Her grief wells in her eyes once more and renders me helpless. “Stop, now. I can’t bear it when you cry.” My voice is hoarse; my words are honest yet woefully inadequate against the tide of her anguish. I wipe her cheeks once more with my thumbs, but it’s a losing battle. Her tears still flow.
“I’m sorry, Christian. Just sorry for everything. For making you worry, for risking everything—for the things I said.”
“Hush, baby, please.” I kiss her forehead. “I’m sorry. It takes two to tango, Ana.” I try a crooked smile to cheer her. “Well, that’s what my mom always says. I said things and did things I’m not proud of.”
My words come back to haunt me.
This is why I like control.
So shit like this doesn’t come along and fuck everything up!
Shame burns like a pyre in my chest. Grey, this is not helping.
“Let’s get you undressed.”
Ana wipes her nose with the back of her hand, and the raw gesture endears her to me even more. I kiss her forehead, because I need her to know that I love her, no matter what she does. Taking her hand, I support her as she staggers to her feet, and quickly undress her, taking particular care as I tug her T-shirt over her head. I guide her to the shower and open the door, where we pause as I strip out of my clothing. When I’m naked, I take her hand again and we both step in.
Beneath the waterfall of steaming water, I hold her hard and tight against me.
I never want to let her go.
She continues to cry, her tears washed away by the cascade flowing over us. I rock her gently from side to side, the rhythm soothing me and, I hope, Ana.
I’m rocking my child, too…inside her.
Whoa. That’s a strange thought.
I kiss her hair, so grateful that she’s back home with me, when I’d feared…
Shit. Don’t go there, Grey.
All of a sudden, I hear a loud sniff, and Ana steps out of my arms. She seems to have stopped crying.
“Better?”
She nods, her eyes clear.
“Good. Let me look at you.”
Her brow furrows, and I hope she won’t stop me as I need to see for myself what that asshole prick has done to my wife. Taking her hand, I turn it over. My gaze travels from the graze on her wrist to the abrasion at her elbow, to the large fist-sized bruise on her shoulder. The sight of these marks infuriates me, igniting the embers of my earlier anger at Hyde. I bend to kiss each scrape and bruise, planting the barest of kisses at each site. Grabbing the washcloth and shower gel from the rack, I soap the cloth, inhaling the sweet fragrance of jasmine. “Turn around.”
Ana does as she’s told and, knowing she’s fragile and wounded, I wash her arms, neck, shoulders, and back, as tenderly as I’m able. Absorbed in the task, I keep my touch light. She doesn’t complain, and the tension in her shoulders eases little by little as I wash them. I turn her so I have a clearer view of the bruise on her hip; my fingers skate over the livid purple mark. She winces.
Motherfucker.
“It doesn’t hurt,” Ana says quietly, and I raise my head to meet her brilliant gaze.
I don’t believe her.
“I want to kill him. I nearly did.” The rage I felt, when Hyde was on the ground, burns deep inside my soul.
I should have kicked him to a pulp.
To shield Ana from my murderous thoughts, I concentrate on the washcloth and soap it again with shower gel. I bathe her body once more—her sides and her behind, and I kneel at her feet and wash her legs. I pause at the bruise on her knee, lean in and brush my lips against it before moving on to soap her feet. Her fingers tangle in my hair, distracting me from my task. When I look up, her expression is raw and tender, and it twists my heart. Standing, I trace the bruise at her ribs with my fingertips, the sight stoking my fury once more, but I dampen it down. It’s not helping either of us.
“Oh, baby.” I push the words past the anguish in my throat.
“I’m okay.” Her fingers weave into my hair again, and she pulls my head down and kisses me. Soft. Sweet. I hold myself back. She’s hurt. But her tongue teases me, and the fire flares once more, blazing through my body in a different way.
“No,” I whisper against her lips, and pull back. “Let’s get you clean.”
Ana regards me through her lashes, that way she does, and her eyes flick down to my growing erection, then back to my eyes. She pouts, so prettily, and the mood between us lightens immediately. Grinning, like the clown I am, I kiss her quickly. “Clean. Not dirty.”