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“Damn right you will,” she answers me and I find the corners of my lips kick up in amusement. I love my wife and she loves me.Thank fuck.
Just as that truth begins to comfort me, she adds, “I don’t like you doing this.”
“I promise it’s almost over.”
“Evan, you better never do this to me again.”
“I promise, baby. I promise never again. Everything’s going to change from here on out. I promise.”
“We can get through anything, but never this again,” she whispers, and I know I have her. I have her back and I’ll be damned if I ever let her feel lonely again.
CHAPTER 23
Kat
“Talk to me,” Evan says again, and I want to. God, I do, but there’s so much to say.
“You want to hear what I’ve been wanting to tell you for weeks?” I ask and even to my own ears, I sound like I’ve lost it.
“Kat, you?—”
I don’t care what he has to say, I’m going to lay it all out there for him and he can decide what he wants to do with it. I have a plan, I have needs. Either he’s in, or he’s out. I’ll accept either; I’m willing to give it a chance. There’s only so much that’s left of me, though, and he needs to be very aware of that.
“I’m exasperated. Just because you said sorry doesn’t take away everything. It doesn’t make it all just fine and back to normal. I’m still …feeling.” The spiraling that’s come over me day in and day out threatens to take me over now, and I let it happen. “I feel like someone’s run over my body with a truck andthen backed up. My hips and back hurt. I can’t sleep. And that’s just the pregnancy.” With a deep inhale, I continue before he can interrupt me.
“You know, the baby you put in me? That’s still happening and by the way, pregnancy doesn’t just pause because things have been insane. So, I’m dealing with hormones, and I cry way too much for no reason. I feel sick and I can’t sleep. I’m paranoid and I’m so damn alone that I’ve truly been scared. I feel crazy and I don’t even know what part of this is normal and what part isn’t.” The words leave me in a fluid mix of emotions. Like a purge of everything I’ve been feeling, piling up until it drowned me. With a shuddering breath, I attempt to calm myself, not knowing how he’ll take any of it and very much aware I’m an absolute mess.
After a moment, he speaks. “I want to hold you,” is all he says. I’m caught, shaken and uncertain as I stand in front of him in nothing but a T-shirt in our kitchen. My God do I want him, but murder? People trying to kill him? I can barely handle normal life. “I want to make all the pain go away; I’ll take it from you. I promise,” he says in a deep cadence that washes a sense of calm over it all. Evan slips closer to me, wrapping a hand around my waist and I can feel myself falling back into the same trap. Because he does that to me. He makes the pain go away and he makes it so easy to give in.
“Stop,” I say, pleading with him. “It’s like history repeating itself.” My body and my thoughts are at war with each other. I’m brought back to every kiss we’ve had, every time he’s held my hand, every heated moment that’s left me consumed. The world is nothing without him in it and I know it, mind, body and soul.
“It’s not,” Evan says matter-of-factly to me, his voice begging me and my body persuading me to once again fall into his arms. Which is right where I want to be. The very thought tugs at every string wrapped around my battered heart.
“We have a baby coming and I can’t put this baby through what we’ve been going through, Evan,” I say, admitting my fears to him. If only he knew how much it hurt. “I’m afraid every time I cry the baby can feel it. I terrified I’m hurting him already.” As I say the words, tears prick my eyes.
“Him?” Evan asks. “You think we’re having a boy?” The shine in his eyes is of pure devotion. That’s how he breaks me down. By truly loving me.
“Don’t change the subject,” I warn him although it warms my heart and I can’t help but feel it resonate. “I want you, Evan. But I want you here with me, and committed to me and this baby.”
“I know,” he says. “I love you, Kat. I love you with everything in me and I won’t stop proving that to you every day for the rest of our lives.”
Even though he’s saying all the right things and I love it, I have to be honest. “I swear I can’t take it anymore.”
“Never again. I can’t stand not being with you,” he tells me, and my body succumbs to a warmth that’s been there all along, waiting just beneath the surface.
He pulls me into his arms and I let him. Even more, I grip onto his shirt as he wraps his muscular arms around me and I breathe in his scent of fresh forest after rain. This is home. This is what feeling complete feels like. I’m so very aware of everything he said only moments ago. The threats and danger are legitimate, but it all comes with him. I can keep a secret. I’ll do whatever I have to if it means I get to have Evan completely.
My eyes shut tight, willing the unwanted thoughts away as Evan whispers just beneath the shell of my ear, “I want to make it all better.” He’s so close that my hair tickles my neck as it moves gently with his breath.
He says the right words. He’s always been good at that.
He lowers his lips to the sensitive part of my neck. “I only want to love you, and have you love me back.”
My poor heart has barely survived all this time without him, but it rages now, pounding against my rib cage. I suppose it’s only beating still because it hasn’t belonged to me in years.It’s always been his.
I nod my head and look down at his chest, inhaling his scent I’ve missed for so long, feeling his touch I’ve been craving.
“You’re still wearing your jacket,” I comment softly as I run the tips of my fingers down the zipper. I lift my gaze to his dark eyes, swirling with desire. “Take it off.”