My stomach goes into freefall for a minute, but I can’t decide if it’s joy or panic that has me feeling this way. Maybe both.
He dips his head and kisses me. “Stay,” he says again.
“I want to,” I whisper. “But when the time comes, you might not want me to.”
“I find that very unlikely,” he says, his voice husky. He kisses down my neck and rolls me to my back. He holds himself on his elbows so he’s hovering over me again. The hard length of his cock settles between my legs as he puts a finger to my mouth. “I’m not just going to stop wanting you. It doesn’t work like that.”
But it has so many times before with so much less reason. I swallow my fear and meet his eyes. “There are things you don’t know about me. Things that might change the way you feel.”
He cups my face in his hands. “Let me be your family. You fit here. With us. With me.”
God, I want him to be my family. I want to stay. I want him to love me despite the lie. Hell, I want him to love me because of the lie. I want him to understand why I did it and know that trying to fix people I care about is part of who I am.
“Why are you still hiding your secrets from me, Nic? When will you see I’m not him?” He strokes the side of my face with his thumb. “And I’m not your mom, either. I’m not going to push you away. You can trust me.”
“I do.” I draw in a breath. “I promise I do.”
“You’ve brought so much goodness into my life. You’re changing the way I feel about everything, and I’m realizing that even if I remain this stubborn asshole who won’t admit he’s in love with you, it’s not going to spare Lilly when you walk away. And it’s not going to spare me, either.”
He shifts his hips so he’s positioned at my center, poised to enter me again. I hold my breath. Because he’s saying everything I want to hear, but I’ve been here before—in the arms of a man who I think I need to be happy—and I’m wrong every time. I ruin it every time. A tear slides down my cheek, hot and as lonely as this heart I’ve kept caged. “I love you too,” I say, but I can’t follow my words with promises, and that breaks my heart.
I shift my hips, guiding him to slide into me. “I love you,” I repeat. My voice sounds shaky and desperate.
He lowers his head and brushes his lips against mine. There’s no fire in the kiss. No demand. This kiss is a question. This kiss is asking me to stay.
Nicole
I can barely keep my eyes open while I’m getting Lilly ready for school on Monday. I use the espresso machine to add a couple of shots of extra caffeine to my usual morning coffee. By the time I have her buckled into her booster seat and am driving the ten blocks to school, I’m wide awake but no less distracted.
“So, you’ll get me after school?” Lilly asks from the back as I pull into the car line that wraps around the school’s parking lot.
“That’s right,” I say as I pull up to the doors. “Go ahead and unbuckle, sweetie.” They don’t like the adults to get out of the car at the drop-off line because it slows down the traffic, so I wait and let the teacher on morning duty open the door and help Lilly out. “I’ll see you later, alligator!”
She throws her backpack over her shoulder. “After a while, crocodile!” she responds with her big grin, showing off her missing front-bottom teeth.
The teacher shuts the back door behind her, and I wave before I drive away.
I didn’t sleep much last night, or the three nights before. Once Lilly has been in bed for the night, Ethan hasn’t been able to keep his hands off me. And I haven’t wanted him to.
And after Ethan falls asleep, I can’t turn off my thoughts. I keep trying to think of a way I can tell Ethan the truth without losing his trust or exposing his mother’s secret. I keep trying to think of a reason that diving straight into another relationship wouldn’t be a total disaster when that’s exactly what I promised myself I wouldn’t do.
I haven’t figured it out, and I know I’m playing a dangerous game. Maybe I’m lying to myself, but when we’re together, I believe in our love. Ethan needs to touch me as much as I ache for him to, and that connection makes me believe we’ll be okay once the storm hits. Even if I haven’t figured out how.
Teagan is waiting for me on Ethan’s front porch when I get back from my school run. She just shows up sometimes—like family would. That thought makes me smile.