Chapter 29 #2
I glanced back at Adrian. “You know… I just thought about something. Aren’t you worried about your wallet?”
“My wallet?” he asked, staring with a perplexed look.
“Yes, your wallet… as in the one you said went missing.”
“Oh… that wallet.” He scratched the back of his head, the tell-tale sign of a lie warming up. “Yeah… when I leave here I’ma just ride back through the store and asked if anyone saw it.”
“Mm-hmm,” I nodded, unconvinced. “Adrian.”
He stiffened.
“Be honest with me. Did you really lose your wallet?”
Adrian stared at me for a second, then sighed, shoulders slumping. “Nah,” he finally admitted, “I ain’t lose it.”
I crossed my arms. “So where is it?”
He shrugged, embarrassed now. “In the car,” he replied, then rushed to explain, “I only said that because I wasn’t expecting to spend like that…
or really spend at all besides gas. You invited me, well, I asked to come last minute, so I figured you already had everything we’d need—food, cabin stuff, all that.
And I was trying to be careful. I still got a few things to get for my kids for Christmas, so I wasn’t trying to dip into that. ”
My expression softened a notch.
Then, quieter, almost sheepish, “I did bring a lil’ extra cash with me, though… but that was just in case I ran out of weed and found a weed man up here.”
I laughed despite myself, shaking my head. “So Christmas, gas, and emergency weed?”
“Gotta have priorities.”
I stepped closer, my voice lowering a notch. “Adrian, you could’ve just told me the truth.”
“I know that… now.”
Adrian wasn’t a bad guy. He was thoughtful, he cared, and his heart usually showed up before his mouth did. He just had a bad habit of lying when the truth would’ve served him better. Thankfully, that was something he could fix.
I exhaled softly. “Next time, when you’re with a different woman, just say you’re broke, budgeting, and responsible. Women respect honesty more than mystery.”
A small smile tugged at his mouth. “Noted.”
***
“From Tears to Touch: The Night We Found Each Other Again”
The night was still, but something stirred me from sleep. A distant sound—soft, mournful, and aching with emotion—seeped into my dreams and tugged me gently awake.
Slowly, I sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, trying to place the haunting melody that echoed faintly through the cabin walls.
I got out of bed, wrapped my robe around me, and followed the sound of the music.
I paused at the threshold of the hallway.
Aaron Hall’s voice wrapped around my chest like a memory.
“I miss you. I’m talkin’ to you, baby.”
My heart clenched.
I thought for sure it was Adrian doing some late-night, emotional, impromptu performance.
But when I turned the corner and stepped into the living room, it wasn’t him, it was Bryce.
He was seated on the couch, shoulders slumped and head bowed.
In his hands was the sonogram of our daughter.
Bryce hadn’t heard me, because he was too lost. His chest shook as silent sobs tore through him, tears dropping onto the little black-and-white picture like rain.
Bryce pressed it to his forehead, breaking in a way I hadn’t seen since that day at the hospital.
My breath hitched, and tears filled my eyes instantly.
I stood there for a second, watching the man I loved fall apart over the daughter we never got to raise.
We held her, we named her, we kissed her perfect little fingers and memorized her face, but we never got to hear her cry…
never got to watch her grow… never got to be her parents outside of that hospital room.
Slowly and carefully, I walked to him. “Bryce…” I whispered.
He looked up, eyes red, face wet, and completely undone. “Chess…” His voice cracked. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”
I sat beside Bryce and pulled him into me. His head fell against my chest like he’d been waiting all night for permission.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there,” he choked out. “I hate myself for that shit.”
I shook my head. “We both suffered, Bryce. We both lost her… and we both lost each other trying to survive it.”
He held up the sonogram between us. “I can’t stop thinking about what she would’ve looked like now. I wish she was here. I wish we could hear her cry… see her smile… complain about not getting sleep. I miss her, Chess. I miss our baby.”
My lips trembled. “I do too… every day.”
His shoulders shook harder. “Why God had to take our baby, man? What did we do wrong? We would’ve loved her so damn much.”
“I don’t know,” I cried. “I ask that all the time.”
“This shit hurts. I ain’t even know I could feel pain like this,” he admitted.
“I know. I feel it too,” I voiced, tears sliding down my own cheeks as I wrapped my arms around him. “We didn’t deserve this kind of loss, but she knew love while she was in the womb. That was us.”
He pulled me closer, burying his face in my neck like he needed to breathe me in just to survive.
Silence sat between us, heavy but honest.
Byrce finally pulled back, cupping my face, eyes searching mine like he needed to see that he wasn’t alone in this pain.
“I never stopped loving you,” I confessed, tears still sliding.
His thumb brushed my cheek, wiping a tear. “I never stopped loving us. I just didn’t know how to fix what I broke.”
The air shifted. Grief and love tangled together so tight I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
Bryce leaned in, hesitating just a second.
Then he kissed me hard and possessive, as if it was the only way he knew how to say he missed me.
And I kissed him back like I was tired of pretending I didn’t still belong to him.
It was slow, trembling, and wet with tears.
I felt him pull me closer, like he was afraid that if he let go, I’d disappear.
My hands slid up his back, holding him just as tight.
Somewhere between broken breaths and whispered sobs, the kisses deepened.
The pain didn’t vanish, but it softened, wrapped in warmth and familiarity.
Bryce pulled me into his lap, lifted me, and we stumbled toward the massive window overlooking the snow-dusted trees.
Steam fogged the glass. My robe slipped from my shoulders and pooled silently at my feet.
The cool air kissed my skin, but I didn’t shiver—not with the way he was looking at me.
Bryce stared like I was art he hadn’t seen in years.
Admiration wasn’t a strong enough word; it was reverence.
His gaze held love, longing, hunger, and guilt, like he couldn’t believe I was really standing there… choosing him again.
“You sure ‘bout this?” he asked in a low voice with his forehead pressed to mine.
I nodded without a second thought. “Yes.”
Bryce turned me gently, his hands running down the curve of my back and gripping my waist. I placed my palms flat against the cold window pane, its chill biting into my skin just enough to remind me that it wasn’t a dream.
Behind me, I heard the soft rustle of clothes being shed.
The sound alone had my body reacting, arching and waiting… then I felt him.
“You still remember how this feels, don’t you?” he murmured in my ear, his voice thick with knowing. “You ain’t forgot me.”
I shook my head, already undone. “Never.”
Bryce eased into me from behind, slow and deep, like he was reclaiming something he thought he’d lost forever. Our bodies molded together like puzzle pieces that finally made sense.
“Mmm,” I cooed, forehead touching the glass as my breath left delicate trails of fog across it. The contrast of the cold window and his heat was almost unbearable.
The rhythm started slow. Every stroke was soaked in emotion, like he was saying all the things he couldn’t say out loud. And I felt every word… in my bones.
Then suddenly, something shifted.
I blinked, eyes wide. “Bryce… you didn’t put on a condom.”
He grabbed my waist tighter, his voice gravelly. “I ain’t thinking ‘bout no damn condom. You feel too good raw.” His thrust didn’t falter. “You gon’ carry me inside you again… one way or another.”
A moan broke from my lips.
Bryce leaned in, his voice filthy and possessive. “You remember this position? Hands up… ass back… legs shaking.”
“Bryceeeeeeee,” I moaned his name, my body betraying me before words could.
“Fuck, I missed this.” His voice was a low growl behind me, filled with grit and hunger. “I missed how you sound… how you beg.”
“I don’t beg,” I hissed, defiant even as my knees buckled.
“You will.”
Bryce slammed into me like he was reclaiming every moan, every memory, and every inch.
Before I could catch my breath, Bryce spun me around like I was weightless, pressing my bare back against the cold glass. I gasped, body trembling at the contact, the night air chilling my skin through the wide pane.
“Bryce—” I shivered. “It’s cold.”
His eyes locked onto mine. A cocky smirk crept across his lips as he leaned in, his voice brushing my ear.
“Then let me warm you up.”
Bryce gripped the underside of my thighs and lifted me, hooking my legs over his forearms. My body arched against the window, nipples pebbling from the chill and the intensity in his stare.
His dick found me again—no warning, no hesitation.
He drove into me… hard. My thighs shook around him, and my back hit the glass with every stroke.
The cold bit into my spine, but his heat, his pressure, and his thickness swallowed every thought. I cried out, but he didn’t let up.
“Throw it back, Chess.”
I tried, but the position had me locked in and at his mercy.
Bryce leaned in close, voice wicked. “Or you want me to go see what Isis talking about and let her get what you ain’t acting like you want.”
My head snapped up so fast, I nearly headbutted him. “Say that shit again,” I warned.
“Oh, now you alive,” he smirked, low and dangerous. “Show me then.”