back, so why couldn’t I shake the tightness in my chest?
This was all I wanted. The two of them, in my house, never leaving, making them mine for all time.
I dragged my hands through my hair, noting a slight tremor. This was no good. Whatever this was needed to stop.
Leaning over Catherine, who was propped up against the headboard of our bed, I pressed a kiss to Joey’s fuzzy head. She paused nursing to look at me with heavy-lidded eyes.
“Good night, little girl,” I murmured before kissing Catherine’s forehead. “I’m going to go shower.”
Catherine grabbed my arm and rubbed her face against it before kissing the crook of my elbow. She always did things like that, kissing me in spots that weren’t common. Any place she could fit her lips.
Kisses like touching down on the moon.
Like javelin throws.
Long jumps.
The landing was what mattered.
Sucking in a harsh breath that didn’t fill my constricted lungs, I pulled myself away and left the room. In my bathroom, I closed the door and turned on the shower. Hot, boiling. I didn’t get in right away, letting the room fill with steam, the mirror fogging over.
In my distorted reflection, I barely made out my shape. I rubbed my chest. Still too damn tight.
Discarding my clothes in a pile on the ground, I stepped into the scalding shower, so hot the burn numbed my skin. I stood under the beating water, willing my chest to loosen for the tremors in my hands to fade.
Was this the residue of my two-day-long panic attack? It should have been ebbing by now.
Cool air sliced across my arm, and my head whipped sideways to see Catherine, my Catherine undressed and putting her foot in the shower.
“No! Don’t come in here.” My frantic bellow echoed off the tile walls.
She jumped back, her hands over her breasts, eyes round and wounded. “I’m sorry. I—”
As she turned, my arm shot out to grab her nape and spin her back to me. “The water, sweetheart. It’s too hot for you.” Keeping her under my hand, I twisted the dial to make the temperature more bearable.
“I thought you wanted to be alone. I should have asked, not presumed,” she quavered, still clutching her chest.
I tugged her forward into the shower with me. “I always want you with me. You really don’t have to ask. I just didn’t want you to get hurt.”
She smoothed her palms over my reddened skin. “And what about you? Who’s stopping you from getting hurt?”
Releasing a heavy sigh, I dropped my forehead to the top of her head. “I guess that’s you. If you hadn’t come, I probably would have boiled my flesh from my bones.”
“Don’t do that.” She squeezed my shoulders. “I like your skin.”
“You’re stealing my lines.”
“I like your lines too.” She pressed into me, her soft breasts flattening against my abdomen. “Can I wash your hair?”
“I—” Didn’t know what the fuck to say. “Do you want to?”
She nodded, drops of water dripping from her lashes, running in rivulets down her cheeks. “I’d like to take care of you, Elliot.” Rising on her toes, she reached for my hair, sliding her fingers through the sides. “You have me at a height disadvantage, though. You might need to sit down for me.”
“I can do that.” I took a seat on the built-in marble bench at the back of the shower, my heart tumbling down never-ending stairs. But that wasn’t panic. It came from watching Catherine. We hadn’t taken a shower together before, and the sight of her with water streaming over her curves like a wild waterfall snatched what little breath I’d recovered right out of my lungs.
This woman was spectacular.
She stepped between my spread knees, rubbed the shampoo in her hands together, then went to work on my hair. Her fingers carved lines along the sides and top, nails dragging from my crown to my nape.
I closed my eyes and let my head fall against her stomach and breasts. A little gasp escaped her, a pause in her movements, then she returned to her tender care.
It went without saying I had never been given this sort of treatment. But then, I’d never been open to something like this. I wouldn’t have been with anyone but her.
To think I’d nearly missed this, that I wasn’t going to allow myself to even think of having her. Much less invite her into my life in a way that would render me useless if she left permanently. For me, there was no going back. There hadn’t been since I’d opened my eyes to her.
Her fingertips massaged my scalp, slow and deep, dragging with them the days of worries and insecurity as she pressed her love and adoration into me.
My limbs loosened with each pass of her fingers, and I gave her more of my weight, falling into her.
I almost missed them.
I never would have known this kind of love.
My throat knotted, and the backs of my eyes burned. Oh Jesus, what was this?
“Shhh.” She smoothed my hair back off my forehead and cupped the crown of my head. “Shhh…it’s been a long, long couple days, but we’re together now, and it’s all okay.”
Oh god, I couldn’t hold on. She’d gently taken the control from my hands with her sweet reassurance. It was all okay because we were here, in the home we had agreed was not mine but ours.
Our home.
Almost missed this.
My arms wrapped around her middle as my shoulders shook, and I clung to her with a franticness that didn’t make sense but was real nonetheless.
“Oh, Elliot,” she whispered. “I know, I know, but it’s all okay. We understand each other now.”
Lowering herself to the bench, her knees on the outside of my hips, she held my face in her hands. I should have been mortified by the tears I’d let loose, but she pressed her lips to each one, never asking where they’d come from or why they were there.
Kissed them away.
Just like that.
My Catherine. My sweetheart.
Her fingers stroked through my hair, and her lips slid along my cheeks, soothing me, caring for me in the way only she could.
“I love you, Elliot,” she murmured. “I’ve cared for you for a long time, even when you drove me mad, but I think it started to turn to love when I walked into my bedroom after you let me sleep all night and were holding Joey on your chest. You smiled at me, and at the time, I didn’t think about it, but later, I did. You were happy to see me rested and just as happy to be holding my daughter. From that moment on, I was all yours.”
“You were always mine,” I murmured. “And I would have let you go. I would have let you work for me, and when it was time for you to move on, I would have let you go.”
“Elliot,” she crackled out. “Oh…”
“For me, it was our conversation in the car after Luca told me you were pregnant. I could no longer look away from you, and the only thing I wanted to do was take care of you.” I exhaled against her slick skin. “The weeks you were gone were torture. I found any excuse to contact you.”
“I remember. You were more outrageous than ever and made me smile. My house was literally falling down around me, but your grumpy, complaint-filled emails were a bright spot.”
“Catherine…” My heart thumped as hard as a knockout punch. “I almost let you go.”
“I hear you.” She shook her head, her eyes locked on mine. “You didn’t, though. You let me in instead, and now I’m part of you, right?”
“Right.”
“That means what came before doesn’t really matter. We’re here, this is our life, and we’re going to do this together. You don’t have to look back on the might-have-beens because they didn’t come true. We’re true. I love you, and that’s true. Joey loves you, and that’s true too.”
Her fingers slipped through my hair and down my shoulders and arms until she found mine, weaving our fingers together. She kissed my skin and the tip of my nose.
“I’m here, and I love you,” she murmured. “We’re in this together.”
I watched her move around my face, kissing me everywhere but my lips, quietly reminding me I chose her. My dad’s favorite saying echoed in my mind, “Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades.”
Almost missing this didn’t matter because I hadn’t.
I had her.
We had each other.
Her lips finally landed on mine, and I was found.
As we kissed, I helped her rise higher on her knees, then she lowered onto me, taking me as deep as her body would allow. Relief loosened the vise around my chest.
This is it.
My beautiful Catherine was home, in my arms, and she had no desire to be anywhere else. We’d said the words to each other that should have been said before we’d spent a torturous night apart. I wouldn’t keep my mouth shut again, not if there was the slightest chance of repeating the eviscerating feeling of leaving my two loves behind.
I cupped her breasts to my mouth, lapping at the sweet droplets on her tightened nipples, sucking one between my lips. She moaned, head falling back, arms locking around my shoulders.
Shower water misted us. Our warm, slick skin slipped and slid. Hips rolling, colliding, slow and needy rises and falls. Releasing her nipples, I buried my face in her throat and gripped her hips to push her lower, keeping her seated on my thighs and my cock locked within her.
She ground against me, my name like velvet on her lips. Her love for me was a caress of whispers in my ear, a promise made with intention.
I ran my hands down her spine to the wide flare of her hips and cushion of her ass and dug in, laying claim to her outside with my touch and her inside with my cock, to her soul with my love that was an unbreakable vow.
“I’m close,” she murmured. “Fill me, please.”
“Mmm.” Circling my palm to her front, I splayed my fingers over her soft stomach. “You’re going to give me so many babies.”
“How many?”
“At least three or four more.”
“Okay.” Her forehead fell against mine.
“Need you pregnant again so I can take care of you properly.”
She tightened around me, moans spilling from her lips.
“Oh, you like that?” I squeezed her ass and took hold of her waist to direct her movements, bringing her down harder, faster. Breasts bouncing, dripping, soft belly sliding over mine, the ripple of her ass when it hit my thighs—she made me crazy for her. “You’re going to give me more beautiful babies? As many as I want?”
“As many as you want, Elliot,” she breathed, her inner walls fluttering and coating me with her pleasure.
“Oh god, sweetheart. Your pussy is melting around me. I feel how wet you are. Need you to come for me so I can make good on my promises.”
There was no chance of getting her pregnant right now, but holy shit, it turned us both on to fantasize that there was. That my seed would take root and she’d become ripe with child for me. I’d fuck her then too, bring her to orgasm as often and in any way she needed. Hold her, rub her aches away, tell her how exquisitely beautiful she was. The way I would always regret not being there for her the first time.
Catherine fell, her sweet pants warming my skin, her body gripping mine so well, I let go too, giving her exactly what she’d asked for.
“I love you.” Her lips touched the hinge of my jaw and side of my neck.
“I love you too, sweetheart.” My arms wrapped around her, only slightly too tight. She hugged me back with equal fierceness.
As the shower rained down on our joined bodies, a sureness settled over me. Whatever happened from here on out, we would be together. Nothing could take her from me. I’d fight for what we had until the end.
