Total pages in book: 143
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136743 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 684(@200wpm)___ 547(@250wpm)___ 456(@300wpm)
“I’ve missed you,” she whispers between our lips, raining kisses over my neck and jaw.
“So much.” I bury my face in the curve of her throat, inhaling the scent of jasmine. “God, Sol. Don’t…”
Don’t what?
Don’t make me wait any longer?
Don’t do this to us?
I swallow my words, the ones that would push her to move before she’s ready. That would implore her to choose us. To choose the life we could have together now. I don’t want to manipulate her, pressure her. All the reasons that separated us the last two weeks rear in my mind, interrupting these heated seconds. I lift my head, drop my hands from her butt, and let her slide down the length of my body.
Nothing’s changed. She still needs to figure out what she wants. I still want… everything. Not marriage or for her to sacrifice her needs, but I want a life with her on our terms with nothing held back. Until we can have that, sex is just a temporary fix. A very good one, but pale compared to what we could be.
“I better go.” It takes all my willpower to set her away from me, and the few inches between us immediately pulse with need. I drag my gaze up her body with slow deliberation, committing every detail to memory. Compact and curvy, wavy hair spilling down her arms, kiss-swollen lips the color of plums.
“Judah.”
Her voice, soft, urgent, prompts me to look into her eyes, something I didn’t want to do for fear I might not be able to turn away. I might get lost there and forget half measures aren’t enough and do whatever it takes to get me back in her bed, back in her arms, back in her life.
“Yeah?” I ask, but I take a step toward the stairwell door, backing away from the precipitous edge. From a long fall.
“Once Adam’s feeling better,” she says, digging her hands into her pockets and staring down at her sneakers. “I thought maybe you could come over for dinner. You and the boys.”
I stop, staring at her lips even though they’re no longer moving, wondering if I heard her right.
“I know they don’t eat many things,” she continues, eyes still lowered. “But you mentioned they love your mom’s mac and cheese. Maybe I could talk to her and she could walk me through the recipe. I’m good at following recipes. I wanna at least try to—”
“You want to talk to my mother?” I demand, clarifying. “And you want us to come to dinner? At your house?”
She nods haltingly.
“Will your daughters be there?”
At that she glances up, her slight smile wry. “They do live at the house, so yeah. They’ll be there for dinner.”
“Soledad, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying I want what you want.” Her brows knit over the earnestness in her eyes. “A life together on our terms.”
For a second I don’t even know how to answer, can’t find words to ask about exactly what I want being dropped into my lap. It’s disorienting.
“I… we… what’s changed?” I ask.
She draws a deep breath and clasps her hands tightly in front of her.
“I just got back from South Carolina. My sisters and I had to clear out the house where we grew up, and I found some of the journals and diaries my mother kept.”
She shakes her head, her expression self-deprecating. “I know. I probably shouldn’t have read them, but I miss her so much, and there’s a lot I never understood about her as a woman. Not my mom or my dad’s wife, but as her own person. She shared that in her journal, and I needed to see it.”
“That makes sense,” I say. “Go on.”
“She was in love with two men in her life.” Soledad leans against the stairwell wall. “Lola’s father and mine. Lola’s dad was that passion that burns so hot it consumes you. Her love for my father was… softer, warm, not hot, but it was that enduring kind of fire that just keeps burning and lets you glow.”
She bites her lip as if uncertain how to go on, but I let her figure it out in the silence, afraid anything I might say would ruin it.
“I used to think of that great passion as a vine that wraps around your soul, makes you feel wild and abandoned and almost out of control. And I thought of what she had with Dad as a seed that grows slowly within. Something you nurture over time that makes you feel safe and secure.”
She looks up at me, resolve and wonder in her expression. “I was never sure I had either with Edward, but with you I’ve found both. You make me forget the world when you kiss me, and it’s reckless and out of control, and yet there is no safer place. No one I trust more. You’re a harbor, not just for me, but for your boys, for your ex, for anyone you love and who needs you. You are the seed and you are the vine, and I love you, Judah.”