Page 35 of Hidden Vows (Love in Ashford Falls #3)

twenty-six

ABBEY

I cling to Jude like he’s my life raft, keeping me afloat as I drift at sea.

My arms are wrapped around his shoulders, my legs around his waist, and I can’t stop myself from rolling my hips against him one more time, feeling his cock jerk inside me.

“Abbey,” he moans, his lips pressed against mine.

“I can’t move,” I whisper, pulling away slightly. “I don’t want to move.” I dig my nails into the skin at his back and I can’t tell if it’s voluntary or not.

I’m desperate for him.

The contrast of his rough palms running down my back and his smooth chest pressed to mine makes me shiver. I don’t care that we’re sweaty, I want to stay exactly as we are right now.

Jude grips my hips and shifts just enough for his half-hard cock to slip free, but the feel of something wet sliding down my thigh makes me freeze. I know the second Jude realizes the same thing when his back goes taut.

We’re both quiet. There used to be a time I could tell exactly what Jude was thinking, but in this moment I can’t. And I don’t think I hate anything more .

“Abbey,” he whispers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think. I was to?—”

“No, it’s not just on you,” I interrupt, my eyes staying focused on his.

“I’m—I’m on birth control, but I haven’t been tested since I last…

” I don’t need to finish the sentence; Jude knows exactly how that thought would end.

“I’ve never had sex without a condom,” I rush to say.

I hate it’s even something I need to say.

I see his Adam’s apple bob as one of his hands at my hip flexes, and I hate the pain I’m causing him right now.

“I haven’t been tested recently, but I’ve also never been with anyone else, so I assume I’m clean.” There’s no malice in his words, but I still feel a tug in my chest.

The quiet returns, and I have something else to hate now…I hate how we went from riding this high of being together again to this low of hurting each other.

“Jude, I’m sor—” I try to move out of his hold, but his grip around me tightens.

“No. Don’t apologize.” He cups my cheek in one hand, smoothing his thumb over my lips, stopping my words. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“Jude—”

“No, Abbey.” Like always when his hands frame my face, I melt into his touch.

“If we let ourselves, we’ll spend the rest of our lives apologizing to each other for everything that’s happened over the last seventeen years.

If we’re really going to move on, we have to forgive each other.

” He pauses, his eyes tracing over my face. “And ourselves.”

My eyes fall closed as a tear slips from the corner of my right eye, but he wipes it away with his thumb almost as soon as it appears.

Jude’s right.

That doesn’t mean we stop talking about everything that’s happened over the last decade and a half, but if we’re truly moving forward together, then it does mean we can’t hold our pasts against each other.

And I desperately want to move forward with Jude.

I can’t go back to him not being part of my life, not when I’ve gotten used to him being here again.

I bury my face in the crook of his neck, breathing in his musky scent. “Okay,” I murmur against him. “No more apologizing.”

He holds me close and shifts his head, pressing a kiss where my shoulder and neck meet. “No matter what, we’re going to be okay.”

Choking back the tears, I simply nod my head, wanting him to know I hear and agree with him, because I do. We’ve both grown a lot over the last seventeen years. We’re older and wiser. We won’t make the same mistakes we made before.

I hate that we spent so much time away from each other, but I can’t help thinking that Jude is right. We’re better people for having spent time away from each other. We appreciate what’s between us even more because of the time apart.

They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, and I agree, because this sight right here? The one of Jude sleeping peacefully in front of me? I took that sight for granted, and I hope I never do again.

I’d like to think that most people don’t go into their marriage expecting it to end, so maybe everyone takes it for granted—waking up next to the person they love—but even after only having it for a little over two months, I got used to waking up to Jude by my side.

It took far longer for me to get used to him not being there than him being there, and I fear after only one night…I’m already de sperate to make sure it happens again and again.

I let my gaze travel his face, and even with the fine lines starting to make an appearance at the corners of his eyes and across his forehead, I still think he’s a beautiful man.

If I’m being honest, I’ve spent a decent amount of time over the last seven weeks watching Jude.

Something about him calls to me, and I can’t stop my eyes from finding him whenever he’s near.

A lot of things have changed, but one thing that hasn’t changed is how he holds himself in a crowd.

He may have that confidence he lacked when he was a teenager, but he still holds himself back from everyone around him.

There’s a rigidness to his posture and a cloud over his eyes, never really letting you see the real man behind all of it. But when he’s sleeping? All of that slips away. There’s a peace around him that I can’t find when he’s around other people.

Thirty-five years in this world, and Jude is still the man I compare everyone else to. He’s still the one I want more than anyone else.

The sheet’s fallen to his hips, exposing his back to me, and just like I was last night when I saw it for the first time, I’m surprised by the amount of open space he has.

I want so desperately to trace a finger over the blank canvas, but I’m not quite ready for him to wake up.

I need a bit more time to think without his presence surrounding me.

I have to physically remove myself from the temptation before I let my desire take over. I slip from the bed as quietly as I can, grabbing the first thing I can cover up with—Jude’s T-shirt—before slipping out the door of my bedroom.

A responsible adult would’ve had a conversation about safe sex before the sex actually happened, but a woman desperately in love with the man before her? No one can claim she’s smart in that situation.

The logical part of my brain can’t quite grasp how we didn’t have that conversation, especially when we’d just established I haven’t been celibate for the last seventeen years—unlike Jude.

I don’t even know how I feel about the fact that Jude hasn’t been with someone else.

I may have realized the likelihood of Jude cheating on me back then was slim, and I may have hoped our story wasn’t over, but I never thought Jude would choose to be alone for the rest of his life.

No matter what happened between us, I never wanted Jude to be alone.

The idea that Jude regretted how everything happened between us, knew he never planned on returning home, and still chose never to sleep with someone else makes me a little nervous.

I know I love him. I know I never stopped loving him—even when I thought he betrayed me in one of the worst ways.

But I don’t know if I ever thought it was possible to love someone so much you’d never move on from them, even if you thought they’d never be part of your life again.

That’s a whole level of dedication that never crossed my mind, and it’s a lot of pressure to live up to.

I move into the kitchen and begin the process of brewing a pot of coffee.

I know I’m a coffee snob, and on any other morning I’d take the time to grind some beans for the freshest taste, but grinding beans means making noise that I don’t know if Jude will sleep through.

Seventeen years ago I knew he’d sleep through a bulldozer hitting the side of the building, but now?

Maybe his sleeping habits have changed—I know mine have.

While the coffee brews, I pull the fridge open looking to see what I can make with the ingredients I have.

I don’t have much, considering I’ve been out of the apartment for almost a week.

But making something from practically nothing in the kitchen is one of my favorite things to do.

The idea that you can take a whole bunch of random things to make something beautiful and enjoyable does something good for my soul.

Being in the kitchen has always been my greatest outlet. It’s the place I think the most clearly, and right now I really need to figure out what in the world I’m thinking. I pull out the ingredients for some omelets and let my mind wander as I move on autopilot.

Can I forgive Jude for everything that happened in our past?

I know I agreed with him last night about truly moving forward with our lives, but in the bright light of day… can I?

Part of me gets it. In the eyes of the law we were adults, but the reality is something else entirely.

We were eighteen and nineteen years old.

Maybe we thought we were adults—and acted like it—but we weren’t.

It’s not hard to see how someone threatening the people Jude loves most in the world would scare him and make him do whatever they wanted.

I can even understand why he wouldn’t tell me about any of it for fear of repercussions.

There’d been so many changes in such a small amount of time. I graduated high school, we got married and moved in together, and shortly after that we found out that my mom had been diagnosed with ALS.

Dad knew exactly what he was doing when he threatened Jude.

Looking back on who we were at the time, I understand it.

But I can’t help wondering how it all could’ve been different if he’d simply told someone.

Not telling me, I can accept—I wasn’t in the right headspace after learning about Mom’s diagnosis and I know I wouldn’t have reacted well—but not talking to his dad? That’s more of a struggle for me.

Anyone who knows Walt, even the smallest amount, knows he would’ve given up Murphy’s in a heartbeat if it meant his son was happy. But I also know Walt wouldn’t have given up without a fight.

We’ve all lost so much time and nothing we do can ever get that back. Of course, who would we all be if Jude never left? What kind of life would we have?

There’s no guarantee Jude and I would’ve stayed together the last seventeen years. We could’ve ended up divorced no matter what. And say we divorced ten years ago, five years ago, would there have ever been a chance we’d find our way back to each other?

We may have lost seventeen years together, but there’s a chance we have the rest of our lives to make up for it.

We are who we are because of our time apart.

And even if I’ve been lonely more often than not in the last seventeen years, the last seven months have been pretty amazing.

The friendships I’ve made and the steps I’ve taken to make my dream of owning a bookstore a reality are things I might’ve missed out on if even one moment in my past changed.

What good did playing what if ever accomplish?

“Something smells good in here.” Jude’s sleep filled voice hits my ear at the same time his arms wrap around my waist, making me jump in surprise. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you,” he murmurs against my neck where his lips rest.

The comfort that washes over me is instant, and I can’t deny how right it feels—being in his arms, having him in my space, waking up next to him.

“Not your fault,” I whisper, resting my hand over his where it sits on my stomach. “I tend to get lost when I’m in the kitchen, nothing else exists around me.”

“Now, that I remember.” Even if I didn’t feel the smile against my skin, I hear it clear as day in his voice, and a bit more of that fear disappears.

Neither one of us are shying away from our past, and that feels like a good foundation for our future.