I lie in Shane’s arms, listening to the sound of his heartbeat. It usually soothes me, but now my mind races with questions and not enough answers. I wonder where the twins are and when they’ll come home. I hope they can forgive Shane for keeping the truth from them so we can get back to our happy little unit. But mostly I think about the ghost of the Wolf. Even though he’s gone, he still haunts me.
“Tell me what’s going on in that beautiful head of yours, sweetheart,” Shane says as he brushes the hair from my face.
I shrug. “Today has been so… I don’t even know how to put it into words.”
“I know it has,” he presses a soft kiss on my forehead. “But there’s something else going on in there. Tell me what it is.”
I look up into his beautiful green eyes. “Does anything that Paul said… Does it change the way you see me?”
“No.” He frowns at me. “Why would it?”
“I don’t know. I just… Those things he said … about me and him.”
He cups my chin with his hand, tilting my face up towards his. “I already knew what he did to you, sweetheart. And even if I didn’t, why would that change anything between you and me?”
“Well, because it was him who taught me to enjoy pain. And that’s kind of fucked up. And also, that’s kind of our thing.”
He narrows his eyes at me. “I think he taught you to endure pain, not enjoy it, Jessie. The fact that he provoked a reaction in your body afterwards is purely physiological and is nothing you should feel any guilt about. There is a fine line between pleasure and pain, sweetheart. Just because you endure a lot of pain, doesn’t mean you enjoy it. I don’t think that you do.”
“But I do, don’t I? With you?” I breathe.
He shakes his head. “What the Wolf did to you. What was that?”
“Pain,” I whisper.
“And with me. What do you feel? Even when I make it hurt?”
“Just pleasure,” I breathe.
He winks at me and the breath catches in my throat. He’s quiet for a while and then he turns to me.
“You never did give me an answer to my proposal, Jessie.”
“You mean your plan to marry me off to Conor and give you a whole tribe of nieces and nephews?”
“Yes.”
“But then I’d have to live without you.”
“I’d still be in your life, sweetheart. Just not like this.”
I blink away a tear that falls from the corner of my eye. “Is that what you want?” I whisper.
“I want you to be happy.”
I arch an eyebrow at him. “That’s not what I asked you.”
“I will never love anyone the way that I love you, Jessie Ryan,” he breathes.
“Does that mean we’re written in the stars?” I smile at him.
“Forever.”
“You still haven’t answered my question, Shane.”
“Because you already know the answer, sweetheart. But I’d do anything to make you happy and you know that too. I want to make sure you don’t turn around in thirty years’ time and wish you’d made different choices. I want you to have options.”
“I love you,” I whisper.
“I know,” he growls before he rolls on top of me, sealing my mouth with a kiss and I melt into him, forgetting all about the drama of our lives, if only for a little while.
