Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160356 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 802(@200wpm)___ 641(@250wpm)___ 535(@300wpm)
“And so are you, Camryn. For surviving. For going on, no matter how you dealt with it.”
I don’t know about that. I became a wretched, cold, hateful bitch.
Until I met Dec.
And, more significantly, the transition happened before I knew about Albi.
“Tell me what I need to do to make this work,” he says, grabbing my hair and pulling my head away, looking at me with imploring eyes. “How do I make this okay?”
“No more silent lies,” I whisper.
“No more, I promise.” He takes my hand and pushes it into his chest, and I swallow, bracing to say the words I need to say but am scared to admit. The words that I’m trying to bury but can’t.
“I’m scared I’ll fall in love with him, Dec.” My voice is broken. “And then it’s not just you I lose. What if this, us, all falls apart?”
He shakes his head. “It won’t.”
“You don’t—”
“It won’t,” he reiterates sternly. “I’d never invite a woman into my son’s life if I wasn’t one hundred percent certain she was going to stay.”
“Even me?” I question. “After everything, how can you be so sure?”
“How can you not be, Camryn?” he asks, making me inhale subtly. “Because if you feel even a fraction of the love for me that I feel for you, you must love me a fucking lot.”
“I’m a wreck,” I whisper, and he smiles.
“You’re the most stunning, deep, spirited woman I’ve ever met. And now it’s time for you to stop pretending to be anything other than that.”
A broken sob escapes, and Dec takes me down to my back and kisses it away, reminding me just how he makes everything better. And I trust that he can. Wholeheartedly. “He’s so sweet, Dec, and I’m sorry for reacting like I did,” I say around his mouth, my hands in a frenzy, feeling him everywhere I can. “I wasn’t rejecting him. I was just so shocked. I’m sorry I ran out.” Sorry I couldn’t say the words I was feeling.
“Shut up.” He rolls us into the middle of the bed, swirls his tongue a few more times, groans, and rolls us back, crowding me, caging me in, kissing the living daylights out of me. I don’t tell them to, but my hands go to the waistband of his sweatpants and start shoving them down his thighs with his boxers, spiking another deep rumble at the back of his throat, as he pushes himself up to his knees and yanks his hoodie over his head, casting it aside and dropping back to his fists, kicking his legs as I wrestle the material down them.
“Are you sure?” he asks quietly, panting down at me, passion and need swirling in his eyes.
Am I sure?
I reach for his neck and pull his mouth onto mine, rolling my hips when he levels up and slides into me easily and slowly, our kiss pausing for a few moments as we both suck in air. He gives it a few moments, the pressure inside me fierce, before he withdraws and starts driving in and out slowly, circling his tongue again.
Eyes open.
It’s a beautiful moment full of acceptance and love.
And my body finally thaws.
We both come quietly, both of us shaking wildly as our kiss loses its momentum, and Dec collapses onto me, breathing heavily in my ear. Spent and settled, we lie in a naked tangle of limbs, dozing, our breathing finally back to normal, his fingertips stroking my hipbone. “You said you couldn’t have kids,” I murmur into his neck.
“I had a vasectomy.”
“Extreme,” I murmur.
“Maybe. You said you couldn’t either.”
“I had some women’s problems after Noah was born. There was a five percent chance treatment would work and I could go on and have more children.” I look up at him. “I work with numbers. I know good odds when I hear them. It wasn’t worth the pain.”
He shakes his head, trying not to smile at my lame attempt to lighten the situation. “So . . .”
“I had Noah, he was enough, so I had a hysterectomy.” I lay my head back down and narrow my eyes. “I often wonder if I’d have another if I could. And I always reach the same conclusion.”
“Which is what?”
“No,” I whisper. “Because I couldn’t bear to lose again.”
Dec’s stroking fingers falter for a little too long for me not to notice. My words bring us back round to loss. Will that fear ever be gone? “We’ll take this slow,” he says quietly, and I nod into him.
“What if he doesn’t like me?”
“Shut up,” he whispers. “Some women in this world don’t have a maternal bone in their body. You’re not one of them, Camryn.”
“I can’t be his mother,” I whisper. He doesn’t expect that, does he? The poor woman who lost a child, grabbing an opportunity to push her instincts onto a kid that isn’t her own.