No. Don’t stop.”

“But I–”

“Jane,” he says roughly, “please don’t stop.”

His voice holds a richness, his breath coming quickly. A ragged sigh emerges as I make a wordless sound to tell him yes, I’ll continue. Yes, I want to touch him. Yes, I want to see the center of his heat.

And yes, I want that heat in me.

“I didn’t mean to touch you in your sleep.”

“I wasn’t asleep.”

“I was.”

“I know. And the fact that you reach out to me even when you aren’t aware of it is enchanting,” he whispers as he turns over, my arm now around his back. Silas kisses me until I am very, very much alert.

My hand runs down the long, hard lines of his back to his ass, the coiled power in his legs so strong. He moves toward me, pressing with a mix of urgency and patience. Nothing holds us back now but ourselves. No interruptions, no killers, no meetings, no constant vigilance. For now, we’re a man and a woman who want to be stripped bare and to enter into each other’s bodies to create a new space.

A refuge.

A haven.

ALSO AVAILABLE

#1 A Shameless Little Con

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COMING SOON

#3 A Shameless Little Bet – Releasing June 5, 2018

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AUTHOR BIO

Meli Raine writes romantic suspense with hot bikers, intense undercover DEA agents, bad boys turned good, and Special Ops heroes — and the women who love them.

Meli rode her first motorcycle when she was five years old, but she played in the ocean long before that. She lives in New England with her family.

AUTHOR LINKS

Website: http://meliraine.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meliraine Twitter: https://twitter.com/meliraineauthor