25. Blair #2
His hand slid down my side, over the curve of my hip, between my thighs. I parted for him without thinking, my body responding to his touch the way it always had, the way it always would. He found the center of me and stroked, gentle and knowing.
“God, I’ve missed this.” His voice was rough. “I’ve missed you.”
“I’m here.”
“You’re here.”
He built the tension slowly, deliberately. No rush, no urgency. Just his hand moving with practiced skill, drawing sounds from me that I couldn’t control, couldn’t suppress. I clutched at his shoulders, at the sheets, at anything solid enough to anchor me.
“Please,” I whispered.
“Please what?”
“I need to feel you. Inside me.”
We shifted together on the bed, finding a position that worked with my belly between us. Side by side, facing each other, his hand cradling my hip to support me. He entered me slowly, so slowly, watching my face for any sign of discomfort.
There was no discomfort. Only fullness. Only connection. Only the feeling of finally, finally being complete.
“Okay?” he asked.
“Perfect.”
We moved together, slow and unhurried, building a rhythm that had nothing to do with urgency and everything to do with presence. His forehead pressed against mine. His breath mingled with my breath. Every movement was a promise, every touch a declaration of everything we’d survived to get here.
“Nothing in the world feels the way this feels,” he said. “Nothing ever has.”
“I know. I missed it too.”
“Every night at Seacliff, alone in this bed, I thought about you. About what it felt like to hold you. To be inside you. To fall asleep with you in my arms.”
“I thought about you too. At Nan’s. In that narrow little bed.”
“Did you?”
“Every night.” I cupped his face, made him look at me. “I never stopped wanting you. Even when I was furious. Even when I hated you. I never stopped wanting this.”
And then the tenderness wasn’t enough. I needed more of him, needed it harder, needed to feel claimed after months of being careful with each other.
“Stop being so gentle,” I said against his mouth. “I’m not going to break. Fuck me like you mean it.”
A tether snapped behind his eyes. The careful control cracked clean through, and underneath it was the man who’d been holding himself back for weeks out of fear he’d hurt me.
His hand tightened on my hip, and he pulled me onto him and drove in deep, and I moaned loud enough that I had to bury my face in his neck.
“Like that?” His voice had gone rough and filthy. “That what you needed?”
“Yes. God, yes. Don’t stop.”
He didn’t stop. He fucked me slow and deep and merciless, angling every stroke to grind against the spot that made me shake, his hand gripping my thigh to hold me open for him.
The bed frame knocked the wall. I clawed at his back and swore into his skin and heard him swear right back, low and wrecked, “that’s it, take me, you feel so fucking good, missed this, missed you. ”
“Touch me,” I begged. “I’m so close.”
His hand slid between us, found my clit, circled it in tight fast strokes while he kept driving into me, and the tension coiled unbearably tight. He kept his forehead against mine, watching me come apart, greedy for it.
“Come for me,” he growled. “Soak me. I want to feel every second of it.”
I shattered. My whole body locked around him, a cry breaking out of me, the pleasure rolling through in waves that seemed to go on forever.
He gritted out my name and lost his rhythm, fucking me through it, and then he shoved as deep as he could go and held there, pulsing, spilling hot inside me, shaking apart against me as he came.
Neither of us moved for a long while.
We lay there tangled together, breathing hard, his body still joined with mine. His forehead rested against mine, and when he spoke, his voice was rough with emotion.
“There you are.”
“I never left.”
“I know. I just couldn’t see you. I was too scared to look.”
We drifted like that, neither of us willing to break the connection, the intimacy, the closeness we’d fought so hard to reclaim. Eventually he slipped free, but he didn’t move away. Just held me closer, his hand coming to rest on my belly.
The baby kicked against his palm.
“She’s awake,” he said.
“She’s always awake when I’m trying to sleep.”
“Already difficult. She’s definitely ours.”
I laughed, and the movement made her kick again. Will’s face was soft in the darkness, wonder and love and a peace I’d never seen on him before.
“Will.”
“Yeah?”
“I forgive you.”
He went still.
“Completely,” I continued. “No more earning. No more proving. I forgive you. I think I forgave you a while ago, but I was scared to say it. Scared that if I let go of the anger, I’d be vulnerable again. That you’d hurt me again.”
“I won’t.”
“I know you won’t. I believe that now. I believe you.” I touched his face, traced the lines around his eyes, the evidence of everything we’d been through. “So I forgive you. It’s done. It’s over. We’re starting fresh.”
He was quiet for so long I thought he might have fallen asleep. Then, very softly:
“I’m going to keep earning anyway. For the rest of my life.”
“I know you are.”
“Every day. Even when it’s hard. Even when I get it wrong. I’m going to keep trying to be worthy of you.”
“You already are.”
“I’m not. But I’m going to be.”
I fell asleep with his hand on our daughter and his heart beating against my back, and for the first time in months, I slept without dreams.
At two in the morning, I woke to the familiar sensation of the baby doing gymnastics. I lay there in the darkness, feeling her move, feeling Will’s arm heavy around me, feeling the particular peace of being exactly where I was supposed to be.
“Will?” I whispered.
“Mmm?”
“I think my water just broke.”
He shot upright so fast he almost fell off the bed. “WHAT?”
“Kidding.” I couldn’t help it. I laughed at his face, at his wild eyes and disheveled hair and the absolute terror in his expression. “Kidding. But your face. Will, your face.”
“Blair.”
“Eleven more weeks. I promise.”
“You’re going to give me a heart attack.”
“Probably.” I pulled him back down beside me. “It’s one of my finest qualities.”
He groaned and collapsed onto the pillows, pulling me against him.
“You’re a menace.”
“You love me.”
“God help me, I do.”
I laughed and settled into his arms, and everything was exactly where it was supposed to be.