Chapter 26 Abbie #3
He makes a broken sound and surges up to kiss me, still thrusting, still chanting love against my mouth between kisses.
I grind down hard. His hand works between us, fingers riding my clit, awkward angle around the belly, perfect pressure, and the dual sensation lights me up so fast I barely have time to warn him.
"I'm, Gray, I'm—"
"Come for me," he begs. "Come on me while I tell you. I love you. I love you—"
I shatter around him with a cry that the storm kindly swallows. He follows almost immediately, burying himself deep, coming with my name and I love you tangled into one wrecked syllable against my throat.
When I can think again I find his mouth and kiss him slow, tasting salt and beeswax smoke and the particular flavor of a promise kept in bed instead of on paper.
"You broke mid-thrust," I murmur against his lips.
"I've been breaking for years." His laugh is wrecked. "Tonight I finally broke in the right direction."
"Say it again."
"I love you."
"One more time."
"I love you, Abigail Montgomery-Valentine." Full name. Serious. "I love the woman who tore up a separation agreement in my kitchen. I love the woman carrying my daughter. I love the woman who told me to stay and meant the whole night, not the orgasm."
I have to hide my face in his neck for a second because that one lands too clean.
We stay close while the aftershocks fade. Candles hiss. Rain eases by degrees. His thumb strokes my waist.
I ease off him carefully. He reaches for tissues, for water, for the softest blanket on the chair, small tending gestures that used to be rare and are suddenly instinct. When he pulls me back against his chest I go willingly, sticky and satisfied and more myself than I've been in months.
"The agreement is torn," I murmur.
"The agreement is ash as far as I'm concerned." His fingers sift my hair. "You chose. I chose. The paper can rot."
"I love you," I say again, just to feel it land in the quiet.
"I love you." He kisses my hair. "Say it as many times as you want. I'll never get tired of catching it."
Outside, thunder rolls farther off. Inside, candlelight paints us gold. His heartbeat steadies under my ear while the storm remembers how to be gentle. For tonight, being here together is enough.
I close my eyes. His hand stays on my belly. For once, neither of us is counting the hours until he has to leave.
Before sleep fully takes us he gets a warm washcloth from the en suite, navigating by phone flashlight, and cleans me up with the same focus he used to save for contracts.
I let him. I watch candlelight move over the tattoos on his wrists while he tends to me, and the knot in my chest that has been clenched since we separated finally unhooks.
"You're staring," he says without looking up.
"I’m mapping." I echo his earlier word. "The way you look when you're choosing me on purpose."
"Get used to the view." He tosses the cloth toward the hamper, misses, ignores it.
Climbs back into bed. Pulls me into the curve of his body with my back to his chest and his palm reclaiming my belly.
"I'm not going anywhere tonight. Not for storms or transformers or Theo. Not for anything that used to win."
"Laminated?" I tease, soft.
"Give it a week." His smile presses into my hair. "I’ll make you a copy."
Then, just as I'm drifting, the baby kicks, a real kick this time, not a flutter, and I gasp, my hand flying to my belly.
"What is it? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. She just... give me your hand."
He does, instantly, and I press his palm against the curve where our daughter is making her presence known.
For a moment, nothing. Then another kick, stronger, right under his fingers.
Gray's face transforms. His eyes go wide, his mouth opens, and then he makes a sound I've never heard from him before, half laugh, half sob, entirely overwhelmed.
"Is that—"
"That's her. That's our daughter."
"She's really... I can feel her. She's really in there."
"Where did you think she was?"
"I knew, I just—" He kneels beside me on the bed, both hands on my belly now, forehead pressed against my stomach. "Hi," he says, voice wrecked. "Hi, baby. I'm your dad. You can kick me again. I'm not going anywhere."
"Gray."
"Just... give me a minute." His shoulders are shaking. "I need a minute."
I thread my fingers through his hair and let the tears fall. Then he reaches into his nightstand.
"I've kept this since the night you left," he says quietly. "Waiting for the right moment. But I don't think there's going to be a right moment. I think there's just going to be moments where I have a choice, and I want to make the choice that means I stay."
He opens his palm. My wedding ring catches the candlelight, throwing tiny prisms across his skin.
"I'm not asking you to put it on," he says. "I'm just... I want you to have it back. When you say the word. Not before."
I look at the ring. At him. At the candle beside the bed. And I close my hand over his, over the ring, but I don't take it.
"Soon," I say. "That's what I can give you right now. Soon."
"Soon is enough." He presses his forehead to mine. "Soon is more than enough."