Chapter Thirty-Two
LOVE
“I’ll tell you about the photos if you tell me about the condom.
” Lying on my side, ghosting my fingers over his face, I took a hundred mental pictures of him.
That’s what my mind did when the vision before me felt like a dream.
Cage Monaghan naked in bed, sheets draped low on his waist, one leg kicked out on top of the bedding was the dream.
“Condom? He peeked open one eye.
“Two weeks ago you were hell bent on getting me pregnant, but tonight you wore a condom.”
He closed his eye again and smirked, but said nothing.
“You find a different baby mama?”
“Nope. She’s still in bed with me. The kitchen was impulsive. You said it yourself.”
“A mistake?”
He sighed. I could feel his exhaustion. It probably wasn’t fair to ask him to mentally process anything at that point. “Nothing about us is or ever will be a mistake.”
I nodded slowly to myself, keeping my fingers drifting over his face, neck, and down to his chest. I loved feeling him as much as he loved my touch. “I didn’t know it was a nude photoshoot.”
My hand paused as his body stiffened beneath it.
“I could have said no. I didn’t. The magazine is not pornographic.
It’s about the power of humanity, technology, changing the world.
Thaddeus has taken away my disability. He’s changing the world, he’s changing lives, and I’m the face that represents that right now.
Even if Lake Jones doesn’t matter to the world, my story does.
It matters for every person born with a physical disability, for every soldier wounded in battle, every victim of a life-changing car accident.
The only thing that sets me apart from anyone else in my proverbial shoes is opportunity.
Thaddeus wants to give every physically-challenged person that opportunity. ”
Cage opened his eyes and shifted to his side, facing me with his head propped up on one arm. “What do Thad’s inventions have to do with your nude body?”
“My body is just that … a body. It doesn’t define what I can do in life. I’m not ashamed of how I look, not anymore. We can’t change the world until we change how the world views body image and disabilities.” I flipped the sheets off me, exposing my naked body to him. “What do you see?”
His eyes roved along my body, eventually settling on my eyes. “You know what I see.”
“I do, but I want you to say it.”
“I see you.”
“How much of me?”
“All of you.”
I nodded. “And that’s why I love you, but most people see only one thing … they see that part of me that they believe is missing. They see everything they think I can’t do, can’t be, can’t have, can’t achieve.”
His hand slid along my cheek as his thumb brushed my lower lip. “What does Lake Jones want to do?” he whispered as my temperature rose a few degrees.
My tongue teased the tip of his thumb. “You.”
A grin twitched at the corner of his mouth. “What does Lake Jones want to be?”
My hand slid down his stomach. “Filled with you.”
Cage’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “What does Lake Jones want to have?” His grip on my face tightened.
My teeth dug into his thumb for a few seconds before I kissed it. “A life with you.”
He wet his lips before taking another hard swallow. “What does Lake Jones want to achieve?”
My hand made a slow stroke up his hard cock. “Everything,” I whispered a split second before his mouth took mine and his body rolled onto me.
Our fingers intertwined over my head as my hips moved with his. Would he stop for protection? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. The passion we had fell deep in the realm of reckless, and reckless felt like the purpose for existing in that moment. I was living.
“I hate…” he kissed me hard, taking the air from my lungs “…that anyone else gets to see you like I’ve seen you…
” his hips rocked into me, my back arched as a moan escaped my throat “…but if it will change the world…” his tongue dipped deep into my mouth again and my fingernails dug into his hands “…then I’ll sacrifice my possessive side for the greater good. ”
He moved onto his elbows, rocking his pelvis into me harder, sweat beading along his brow. I wrapped my legs around him. Would he pull out? Did our impulsive needs make sense? Did they need to make sense to anyone but us?
My hands slid up his arms, his neck, stopping on his face. “Monaghan, you’re so stupid …” My eyes closed for a moment as he angled his hips to rub my sensitive clit. God, dying in that moment was perfectly fine with me. My eyes locked to his again. “Nobody will ever see me like you see me.”
The nude photos mattered, but not in a way I ever imagined.
They were the buzz-talk for a while in the sports community after the reporter leaked it.
Cage perfected the “Lake is an Incredible Woman and I Fully Support Her” speech, and he did it before ever seeing the photos or reading the article.
He apologized that night for having trust issues.
I think I fell even more in love with him.
I could never have been with someone who demanded perfection. Those people were nothing more than judgmental assholes that lived in denial of their humanity. Cage’s jealousy, his anger, his doubt … they made him human, but his recognizing it? It made him extraordinary.
Love—the hand that pulls someone to their feet.
Love—the lips that kiss their wounds.
Love—the proffered tissue to wipe their tears.
Love—the smile that reminds them we are all human.
Love—the mind that doesn’t judge.
Love—our soul’s purpose.
Love—our sole purpose.
Cage was my love and I was his.
Once the magazine published the photos with the article about my journey from disability to superior capability, the inappropriate chatter in the sports community silenced.
The proverbial jaw-drop was felt around the world thanks to the instant news phenomena of the internet.
Thaddeus Westbrook and Lake Jones trended on social media more than any NFL sensation.
“You’re a big deal, baby girl,” my mom said with pride as we talked on the phone early one morning a week after the photos were published, which didn’t happened until November.
They sat on them, waiting to get the article just right.
He never admitted to it, but I suspected anal-retentive Thaddeus Westbrook was part of the hold up.
I was fine with that, anything to keep his mind focused on business and not the near fallout of our relationship.
I couldn’t say we were back to one hundred percent, but we were close.
“I’m not a big deal.” I rolled my eyes as I fed Trzy in Cage’s kitchen.
We weren’t officially living with him; I still had my apartment. However, I hadn’t slept there since returning to Minneapolis the previous month from visiting Luke and Jessica’s new baby girl, Harley. Cage moved nearly everything except my furniture while I was gone. He said it was Trzy’s idea.
“They’re beautiful. They represent how I’ve looked at you your whole life.”
“Says my mom.”
“Lake …”
I dropped two frozen flax waffles into the toaster. “Sorry. I know, and you’re right.”
“Are you going to make it home for the holidays?”
“I hope so, but football doesn’t really take a break, and Thad can’t keep up with all the interview requests.
I’m flying to New York tomorrow. Thad and I have two different morning show interviews this week and three talk shows.
Then I fly directly to L.A. for more interviews and talk shows.
It’s … crazy. I’m just a girl who lost her leg.
Thad is the real star. He’s making certain physical disabilities non-existent.
He’s creating things that allow disabled people to outperform athletes without disabilities. ”
“True, but the article is about so much more than Thad’s inventions. It’s about the emotional struggle—your emotional struggle—things I never knew.”
I nodded to myself. Even I never anticipated sharing so much of myself after the photoshoot when Brandon, the writer scripting the article, contacted me to answer a few questions. Everything I told him fit perfectly with the photos. It was me—honest, vulnerable, unplugged, and naked.
“I never knew you mourned the loss of your identity so much more than your leg.”
Ripping off the top of the tea bag packet, I dropped it in my red mug and filled it with hot water.
“I wasn’t born with a disability. It wasn’t a part of me for twenty years.
I looked in the mirror and that’s how I identified myself.
In a blink I became dependent on everyone around me.
I was so angry because I couldn’t see that girl in the mirror anymore.
I was on the cusp of my independence, in love, hopeful, and so ambitious. Then it just … vanished.”
“What you said about the shoes brought me to tears … hell, who am I kidding. Every quote of yours in the article brought me to tears. But the shoes … ”
I smiled, licking the chocolate hazelnut butter off my finger then putting the lid back on the jar. “I loved shoes.”
“I know you did. It broke my heart when you told me to get rid of them. Did Cage know? Had you told him he was the reason you wanted a new leg that you could wear pretty shoes with?”
“I told him the day he took me to the airport to fly to Beijing, but honestly, I don’t think he realized the true life-changing impact it had on me until he read the article for the first time last week.
He totally denies it, but I know he got teary eyed reading the article, and I know it was the part about him and the shoes.
Had I not met him I don’t think I would have bugged the hell out of Luke to help me get a prettier leg, and had I not had that pretty leg and the boost of confidence it gave me, I would not have made a profile on the dating site where I met Thaddeus. ”
“Well, I hope he’s the one. It would be a crime for one of the Jones women to not be with the hunky quarterback with dimples, and as much as it breaks Lara’s and my heart, you really are the obvious choice.”