Total pages in book: 235
Estimated words: 227851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1139(@200wpm)___ 911(@250wpm)___ 760(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 227851 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1139(@200wpm)___ 911(@250wpm)___ 760(@300wpm)
“I was a twin,” I whisper, eyes on hers.
She drops me like I’m diseased. It’s ironic. It stings. And she just stares at me, wide-eyed, her mouth hanging open in disbelief. She could throw a hissy fit. She could annihilate me for keeping this from her.
But she won’t.
“My spirited girl is speechless,” I whisper, slipping my hand around her neck. I’m out of my daze. I’m not over the shock, but I’m thinking clearly. This is the right moment, and I realize as I sit here preparing, not sharing Jake with Ava wasn’t only about my fear of where that conversation might lead and Ava doubting me as a good man. It was also about simply talking about him. It was about revisiting a time in my life that I’ve spent most of my life trying to blank out.
It’s the same with Lauren.
It’s the same with Rosie.
“Have a bath with me.” I stand and help her to her feet, and despite her clearly having showered already, she doesn’t object. “I need to be with you.” If I’m going to go there, I need to go there while I hold her in my arms. And the tub is our place.
I pick her up and carry her up to the bathroom, feeling her amazed eyes glued to my face as she seeks out my neck with her lips. It’s her way of telling me she’s not going anywhere. I need it.
I sit her by the sink and get the bath ready, running over where to begin. How to begin. I honestly don’t know, so I’ll let instinct lead. I start to strip her down as I kiss her, loading up with courage to talk about Jake. Her hands slip under my T-shirt, feeling me as her tongue rolls around mine. “Take it off. Please, take away everything between us.”
She rips my T-shirt up my torso, urgent, and yanks my jeans open, everything becoming clumsy and rushed. Not because either of us need to get to sex, but because we need to get to intimacy in another way. I kick my jeans off, pull Ava down to her feet, kneeling as I pull her pants and knickers down, faltering for a moment, swallowing, briefly revisiting the moment I realized she hadn’t cut herself.
The dread.
But we’re okay now.
We’re okay.
I rise, cast her knickers aside, and lift her to my body, looking up into her dark, alive eyes as she drops her mouth to mine, accommodating my silent demand. I step into the bath and lower to my knees, holding her under her ass. Her breath hitches, her boobs squishing to my chest. “Is the water okay?”
“Fine,” she says between our deep kisses.
“Always fine.”
“Always perfect if I have you.”
That felt like a message. “You have me.” I can’t get her despair out of my head. At the hospital, her withdrawal. She thought no baby meant no us. I break our kiss and find her eyes. Her bare skin glistens. Her eyes search mine. Strands of her wet hair stick to her cheeks. “You do know that, don’t you?” I ask.
“You married me, of course I know.”
I find her ring and remove it, feeling her watching, confused. “Do you think this signifies my love for you?” I ask.
“Yes,” she whispers, sounding like she’s missing something. Because she is. The ring is just a fucking ring. I’d be lying if I didn’t hope it served as a massive back the fuck off to any man. But still, it’s just a ring. “Then we should get these diamonds removed,” I whisper, “and have it re-encrusted with my heart.” I smile down at her hand as I slip it back onto her finger, sighing to myself. It feels like I’m on a lifelong mission to try and convey to this woman how I feel. I’m sure I’ll never succeed.
Her hand lies across my pec, and I consider the sparklers decorating her finger. Pretty. I’m not sure my heart would pack the same visual punch. “I like your heart exactly where it is,” she declares, bending her upper body so her lips can reach my chest. She kisses me softly, looking up at me. I raise my brows. “I like how it swells when you look at me.”
“Just for you, baby.” I pull her up and kiss her hard, feeling blood dripping into places I don’t want it to go right now. Not now. Now, I have to talk. “Let me bathe you.” I steal one more kiss of her neck and start moving her away from me before we both deviate from the plan. “Turn around for me.” Moving off my knees, I rest back against the tub and pull Ava to between my legs, getting us comfortable. She folds her body over and sighs, staring down into the water as I soak the sponge, squeezing it across her nape and watching the water run down her olive skin, over the kinks in her spine. Her silence is making me smile. I had expected a barrage of questions or impatience within a few seconds flat of declaring I was a twin. “Are you fine?” I ask.