Текст книги "Castle-Hill"

Автор книги: Samantha Young

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He jerked back again, a pain in his eyes that he quickly banked.

“Let me—”

I didn’t get a chance to finish. He was out of the flat too fast.

Trembling, I sank into a chair. Not only hadn’t I been given a chance to process my own feelings, I was left confused and afraid of Braden’s. He was the kind of man who gave you a chance to explain, but he’d obviously taken my reaction to the pregnancy the wrong way, and now he was too hurt to listen.

I just needed to explain.

He had to listen.

***

It was late, but I left a message on Dr. Pritchard’s work voice mail asking if I could schedule an appointment that week. Dr. Kathryn Pritchard was my therapist and she’d helped me come a long way in dealing with my post-traumatic stress disorder. She’d helped me grieve for my family and she’d helped me work through my fears. I hadn’t scheduled a session with her in a while, but I needed someone impartial to talk to.

Braden stayed gone for hours. I got a text from Ellie asking me if I was okay. It was a dead giveaway that Braden had told Adam about my pregnancy and Ellie knew. She was trying to figure out how to deal with me. I knew this because normally she’d call me or even come around to the flat. A text for news this huge … Yeah, she didn’t know how to handle my reaction.

Staring down at the photo of me with my family Braden had framed and given me for Christmas, I tried to force my insides back together again. I gazed at Beth, my baby sister who I held tight in my arms, and I attempted to do this by understanding exactly what it was I was feeling. The fear was coloring everything, I wasn’t even sure that I was unhappy with the idea of being a mom. It was soon. Sooner that I’d wanted, but if I could just get past the fear, maybe I would see it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Not such a bad thing at all. This baby was a product of Braden and me. A part of him. A beautiful piece of him. A gift we’d given each other.

As much as I loved the makeshift family I’d created in Edinburgh, this was my chance at my very own family again.

That clawing pressure pushed and ripped at my chest but I fought through it, taking deep, even breaths.

Now I just had to explain all this to Braden so he’d see I wasn’t pulling another “Ellie moment,”

pushing him out when things got tough like I did when Ellie was diagnosed with a brain tumor. I just wanted him to understand what was going on inside of me.

See. I had come a long way.

I jumped at the sound of the door opening and shutting. My pulse throbbed harder beneath my skin as Braden’s footsteps grew louder the closer he got to our bedroom.

He stood against the dark backdrop of the hall, the soft light in our bedroom barely casting him out of the shadow, but I could see his expression was tired. Grim, even.

I sat up, waiting.

“Today was supposed to be the happiest day of our lives.”

Guilt gnawed at my stomach and I winced apologetically.

“I need an answer,” he demanded softly. “I need to know if you’re happy to be pregnant with my kid. After everything we’ve been through, I need that answer.”

I shifted, reaching out to him. “Please, just let me explain. I’ll—”

“Wrong answer,” he uttered bitingly, his expression shutting down. “I can’t believe you … after everything … that we’re back here again.” He turned, leaving me shocked, openmouthed as he stormed down our hall. A door slammed and I hopped off the bed and into the hall to watch a light come on, shining under the guest bedroom door.

Tears choked me and I swallowed the hitch in my breathing as I tiptoed back into our bedroom.

My husband and I had fought quite a few times in the last few years, but not once had Braden let it come between us. He always slept in our bed with me and he always pulled me close at night.

The hot tears slipped down my cheeks.

I’d hurt him.

And for the first time in a really long time, he’d hurt me too.

***

That whole night I tossed and turned, my eyes on the hallway. A big part of me wanted to go into our guest room and shake Braden awake and make him listen to me, but the more I lay there and the more I thought everything over, I thought it best to let him sleep so we could have a rational conversation in the morning.

Except, I was exhausted from lack of sleep. I got up just before six in the morning, sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee and attempting to read a book. Just before Braden’s alarm was set to go off, I got up and made some fresh coffee for him.

Not too long after, he wandered into the kitchen in his pajamas, his hair in disarray, and I ached with hurt and love as he avoided my eyes.

“I made you coffee,” I told him quietly, trying to gauge whether or not this would soften him up.

“Thank you,” he muttered, taking hold of the mug. He leaned against the counter, staring at the wall.

My stomach flip-flopped unpleasantly.

I had to explain so he’d stop thinking the worst of me.

“Braden—”

“I have to shower.” He walked out of the kitchen abruptly.

“We need to talk!” I yelled at him angrily.

His answer was to slam the bathroom door.

This was a whole new side to my husband. And I did not like it one bit.

I got up, ready to do battle, when a knock at the door stopped me. That knock was followed by a key turning in the lock, and I knew then it was Ellie.

Bracing myself, I wondered if I’d be able to handle two of my favorite people being so mad at me. Three years ago that would have been a piece of cake. But these idiots had softened me up, whether I liked to admit it or not.

Ellie appeared in the kitchen doorway, her blue eyes instantly finding me.

Whatever she saw in my face made her pale and she came straight at me, arms wide-open.

I relaxed into her hug, not even realizing until right then how much I needed it.

“I don’t even know if I should say congratulations.”

I tensed.

Ellie pulled back, peering at me cautiously. “Braden’s really upset.”

I couldn’t speak. I wanted to. But I was afraid if I did I would scream.

“Look, I’m here, Joss.” She rubbed my shoulder in comfort. “I’m here if you need me.”

Swallowing past the gust of screams, I nodded and thanked her hoarsely.

We were quiet as I made her a cup of tea and we sat down at the table together. It occurred to me as we sat in silence that maybe if I told Ellie everything I was feeling, Braden would listen to her. I didn’t know what was going on with my usually understanding and compassionate husband, but what I did know was that he was angrier than I’d ever seen him, and clearly unwilling to listen to anything I had to say. He might listen to Ellie.

I opened my mouth to speak when the sound of the bathroom door opening halted me. Both Ellie and I turned to watch for Braden and as he passed the doorway he gave his sister a taut nod of hello and continued on into the bedroom to get ready for work. On a Sunday.

Ellie turned to me, her eyes questioning.

I took her hand and squeezed it. “He slept in your old room last night,” I whispered. “He’s never done that before.”

My friend’s expression grew pained. “Joss … talk—”

Nausea hit me before Ellie could finish her sentence and I was up, bending over the kitchen sink.

I felt her hands in my hair, holding it back. After spitting up the last of my morning sickness, I sank back against Els, glad for her comforting presence. A flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye drew my gaze and I froze at the sight of Braden staring at me, a muscle ticking in his jaw. He turned to Ellie. “Give Elodie my apologies for missing Sunday dinner. I’ll be in meetings all day.

And, uh”—he cut me a look before glancing back at his sister—“stay with her until she feels better.”

Anger burned through me as Braden walked out of the flat, ignoring Ellie’s shocked and questioning calls of his name.

Ellie’s pitiful and sympathetic looks suddenly became painful rather than comforting.

I pulled out of Ellie’s arms. “I’m sorry, hon. I just … I’m going back to bed.”

She nodded carefully and let me go.

***

I couldn’t sleep. I kept playing everything over and over in my head, trying to work out what to say to Braden first to make him stop and talk to me. I had it all planned, but dinner passed and he still didn’t turn up.

Then evening.

I texted him and didn’t get a reply. I called. No reply.

I texted Adam but he wasn’t with Adam.

Finally, just after two in the morning, our front door opened. Fury propelled me out of our bedroom and I stormed into the hall as Braden shut the door behind him. His eyes moved to me but it was like he was staring right through me as he started toward the guest room.

Oh, no! Not again!

“Where have you been?” I snapped, grabbing hold of his arm so he’d look at me.

He jerked his arm away from me like he couldn’t stand to be touched by me. “Out,” he told me simply, his tone cutting. And then he disappeared into the guest room, not even aware that I probably looked like he’d run me over with a car.

I had theories as to why he was so angry. I knew he thought I didn’t want his kid. I wondered if he was questioning everything about us. I wondered if he was scared. I wondered why he couldn’t just tell me all that. I thought we had come further than that. No … I guess I’d just, probably unfairly, thought he’d see me through anything.

A long time ago he’d almost left me for good for shutting him out. And now he was shutting me out.

He’d dived inside his head and he wouldn’t let me near him.

He didn’t even want me touching him, and that hurt and scared me so much I didn’t want to feel anything. I’d sleep to help with that, but sleep was eluding me. Instead I shut myself in the bathroom and undressed. I switched on the shower and stepped into the freezing-cold water, allowing the shock to dissipate into numbness. My mind adrift, my hands covered the small of my stomach protectively, and I closed my eyes. I could be numb everywhere but there.

I thought I heard a muffled “Fuck” and it brought my eyes open just as Braden was sliding the shower door open. He reached in, his features like granite as he switched the nozzle to warm. His eyes cut to me. “Are you trying to catch fucking pneumonia?”

Chittering, I blanched. I hadn’t been thinking. Obviously.

“Stay in there until you warm up,” Braden snapped.

Where was my husband?

Everything I’d been feeling suddenly broke out of the numbness. All the fear, the guilt, the anger, the loneliness of the past few days, and most especially the hurt.

Braden jerked back, confusion and something like fear entering his expression.

But since this man was a stranger … I couldn’t give a fuck how he felt.

I reached over, staring at him blankly, shut the shower door, and turned my back on him.

Chapter 7

Castle Hill

“It’s been a while, Joss. What’s been happening?” Dr. Pritchard asked in that careful voice of hers.

She had mastered the art of not sounding concerned. Nor too breezy. Just calm. Soothing.

It used to bug the crap out of me. There was a time I would have given anything to hear her yell at her kids for some wrongdoing just so I could hear a little bit of raised blood pressure in her voice. I wanted proof she was human.

Now I knew she was human. She could be a little on the sarcastic side. That’s probably why I liked her so much.

“Braden and I got married,” I informed her quietly, my hands resting on my stomach.

She smiled. “Congratulations.”

“Thanks.”

Dr. Pritchard raised an eyebrow. She gave good eyebrow-raising. “Anything else?”

Easing into the reason for my visit, I avoided the subject altogether. “I got an agent.” It was true.

Dana had called at the beginning of the week and I’d signed with her. It should have been one of the most exciting moments of my life. “She has a publisher interested in my manuscript.” Already.

Again, should have been one of the most exciting moments of my life.

“That’s great news.”

Dr. Pritchard also seemed to fear hyperbole and expressions of excitement. Again, another reason I liked her so much.

“I’m pregnant.”

The good doctor was quiet a moment as she processed my blurtage. “Is that why you’re here?”

I nodded, trying to ignore the lump of tears in my throat as I thought over the last few days. Our home had been a silent, cold place recently. My whole life had. Ellie and Adam had refused to get in the middle, so they were staying out of it completely. I think Ellie must have talked Elodie into the same because I hadn’t heard from her. I’d gotten tentative texts from my friends but no one wanted

to bring the subject up. “It’s slammed up this huge wall between me and Braden.”

“It has or you have?”

“Actually, he has.” I shrugged. “I was scared when I suspected I was pregnant. I was terrified when I found out that it was true. But I knew that wasn’t all. I just … I had to get away, go to my place to process.

Before I could, Braden got there, I told him, and he took one look at my face and

assumed … the worst.”

“The worst?”

“That I’m unhappy. That I don’t want a child with him. He’s so mad, so hurt, he wouldn’t and still hasn’t let me explain.”

“And what would you tell him if he gave you the chance?”

My hands pressed tighter against my stomach. “That our kid means more to me than anything ever has before. That it scares me to feel that much for anyone. It always will. But that I’m working through it now. That I’m still scared, and I’m scared about screwing it all up, but that I want this with him. I just needed time to work out what I was feeling.”

“And that was?”

I smiled at the irony. “So happy I was paralyzed.”

“You still believe that everything good will be followed by bad?”

“I haven’t for a long time,” I shook my head. “But this is a huge deal. I had a relapse.”

“Joss, you’re allowed to feel this way. You recognized it and you’re working through it. That’s all anyone can ask.”

We were quiet a moment as I studied my wedding rings, twisting the bands on my finger. “He hurt me,” I whispered, not wanting to admit it out loud.

“Braden?”

I nodded.

“He’s not perfect, Joss. You’ve always known that he was a family man. It must be hard for him to wonder if he’s married to a woman who could be unhappy about carrying her own child, his child.”

“But he won’t let me explain.”

She cocked her head to the side, giving me a small, reassuring smile. “Maybe he’s afraid to hear what you have to say. So make him listen.”

“I would … but …”

“Joss—”

“When he’s gone I blame myself,” I admitted. “The way I reacted … I can see why he would feel this way, act this way. But when he’s right in front of me, looking through me, not wanting me to touch him, unable to bear my touch, I almost hate him. I feel so alone.” The tears spilled down my cheeks. “And he promised I wouldn’t feel that way again.”

Dr. Pritchard leaned over and pressed tissues into my hand, giving it a comforting squeeze as she did so. “You have to try to get past that feeling long enough to talk to him. This is a case of total miscommunication, and you two have come too far to let that derail you.”

I nodded as I wiped the tears.

“And Joss.”

“Yeah?”

She smiled kindly. “Congratulations.”

She was the first person to say it to me in person, and although I understood it was my own fault that no one else had, it was still nice to hear it. “Thank you.”

***

I shutdown the laptop after having just bought up every self-help book Amazon had on being a first-time mom. After my session with Dr. Pritchard I’d come home to an empty apartment and gone into this hyper mode, cleaning and tidying, throwing things out. I’d also ignored reminders that Braden and I weren’t sharing the same bed when I went into the guest room to measure up and saw his stuff scattered everywhere. This was going to be our kid’s nursery. I was thinking yellow or green for a color scheme since those were both gender neutral.

I’d then opened up my laptop to an e-mail from my new agent, telling me she’d sent off my manuscript to the publisher, and she would like me to start thinking up concepts for a new book.

For a while I typed up notes for several ideas I’d come back to, to flesh out later.

And then I’d started freaking out that I knew nothing about being a mother and began an online shopping spree.

Nerves frayed, I stood in front of the mirror in our bedroom and lifted my T-shirt.

No bump yet.

I smoothed my hand over my stomach thinking how weird it was that there was a little person inside of me whom I already loved beyond reason.

Now if only my husband would give me a chance to tell him that.

I glanced at the space between the window and the bed and wondered if there was room to put the baby’s crib there for a while. I wanted him or her to be close to us. I already knew I’d find it difficult to sleep if I didn’t know our kid was safe and at arm’s reach.

After a few minutes of fruitless search for the measuring tape, I wandered back into the guest room to see if I’d left it in there. I found it on the bedside cabinet, but as I moved away, the address on a letter half-hidden under a book drew me up short.

Heart beating obnoxiously loud, I slipped the letter out from under the novel and fear prickled my skin in cold shivers as I read it.

My fingers went numb and the letter fluttered out of my grasp to the floor.

It was a letter to Braden’s tenants, asking them to vacate the premise in one month’s time. It was his bachelor penthouse on the Meadows. The one he’d put up for rental when he moved in with me.

The one he could take back from tenants on a short notice if he needed it for personal usage.

My doorbell rang.

A welcome distraction from the pure fear running cold in my veins.

“Liv?” I said, after I opened my front door, surprised to see her on my doorstep.

Olivia and I were good friends, but for some reason she wasn’t the first person I expected to see.

Jo and I were closer. Liv and I only knew each other because of Jo, but we’d quickly banded together as fellow Americans and book enthusiasts.

Liv’s eyes washed over me in concern and I instantly tensed. I knew what she was seeing. Dark circles under my eyes because I hadn’t been sleeping; a pale, icky complexion; and hair that was all over the place.

“Is Braden here?” she asked casually as she barged right past me and into the flat.

There was no need for barging. I welcomed her presence as long as we talked about anything else but Braden and my pregnancy.

“No, he’s at work,” I replied as I followed her into the kitchen.

When I got there she was already making coffee. She frowned at me. “You need to take better care of yourself.”

“I’ve been busy,” I hopped onto a different subject quickly. “A literary agent in New York now represents me.”

Liv smiled in excitement. “She loved your book?”

“She loved my book.”

“Joss, that’s amazing.”

I smiled back, knowing out of everyone Liv would be the one to really get how cool it was. Liv was a librarian. Books were her passion.

When her eyes dipped to my stomach, uncertainty entering their depths, I cut off her obvious next question.

“She thinks I should start working on another.”

To my relief, Liv let me get away with the distraction, listening to me yammer on about my different ideas as we settled in the sitting room with coffee and biscuits. Anything, anything, to forget the letter I’d just found.

I was in midsentence about this crazy dystopian idea I had that was completely not what my agent had in mind when she asked me to think up new concepts, when the front door opened.

Braden.

I felt my whole body lock with tension as I stared, waiting with this horrible sick feeling in my stomach, for Braden to appear in the doorway and crush me.

He appeared, looking just as tired as I felt, and stopped in the doorway. “Liv,” he greeted her before glancing at me. His eyes instantly narrowed at the sight of me. “Did you sleep today?”

Are you leaving me? “I couldn’t.”

Appearing annoyed, he sighed. “You need to get some sleep.” Tugging on his tie, he strode out of sight.

“Joss?” Liv’s whispered anxiety brought my attention back to her. She looked so worried for me.

“Girl, what are you doing?”

What am I doing? What am I doing? “Don’t.” She didn’t know shit.

We sat in taut silence, sipping on coffee.

“I’ve got a late meeting with Adam,” we heard Braden say as he wandered down the hall. Another lie. The front door slammed behind him. I flinched and desperately tried not to cry. This pregnancy was turning me into an emotional black hole.

“Oh, honey,” Liv stood up as if she was coming to hug me.

I held up a hand to stop her. “You hug me and I won’t stop crying. And I need to not cry.”

She froze, looking helpless and angry that she felt that way.

I knew exactly how she felt. “It’s not me.” I needed someone other than Dr. Pritchard to know that. “I haven’t shut him out. I’m just having a really hard time right now and I ruined it. I ruined this for him.”

“He’s the one not talking to you?”

“He talks. But it’s … it’s like he can barely stand to be in the same room as me. He hasn’t asked me how I feel about it now that the shock has worn off. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want me to touch him… .”

“I’m sorry, Joss.”

“He’s never been like that.” The letter came back to mind and I felt that panic swallow me whole.

“I think I’ve fucked up.” My hysterical laughter immediately turned into loud, hard sobbing I couldn’t control. I couldn’t even be mortified that I was breaking down. I was crying too hard to care.

I felt Liv’s comforting warmth as she gently nudged me aside on the chair and snuggled in beside me so she could pull me into her arms. And then everything just disappeared as I let her comfort me, the tears soaking her shirt a testament to the fact that I wasn’t alone.

I wasn’t aware of the shaking stopping, or the tears drawing to a halt. Everything was just black as I finally fell into the deep relief of sleep.

***

My eyes felt crusty as I tried to open them, consciousness coming to me, and with it the feel of a heavy warmth resting on my waist.

As I opened my peepers I realized they felt swollen and that’s when I remembered why. I tensed at the memory of crying in Liv’s arms at the same time I looked into my husband’s sleeping face.

The heavy warmth across my waist was his arm.

We were lying in bed together.

I didn’t know how we’d gotten there.

I started to cry again.

Braden’s arm tightened around me and through the blur of tears I saw I’d woken him.

“I wasn’t not happy,” I whispered, licking the salt water off my lips. “I was so happy I was terrified.”

His warm fingers brushed my chin and I felt the gentle pressure of his touch as he tilted my head back so I would meet his questioning eyes. “Terrified?”

I nodded. “Just because I’ve come a long way, doesn’t mean I still don’t feel that way. You wouldn’t let me explain. I’m still terrified of losing all the good we have together.” Had together.

Braden frowned as he sat up. “You’re afraid of losing our baby, so you shut me out before I—”

“No!” I sat up, glaring at him. “You shut me out.”

“I thought we were past all this.”

“Then let me fucking explain!”

He glowered at me but shut up.

I glowered back. “You know I’m afraid of losing the people I love. But my kid, our kid, I already love this kid so much I can’t breathe. The thought of something happening …”

Braden shook his head slowly. “You kept avoiding talking about having kids… . I started to worry that you didn’t want them. I thought with you running off to the castle it meant you were gearing up to shut me out because … you didn’t want our kid. Then when you tried to explain, I was …” He sighed.

“You were what?”

“Scared,” he admitted softly, his eyes locked with mine. “My mother never wanted me, Jocelyn.

Never. I was not a happy kid and I would never wish that kind of childhood on anyone, let alone my own kids. I promised myself if I ever had children I’d be the kind of father mine never was and I certainly wouldn’t marry a woman who wouldn’t treat them like they were her whole world. So I didn’t know how to feel about my wife not wanting our kid. I didn’t know how to react to that and what it meant for us.”

A knifelike pain cut across my chest. “Is that why you’re moving out?”

“What?” he asked incredulously, his eyes darkening. “What are you talking about?”

“The letter.” I lifted a shaky hand, pointing out to the hall. “I found the letter in the guest room.

The one asking the tenants of your old apartment to move out within the month.”

A thick silence fell between us.

Braden slipped out of bed, staring at nothing for a moment before turning to me with a very familiar anger. “That’s the second letter to those tenants. The first one told them they were being evicted because of the complaints I’d received from residents of the building. The letter you saw was a standard notice telling them how much time they had to get out.”

Oh.

Fuck.

“You thought without talking to you, or trying to work this shit out that I … that I … was leaving you!”

he yelled in disbelief.

Oh, no, he did not get to be angry anymore. I got out of the bed on the opposite side. “You froze me out. I was scared and confused and you left me on my own!” My voice cracked as I yelled back at him, and the break lowered my voice. “You wouldn’t let me touch you. You flinched from me.” I watched his face soften. “You promised me I wasn’t alone anymore, but instead you made me think you hated me. And I think I hate you a little for that.”

I turned away so he wouldn’t see me cry again.

Two seconds later he was turning me into his arms. “Fuck, baby,” he whispered hoarsely. “You could bring a man to his knees.”

There was so much relief in feeling his arms around me, his chest beneath my cheek. Inhaling his scent. Soaking him in. But I didn’t hold him in return.

“I’m so sorry,” he said gruffly, desperately, in my ear, easing me back to stare into my eyes. He brushed my hair off my face before cupping it in his hands. There was something like panic in them.

“Jocelyn, I will never make you feel that way again. I promise. I’m so sorry.” He kissed me hard, tasting my tears. “I was scared. I acted like an idiot but it was just because this is our kid. It means more to me than anything ever has. I fucked up. I fucked up this time, but I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I love you. You believe me?” He pulled me against him, his hands running down my back. “You believe me?”

I took a deep breath, trying to let go of the last few days. It would be so easy to hold on to the hurt and anger. But instead I looked back a few years when I was lying in Braden’s arms, grateful he’d forgiven me for everything I’d put him through.

I lifted my arms and wrapped them around his back. “I believe you.”

He kissed me again, this time slower, deeper. When he pulled back he was frowning. “I fucked up,” he repeated quietly.

“Well, it was your turn.”

“There will be times,” he murmured against my lips, “when we don’t like each other very much, but I need you to know that I will never stop loving you. This time it was me who was terrified of losing you, and I pushed you away because I was afraid to hear what you had to say. If, God forbid, I ever hurt you again, tell me. Don’t lock me out. Don’t shut the shower door on my face. Scream at me. Don’t let me get away with it until you’re storing that shit up and looking at me like you’re haunted. Because … I swear to God, that look in your eyes that night, it almost broke my fucking heart.

We need to stop doing that to each other. Right now.”

I nodded, clinging tighter to him, relief and forgiveness melting my body into his. “I promise.

And not just for me, and not just for you. We have a baby to think of now too. Congratulations, by the way.”

Braden’s eyes brightened. “Congratulations, sweetheart.”

I laughed. “Oh, Jesus C, that took us long enough.”

He pulled me up into his arms, so my feet left the ground. I automatically clung to his neck and wrapped my legs around his waist, only to find myself being lowered to my back on the bed.

Braden lay over me, his loving eyes staring straight into mine. “I’ve missed you.”

I slipped my hands under his shirt, feeling his warm, muscled back beneath my fingers. “I’ve missed you too,” I told him thickly. “I love you so much. Even when I didn’t like you very much, I loved you completely.”

His thumb brushed across my cheekbone. “Back at you, babe. And I won’t ever stop loving you.

But just in case you have your doubts”—he threw me a quick, heated smile as his fingers curled around the waistband of my sweatpants—“let me show you how hard and deep … and desperately I love you.”

I tilted my hips, giving him better access to slowly peel the sweatpants off. As soon as they were gone I wrapped my legs around his back and my arms around his shoulders. “Let’s do this in the shower,” I murmured hungrily against his mouth.

Holding me tight, Braden stood up and cupped a hand to my nape, bringing my mouth to his. We savored one another in that kiss, tasting each other, our lips growing swollen from the passionate makeout.

“I love making out with you,” I confessed, nuzzling his neck as he began walking us toward the bathroom.

He smiled in agreement and slowly lowered me to the ground once we were inside the bathroom.

I pulled off my T-shirt and reached in to switch on the shower while Braden undressed. Divesting myself of my bra and panties, my hungry eyes roamed my husband’s body as he slipped off his boxer briefs. My lower belly clenched with need as he pulled me gently to him, his pale eyes burning with desire as his hands stroked down my spine, to caress the curve of my bottom.

I sighed, running my own hands over his chest, before pressing soft kisses across his pecs, stopping to tease his nipple with my tongue.

He squeezed my ass, groaning and pressing his erection deeper into my stomach. I continued to explore him, my mouth trailing kisses across his skin, while my own hands brushed down across his hard abs, smoothed around his narrow hips, and grabbed his taut ass.

In retaliation, Braden let go of my bottom, stroking up my sides until he cupped both of my tender breasts in his hands. A pleasant pain shot through me when he kneaded them and I gasped, arching my neck. “They’re tender,” I whispered, reminding him of my pregnant state.