Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 34876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 174(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 34876 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 174(@200wpm)___ 140(@250wpm)___ 116(@300wpm)
I move in deeper, a fraction at a time, sweat dripping off my temple onto the marble next to her cheek. She's gripping the edge of the counter so hard her knuckles have gone white, and I keep one palm flat between her shoulder blades, the other tracing slow circles low on her hip, like I'm trying to gentle a horse that's about to bolt.
"That's it, sweet girl. That's my girl. Almost. Almost."
When I'm fully seated, I hold still, both of us breathing like we just ran a flight of stairs. Her body's a furnace around me. Every pulse of her grips me tighter, and I'm afraid if I move I'll lose it, but I'm also afraid that if I don't move I'll lose it, so I'm just stuck there praying.
"You okay?" I manage.
"This is — wow. Is this what it's like?"
"It's like whatever we make it, baby."
"I like it."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Move, Deck."
I withdraw an inch and push back in, slow, watching the line of her spine arch and flex. The second pass goes deeper than the first. The third deeper than that. By the fifth she's making little noises in the back of her throat, the kind that have always been my undoing, and I have to slap my palm flat on the marble to keep from coming.
"Holy hell," she whispers again.
"You like that?"
"I really do."
"That's my dirty girl."
She giggles mid-act, in a kitchen full of broken eggs, my baby already in her belly, and I have never loved her more.
I reach around and find her between her thighs, and she's so soaked she's dripping down the inside of my wrist. The first touch makes her jolt under me like I shocked her. Second touch, and she's pushing back to meet my hips. Third, and she's lost.
"Decker — Decker — "
"Got you, baby. I've got you."
She comes apart on a wail that bounces off every cabinet in the kitchen, her body squeezing me so hard my vision actually whites out around the edges. I follow her over the second I feel her break, emptying into her with my forehead pressed between her shoulder blades, my arm wrapped tight around her belly. I stay there a while, breathing her in, both of us slick and shaking against the marble.
"I love you," she says, muffled.
"I love you back."
I pull her up against me and turn her face for a kiss. Flour on her cheek. A streak of egg yolk on her thigh now. The kitchen looks like a crime scene.
"You'll need to buy me more eggs."
"Already bought you a grocery store."
Her eyes go wide. "What?"
"Built it last month. Opens in spring. Bakery counter in the front. Your name on it."
"DECKER."
"What?"
"You did not."
"I did."
She bursts out laughing. That bright, pure May laugh I'd burn down half the city to hear. "You're the most ridiculous man I have ever met."
"I know."
I kiss her one more time, and grab the paper towels.
My wife. My baby. My kitchen. My eggs-on-the-floor.
Worth every single one of those fifteen thousand seven hundred days.