Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68033 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
After her tears subsided, she finally sniffed, plucking at the buttons of his shirt with restless fingers. He shifted so she faced him, her legs falling on either side of his strong thighs. He pressed against her back until her breasts rested against his chest, only the duvet separating them. She clutched his shoulders, keeping the duvet aloft with only the press of their bodies together. She couldn’t look at him and wondered if he could feel the gallop of her heart.
He leaned down, nudging her face up with his nose.
“Better?”
“I’m still scared.” Even with everything she’d ever wanted only a breath away, her throat burned with a lifetime of tears.
“Me, too, sometimes.” He pulled back, studying her wet eyes. He ran a thumb along her lashes and pressed a kiss there. “But there’s nothing I can do about it. I’m yours, Kerris. Completely. There’s no one else for me. Now you say it.”
When she looked up into his waiting eyes, she had the sense of falling. Like something had been chasing her for a long time, and she had finally tripped, plunging forward into a blessed darkness, unsure of where she would land.
So this was love. This fear; this need. This insatiable thirst that racked her soul when she thought of him. The tremble of her hands when he was near. The catch in her breath at the thought of his hands on her body. The tenderness when she considered what an amazing man he truly was. The possessiveness that sluiced through her at even the thought of him with someone else. Was he truly hers?
“Say it, baby.” The loving heat in his eyes warmed up every frigid place left by all the hurt she’d endured.
“I’m yours.”
“Completely.” He ran a firm hand along her back under the duvet, his hand warm against the naked flesh.
“Completely.” She hovered over his mouth before leaning the last few inches, closing her lips over his and losing all sense of space. It was only them. No fear. No apprehension. No one else. And she knew that if they went down, it would be together.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kerris glanced at her watch. She was due in court in an hour, but something had drawn her here. After almost a year of Dr. Stein urging her, encouraging her, sometimes begging her, to visit her baby’s grave—she was finally doing it. It was a day to close old chapters and begin new ones. First, visit Amalie. Next, her divorce.
She would see Cam for the first time in more than a year. There had been no phone calls, texts, or emails. He had truly gone his own way in Paris. Kerris could only hope he had found as much peace as she had, but she somehow doubted it. He and Walsh were no closer to reconciling, but she had to keep trying. She had promised Ms. Kris she would bring them back together, and Kerris knew that once friendship was restored, everyone would be better off.
Her steps were tentative, but not because she wasn’t sure where to go. Meredith and Mama Jess had practically drawn a map. They were both so happy she was finally taking this step. No, her feet hesitated because she wasn’t sure what she would find there. Not the grave itself, but how much of herself had she buried with Amalie? Sometimes it felt like handfuls of her heart were still missing. Would this simple act of visiting the grave give any of it back? Or was that part of her heart gone forever?
She plodded her way through the cemetery, heartbeat ricocheting in her chest the closer she got. Nothing could have prepared her for what she found when she finally reached the tiny headstone with angel wings sketched in the granite.
“Cam?”
If she hadn’t been so shocked to see him, she wouldn’t have spoken. Would have tiptoed backward and left this first visit for another time. But seeing him, after a year, unexpectedly, and here at their daughter’s grave, stole her caution. And his name had slipped out.
He looked up from where he knelt in front of the headstone. His hair, even longer than she had last seen it, dark and nearly to his shoulders, was tousled from the torture of his own fingers. His eyes, red-rimmed, held so much pain that Kerris’s breath caught like she’d been punched in the throat.
He didn’t get up. Didn’t pretend he hadn’t been weeping over their baby girl. Elbows on knees, eyes turned to the ground, he didn’t speak.
“Cam, I didn’t expect to see you here. I can come back later.”
Kerris turned to leave but his words, low like a moan, stopped her.
“Why do I fuck everything up?”
Kerris turned back to him, hesitating only a moment before squatting beside him in front of the monument to their baby girl. She pulled on a blade of grass, manipulating it into a tiny circle.