Chapter Thirty-Four-Andrea
My legs feel like jelly. My chest is heaving. My throat is raw from screaming his name, but my body is still trembling with the aftershocks of what he just gave me.
Remy eases out of me slowly, almost reverently, his big hands still wrapped around my hips like he doesn’t quite trust the world to keep me standing.
“You okay, Baby?” he murmurs against my ear, voice rough, but softer now, gentled in a way that squeezes my heart.
I nod, but my knees buckle anyway. He catches me before I can collapse, lifting me clean off the counter like I weigh nothing. I curl into him, boneless, and for once I don’t fight it.
He carries me upstairs. Every step makes me feel more ridiculous—I’m not some fragile thing. I’m not. But in his arms? I don’t feel fragile. I feel… cared for. Cherished.
He nudges open the bedroom door with his shoulder, lays me gently on the bed, and tugs the blankets back. Then he disappears into the bathroom.
I hear the water running.
I should protest. Tell him I can clean up myself. That I don’t need him hovering. But my body is too heavy, too content. My mind is buzzing, but not in that anxious, spiraling way I’ve gotten used to.
When he comes back, he’s holding a warm cloth. He kneels at the edge of the bed, spreads my thighs, and cleans me carefully. Tenderly. Like I’m the most precious thing in the world to him.
Tears sting my eyes again, but these aren’t angry tears. They’re the kind that come when you realize maybe—just maybe—you aren’t alone anymore.
“You don’t have to—” I whisper, voice catching.
“Yeah, I do,” he says simply. His green eyes meet mine, steady and unflinching. “Because I love you, Andy. And taking care of you? That’s part of it.”
God. I can’t breathe.
He finishes, tosses the cloth into the hamper, then climbs in beside me. His arms are around me instantly, dragging me against the solid wall of his chest.
I rest my head on him, listening to the steady thud of his heart. It’s so loud. So strong.
So mine.
I lace my fingers over his ribs, careful of the scars there, and whisper, “Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
“I’ll try,” he rumbles, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “But you’re stuck with me, Wife. No more running. No more doubting. Just us.”
I should be terrified. It’s too much, too fast, too intense.
But lying here in his arms, wrapped in his warmth, I realize something that scares me even more.
I don’t want to run. Not anymore.