“Oh, please! Don’t tease me.”
“But I love to tease you.” His hand strokes my spine as I push back against him, urging his sex deeper.
“I love teasing you,” I whisper.
“I just love you, Siren.”
“I love you, my Sailor.”
He groans. “Love you more.”
I cry out. “You more.”
Afterward, as I lie with my pillow propped between my legs, and Declan’s hard, thick body pressed against my softness from behind, I hear the echo of our words.
I love you…
I love you more…
Several hours later, we’re repeating them—through groans and tears—as we welcome our daughter into the world.
It’s an easy birth. So easy, he has to remind me we’re a one-shoe family.
“One shoe and one baby and one lamb.”
“And you and me.”
He grins, and it’s my favorite kind of grin. A bit shy and a lot kind, keen and assessing and teasing and…just my love.
That night, we lie in my railed bed together, sniffing Isla’s head and laughing as we ponder whether we should truly be allowed to take her home, I realize something: I am home. Right here with him. It’s true what they say, that home is where the heart is. And my heart is joined to his heart.
“I love you more,” I smile.
“You more.”
It’s raining softly outside. And that’s how we fall asleep.
* * *
Keep reading for a special preview of FRACTURED LOVE!
Fractured Love
Landon
Monday, June 12, 2017
Denver, Colorado
She sits alone at a lime green booth, eating an avocado she sliced open with the hard edge of a spoon. I’m in my spot before she slides into her booth, and so I see her press the spoon against the dark green skin and split the avocado open, pull it apart. I know what she’ll do before she does it—or at least, I think I do.
Yep.
She goes for the pepper shaker first, taking it from where it stands next to the napkin holder. Pepper first, and then the salt. She stares into space as she chews and swallows, digs into the soft, ripe fruit, and then repeats. I’m some thirty feet away, behind a column painted to look like a tree.
I didn’t bother with the ruse of food.
I watch her push aside the finished shell of peel that held the first half of her snack. She scoops the seed out of the second half and sets it in the empty bowl of peel. Then she digs into the fruit with her spoon once again, at one point bringing her hand to her mouth and straightening a finger. I can’t see her clearly enough to know for sure, but I think she licked it. She should know better than that.