Confessions and Other Intimacy #3
We only had four days of marriage with our own space in the suite at the hotel, but it was enough to imprint this on both of us.
"Yeah, baby girl." His voice comes rough. Honest. "I really fuckin' did."
"Me too." I hug him tightly to me. "I don't know how something could become so necessary so fast, but yeah. I missed this."
I do know, though, don't I? The moment each of my girls were born, they became as necessary to me as breathing.
Kieran found his way into my heart just as irrevocably and darn near as fast.
"Been two weeks." His voice sounds rough, stretched tight. "Two fucking weeks of waking up beside you and not being able to touch you the way I need to."
Need. Not want. Need.
"Every night I lie there listening to you breathe and think about dragging you into the shower so I can hear you scream my name."
Oh lord. "But even the shower isn't loud enough to drown out my screams."
Not with mom only ten feet away, even if she is across the hall. Not with the girls in their beds on the other side of the wall.
"Exactly." The savage frustration in his voice makes my tummy flutter.
He pulls out about halfway before sliding back in slow inch by slow inch.
Then he buries his face in my neck and inhales hard. "You smell like home now."
The words make my eyes sting.
"I am your home." And he's mine.
He might not be ready to hear that, but it's the truth.
What follows isn't just sex, no matter what his heart feels. It's making love.
Passionate, profound and beautiful.
Afterward, we lay together in the quiet.
No cartoons playing in the next room. No Joy bouncing on the couch like she swallowed a battery. No kettle whistling while mom bustles around the kitchen. No high pitched voices reminding us we're not alone.
Just silence.
And Kieran stretched out beside me on top of the tangled sheets while I try to remember how breathing works.
Again.
I trace his tattooed chest and battle scarred skin with my fingertip. "How does it keep getting better?"
It's a real question, but logic tells me there's no real answer.
"I don't know." There's a bewildered tinge to his deep voice that makes me smile.
"That makes two of us."
I touch the bandage on his upper arm lightly. The surgical tape has held well and the square of gauze is pristine, despite whatever he was up to last night. "Thank you for keeping it on."
"You told me to." He looks at me and winks. "In your mom voice."
"I did. If there's a first aid kit here, I'll change it before we leave."
"Later." Which confirms there is a kit, but that Kieran has no interest in using it right now.
"Later works."
We keep touching, his hand brushing up and down my back, my fingers exploring his chest and abs.
But it's not sexual. It's connection.
"If I didn't have an IUD," I say softly, staring at the gauzy curtain covered windows. "I would probably be pregnant already."
There's a wistful note in my voice I don't entirely understand myself.
Kieran goes very still beside me.
"Do you want more babies?"
I shift so I'm laying across his chest, looking into his face. "I shouldn't," I admit guiltily. "I mean...I didn't want more babies with Troy."
His grip tightens on my hip.
And I know it's because he doesn't like hearing about me being married to Troy, not because Kieran is judging me about not wanting more babies.
"Not because I didn't love the girls," I explain anyway. "Or hated being a mom or anything."
"I know. You're a great mom."
Warmed, I smile. "Thanks." Then my smile fades away. "I was so young when I got married. I had dreams, you know? But I was eighteen, married and pregnant."
"That didn't mean you had to leave your dreams behind."
"I didn't, but that's not the way Troy saw it.
He thought that being his wife and the mother of his children should be my dream.
Mom watched the girls so I could get my degree, but Troy didn't think I should work until the girls were older.
" I swallow. "Then Neeve was almost old enough for kindergarten and I got pregnant with Joy. "
"On purpose?" Kieran asks with a puzzled frown, then tension seeps into his big body. "Did that bastard pressure you?"
I shake my head. "No and no. The patch failed." My gaze slides down to fix on his neck because admitting this still makes guilt curl ugly inside me. "I cried when I found out."
Kieran's hand slides slowly up my back, kneading my tensing muscles, comforting me. "You're a great mom and you love all your girls. That doesn't mean having three kids so young wasn't hard."
Emotion lodges thick in my throat as I raise my gaze to his again. That's not something Troy was ever willing to acknowledge.
"But by the time Joy was born, I was already in my mid-twenties." Old enough to handle becoming a mom again with more serenity, right?
"Sure, but that doesn’t change what her birth meant to you."
"No." I huff out a soft laugh. "I had plans. Troy never really understood that. He was older and ready for kids. He loved the girls, but his work always came first and..." I shrug helplessly. "I think it would've been different if he'd been around more."
If I hadn't felt like a single parent so much of the time. Something, I never let myself admit before.
Kieran's body grows more rigid with every mention of Troy.
Not jealous exactly. Something darker and more territorial. Maybe that is jealousy, but it feels like more, like something deeper where our souls are connected.
"No matter what you felt when you figured out you were pregnant with Joy, you've never shown any resentment toward any of the girls."
"How can you know that?" I ask.
I like to think he's right, but how can he know to say it with such certainty?
"Because your heart shines with more brilliance than that rock I put on your hand."
I huff out a laugh. "I doubt that."
I don't see how it could. The diamond on my ring finger is probably visible in satellite photos from space.
He rubs my back, cups my backside, trails his fingers down the back of my thighs…like I'm just so irresistible he can't stop touching me. But he doesn't say anything else.
I study his face, trying to discern what he's thinking. There's no expression on his blank features, but his eyes burn with something.
Disappointment? Guilt? Am I projecting?
Yeah, maybe, my inner voice of logic says.
I make myself say, "You don't want kids with me." I keep it casual, keep my feelings out of my tone.
Kieran's brows draw together into a scowl. "Who the fuck said that?"
I blink.
His jaw clenches. "I have three daughters already. If you don't want more children, that's your call. Last thing I'd ever do is pressure you into having babies if that's not what you want. But if you want them, so do I."
Relief way out of proportion to how I should be feeling crashes through me.
His gaze flicks to the side. "I don't like thinking about you having the girls with another man."
"You can't erase Troy completely," I say softly. "That's not fair to them."
"I know." His voice stays low and certain. "But I'll be the dad they know the rest of their lives."
My throat tightens. "The dad they deserve." I open my mouth to say something to lighten the mood, but instead truth pours out. "I want more babies with you."
"Then I guess we better get practicing making them." He flips me on my back and starts making love to me all over again.
This time, there's no holding back.
By the time we need to go pick up the girls, we've made a good dent in all the snacks Kieran put out for us, drunk several bottles of water and my pussy and inner thighs feel like I spent two hours on the thigh machine at the gym I never go to.