47. Avery #3
The shower ends. Declan leaves the bathroom in clean jeans, lemon soap in his wet hair, and his shirt hanging from one hand.
He walks into the hall, sits on the floor beyond the bedroom, and faces the opposite wall while I use the bathroom and dress in a robe.
He does not ask whether I am all right. He waits long enough for the want to return without his body in front of me.
I open the door wider. “Come in. Sit on the edge of the bed.”
Declan enters and takes the place I name. “The door.”
“Closed but unlocked.” I turn the lock myself, then sit beside him with enough distance to see whether my body objects to the lemon scent. It does not. “I want to continue. We are starting over from this point, not pretending the stop never happened.”
“Tell me what you want now.”
I take his hand and place it over the robe at my waist. “Kiss me. Keep your hands where I put them. I will tell you if I want more.”
We start again slowly. I open the robe because I want his mouth on my skin.
I guide him between my legs because months of denying how badly I missed him have left me with no interest in pretending modesty now.
Declan makes me come with his mouth while one hand remains where I placed it against my hip, and when the pleasure becomes too much, I pull his hair and say his name knowing every terrible fact attached to it.
He waits afterward with his forehead against my thigh until I touch his shoulder.
I want him inside me, though pregnancy has made the position we used to favor impossible and my pride does not appreciate the number of pillows required.
We argue once over which one belongs behind my back, and the normal irritation loosens something fear left tight.
I put the condom in Declan’s hand myself.
The old violation ran past disease risk into every night he returned to me and let me consent without the truth.
Tonight I know whom he has touched, what the tests showed, and what memory may interrupt us.
Nothing about my yes is borrowed from ignorance.
“Now,” I tell him, guiding him with one hand while the other grips his shoulder.
Declan enters me with his gaze on my face and stops when I tense, waiting until I pull him closer.
The first movement hurts from how much I remember.
The second turns memory into pleasure. I control the pace, tell him when to move harder and when to hold himself against me, and when I come again, I bite his shoulder to keep from shouting loud enough to become a matter of record.
Declan follows only after I tell him he may.
His face presses into the pillow beside mine, and his hand stays spread over the place above my hip rather than reaching for the baby or anywhere I didn’t choose.
We lie together until my leg cramps, which ends any chance of pretending sex has made us graceful.
I swear while Declan waits for permission to help, then direct his hand to my calf and complain that reconciliation should include better circulation.
“I can put that in my terms,” he says, working the knot beneath my skin. The hint of humor does not ask me to forget what happened before it. “Section seven. Mandatory calf repair.”
“Put it beneath the part where you replace the jasmine shampoo.” I reach past him for the jar of his mother’s balm on my nightstand and put it into his hand, because the split at the base of my thumb has been open all week and I want his fingers doing this instead of mine.
He works the cream into every crack, then rests the lid on the jar and leaves it loose enough for my hand to manage in the morning.
I pull the quilt higher and watch the humor leave his face while the warmth stays in the room.
“Tonight was not proof the marriage came back.”
“It didn’t.” Declan releases my leg when I tap his wrist. “It was sex you chose. The next time requires another choice.”
“Good.” I reach for the birth-plan packet on my nightstand, where it has waited since Dr. Evans mentioned it at the appointment. “Then we make a different choice now.”
Declan sits against the headboard when I point to the space beside me.
We work through the pages with his phone reading the smaller print and my pen making the final marks.
I choose who receives medical information, what the hospital may tell the club, which decisions remain mine if labor becomes frightening, and which choices Declan has to bring to me first. He writes the bag list in his notebook and leaves the authority on my side of the page.
At the line asking who I want in the delivery room, I print his name myself. “I want you there. Not in the waiting room. With me.”
Declan looks at the name rather than at my body beneath the quilt. “If you change your mind at the hospital, I leave the room.”
“If I change my mind, I will tell you.” I put the page on the nightstand and take his hand because I want it, not because sex or the baby requires comfort afterward. “Tonight I want you to stay here.”
The jasmine bottle sits beneath the guest-room sink, and in the morning I will watch him carry it to the bin. Tonight I reach past him and turn off the lamp.