Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 157175 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157175 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
‘Twenty-two.’
She chuckles, and I smile. ‘I can tell you make me happy.’
‘Good.’ I relax in my seat and we spend a few silent, blissful moments in our madness just snuggling, her hands skating over my chest, lightly touching me everywhere she can. Like she’s reacquainting herself to the feel of me.
Chapter 15
We’ve been rattling around the quiet, empty house for two days, leaving only once so I could take her to therapy. We left the session after no spikes in her memory, and the hopelessness seemed to multiply by a million. I’ve forced myself into the spare bed each night, and hated it with a vengeance every time I’ve left her in our suite. Each time, she watches me as I go, and each time I’ve wondered if she really doesn’t want me to leave. But there’s no way I can ask her.
I keep seeing glimmers of a familiar look in her eyes, a pleased look, the look she used to give me every day of our lives. It’s the look that tells me she wants me. The attraction she’s never been able to hide. But now she’s holding back. She’s trying to fight it. Just like she did all those years ago when she walked into my office.
But this time, I can’t charge her resistance down like a bull. I can’t take what I want. I have to wait for it to be given to me, and it’s killing me a little bit more each day.
I’ve been watching her, wondering what’s going on in that mind of hers. And she’s caught me doing it often, smiling a small smile each time. She’s getting used to me. Weighing me up.
It’s now night-time again, and dread fills me as I walk her up to our room, the bed still unmade from this morning. I’d normally strip her down to her skin, lift her into bed and crawl in behind her. But that fear of scaring her to death or being rejected stops me again. I don’t know if I could take it. Yet walking out and leaving her kills me, too. Kate’s words crawl into my mind. Where’s the Jesse Ward we all know and love?
On that note . . .
‘Arms up,’ I order Ava, taking the hem of her T-shirt.
She gazes up at me, a little surprised. There’s uncertainty in her eyes, and she flinches when my fingers brush the flesh of her tummy. In return, I flinch, too, yet my reaction has nothing to do with the usual flame on my skin whenever I touch my wife, and everything to do with her wariness.
I drop her T-shirt and step back, giving her space, trying to control the agony in my chest before it puts me on my knees and has me begging. ‘Never mind. I’ll give you some privacy.’ I turn before she catches sight of my watery eyes and take myself away from the one person in this world who brought me back to life. And the one person in the world who can finish me.
Closing the door behind me, I stalk away, aware that if I stop and try to gather myself, I’ll either put a hole in the wall or crumple to the floor and cry my fucking heart out. I roughly brush at my damp eyes as I take the stairs, eager to put as much space between us as possible so that when I roar my frustration, she’s not as likely to hear.
My pace quickens as I round the bottom of the stairs, and I stagger into the games room and shut the door behind me, falling against the wood, my body rolling with the effort it’s taking to breathe. Bang. I smack the back of my head on the wood, squeezing my eyes shut, quaking with a fury I’m unable to control.
Why? Why is this happening? I’ve pushed her too far too soon. The roar I’ve been suppressing since I escaped our room bubbles up from the pit of my stomach and explodes out of me, and I turn, throwing my fist into the door. The door doesn’t splinter, but my already split knuckles split some more. It doesn’t hurt. The only pain I feel is in my fractured heart. ‘Fuck!’
I stay where I am, forehead resting on the door, fists clenched, for as long as it takes me to cool down. It could be two minutes, it could be an hour. I don’t know. I feel as though precious time is slipping like sand through an hourglass. Unstoppable.
It’s the sound of my phone that eventually pulls me from the door. Feeling numb, I walk over to the table and swipe it up. It’s Kate.
‘Hey.’ I slump onto the couch and inspect my bloody fist.
‘Everything okay?’
‘My wife doesn’t know who I am, Kate. So, no, everything isn’t okay.’