Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
I feel like the most amazing creature in the world as he cherishes the skin of my chest and neck along the lines of where flesh meets bone.
He pauses briefly to reach in and turn on the water in the shower, but as he comes back to me, he cups the sides of my face in his hands with reverence. His movements are poised and measured as he kisses the skin of my cheek and my nose and then both of my closed eyelids too. A gasp takes all the rigidity out of my neck, and my head falls back at once.
Bennett unclasps my bra with ease, his artist’s fingers nimble in every way they need to be. As it slides down my shoulders and the cold air of the open bathroom hits my breasts, my nipples peak into points and brush directly against his chest.
“You are so perfect,” Bennett says then, his voice filled with awe. I think he’s talking about my body, given the nature of his timing, but when he keeps going, his true meaning hits me square in the chest. “I’m sorry it took me so long to realize. I’m sorry I treated you so poorly. But most of all, I’m so sorry I ever thought it would be a bad idea to know you…to let you in.”
My next breath shakes so badly, I know it’s only a matter of time before I can’t find air at all.
“You’ve changed our lives, Norah. You’ve changed them so much for the better.”
My voice is a whisper—it’s all I can manage. “I feel the same way about you. The things I thought mattered before? They don’t matter at all. All the things I should’ve said? I’m going to make sure I say them now.”
Bennett grabs my hip with one hand and my face with the other, sealing our lips in a kiss I’ll remember for the rest of my life. It’s passion and pain and every raw emotion this life has to offer. We’re intertwined in each other as he steps us under the spray of the water, and my underwear comes off in a rip.
My chest moves up and down in huge heaves, the feel of Bennett’s every muscle against me reminding me of the first and only other time I used this shower.
“Last time I showered in here,” I murmur softly, “I got so lost in thoughts of you that I made myself come.”
Bennett’s grunt of approval runs through my entire body as he lifts me into his arms, and I wrap my legs around his waist. I’m not entirely sure when he got rid of his pants, but I know for sure they’re long gone when his cock presses at my entrance.
Firmly but slowly, he pushes himself until he’s seated inside. And my whole body quakes with the perfectness of our fit—with the perfectness of it all.
Determined to leave no words behind, I say the thing that scares a million men into hibernation on a daily basis. I say the thing, I realize now, I should’ve said all along. Once, we were enemies, but at the root of that was this.
“I love you, Bennett.” Him and Summer. I love them both.
He doesn’t balk at my words. Doesn’t stop touching me, caressing me, moving his cock inside me. “I love you too, Norah. I love you in spite of trying my best not to.”
I understand on an intrinsic level, in a way that I never understood before. I couldn’t see Thomas’s face on my wedding day, not because of his personality or the letter or any of the other obvious reasons there are.
I couldn’t see his face because searching for it in my mind was the first mistake.
When it’s right, you don’t have to search.
You don’t find love. Love finds you.
35
Bennett
Wednesday, September 1st
Norah sleeps soundly in my T-shirt as I kiss her on the shoulder, leave the bedroom, and close the door behind me.
The morning sun bounces rays of light off the hardwood floor of the hallway as I walk to Summer’s room first. I crack open her door, and my presence pulls Charlie to her feet. She leaves my daughter’s side and comes to me, her face a mask of news I know I’m not prepared to hear. My throat feels clogged as I ask, “She’s still sleeping?”
Charlie nods. “Straight through since yesterday afternoon when she woke up to see your sister.”
After we came back from the wedding—and after Norah and I made love—Breezy came home, and we cooked some chicken on the grill. Summer woke up just as we were getting done, though she had no appetite for food and only stayed awake long enough to talk with Breezy for ten minutes. I thought she would have woken up at some point during the night, but evidently, her small body is much more tired than I realized.